When I first visited Coya, shortly after its opening close on a decade ago, I really did not like it. I thought it too bling, more style than substance. Bigger, bolder and brasher (think Sexy Fish, Amazonico) have come onto the London scene since. At the same time, Coya seems to have matured, with a much greater emphasis on honing both cooking and service. A recent visit served to demonstrate just how good the venue is.
While I might beg to differ with the website claim that Coya offers guests “an immersive experience” of Latin American culture, there is a certain novelty attached to visiting the venue. While Mexican restaurants such as KOL have begun to proliferate across London, South American cuisine in general and Peruvian in particular remains off many radars. Your reviewer first visited Peru over 20 years ago and had only fond memories. While the speciality of the Andean highlands (cuy, or guinea pig) is sadly not on offer at Coya, one of Peru’s other culinary highlights – ceviche, or raw fish cured in citrus – makes a strong showing. Peru has always had strong links with Japan (one of the country’s former Presidents had Japanese roots) and so cooking crossovers between the two nations (sashimi especially) also feature strongly.
The dining room at Coya was brighter than I remembered (it is in a basement, with a trendy bar at street level) but pays only token homage to South America. They’re a few statues and items of pottery that might hail from the region and a lot of faux greenery (per Amazonico). Diners can marvel at the open kitchen, where there’s a lot of flame grilling to observe. Charcoal grilling features as one of the many options available.
The good news from my perspective was that my lunching comrade was a Coya regular and so chose off the menu for both of us. To the uninitiated, the card could be bewildering, divided into eleven sections, ranging from appetisers through to iron pots with a lot in between. At least, the servers were generally enthusiastic, both knowledgeable about the product offering and happy to offer advice. From the dishes we selected, there were no evident fails, and some remarkable successes. Highlights were yellowfin tuna sashimi, an iron pot of miso Chilean seas bass served with rice, lime and chilli and the seabass ceviche. Even if it’s not 100% authentic Peruvian, the dishes were intelligently composed and beautifully presented. Of course, you’re in Mayfair, so you pay for what you get, but it’s certainly worth it.