QUEENS — A new takeout restaurant slated to open on Austin Street next week plans to bring authentic Peruvian cuisine and its healthy dishes to the busy commercial strip, the owner said.
Ayahuasca Express Peruvian Cuisine, at 68-60 Austin St., is the brainchild of Adriana Morote, 30, a chef from Lima, who has lived in Forest Hills for the past 10 years.
Morote said her main goal is to cook healthy, as reflected by the name of the restaurant, which refers to a brew used as a spiritual medicine during rituals in certain portions of Amazonia, she said.
“Food heals the body and it can keep you healthy,” said Morote, who after arriving in the U.S. a decade ago worked as a waitress at the now closed Piu Bella, before opening Biu Bella, an Italian café, with her sister, in 2011.
Reports that the building housing Biu Bella will soon be demolished prompted her to open the new eatery, she noted.
Morote said that she wants people in the neighborhood to "eat natural and healthy food like the Incas and Peruvian people."
The menu, she said, will consist of dishes containing lots of grains like quinoa, as well as beans and lentils. Everything at the eatery, which will also feature salad and juice bars, will be made from scratch, she added.
Her passion for healthy food, she said, started when her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer several years ago.
"We won't use any processed food," she said.
The restaurant will offer a number of Peruvian classics, like ceviche de pescado (marinated fish cooked with lime juice with Peruvian spicy peppers and onions), Peruvian-style rotisserie chicken as well as chicharrones (seasoned pork over sweet potato fries or Yuca and onion mint salad).
Chupe de camarones, a rich seafood soup with vegetables and rice, which the menu says is a hangover cure, will also be among the dishes offered at Ayahuasca, Morote said.
“Cooking is my passion, but it's also art," she added.
Ayahuasca will join several other Peruvian restaurants in the neighborhood, including La Coya at 98-35 Metropolitan Ave. and El Pollo Inka Peru on 112-20 Queens Blvd.