Inca & Gaucho, Peruvian restaurant, White Plains, NY

Regional Dining Discussions New York, Connecticut
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I recently went a few times to this relatively new Peruvian restaurant in White Plains at 6 Quarropas St, near Mamaroneck Ave. (They also have a branch in Port Chester which I haven’t been to.)

I have really enjoyed the food. They have lunch specials Mon-Fri from 11:30am-4:00pm for $8.75+tax, that includes a soft drink or chicha morada, a choice an app or soup, and several main dishes. The specials change every day and they list them daily on Facebook.

I have had their ceviche pescado (fish ceviche) which was excellent, made with top quality fish. Just the right levels of acid, spice, etc. (I ordered very spicy and thought it was medium spicy, but really good. I didn’t need it any hotter.)

Their soups have been excellent. I have had their Chupe de Mariscos- seafood soup with milk and eggs which had an egg poached in the tasty seafood broth, with carrots, potato, rice, calamari, shrimp, mussels in the shell, and whole tiny octopus. I also had their Chupe de Pescado which was similar but instead of the seafood there were thin slices of crisp, battered fried fish laid on top. When they soaked up the tasty broth they became delicious flavor bombs.

Pallares con Lomito which was a very smoky, tasty, stir fry of beef steak, onions, and tomatoes, with rice and beans. the rice is nicely prepared white rice, but the beans were those super soft, huge, white beans, in a creamy white sauce. One of the creamiest, delicate bean preparations I have had. I really liked this.

Tallarin Verde con Bistec Frito- a thin fried steak, with a great smoky taste, plus spaghetti in a creamy, mild, pesto sauce.

They really have their frying skills down pat. Lots of wok hei going on.

There battered frying is great too. I had their fried calamari which was light and crisp, tender inside. Dipped in Aji Verde, the Peruvian hot sauce made with green peppers, mayo, ricotta, oil, cilantro, etc. A very creamy rendition with a mild to medium jalapeno spiciness.

I look forward to trying their Jalea which is a mixed seafood and fish fry, and working my way through the menu, although I may just end up doing lunch there 1-2 times a week.

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Nice report, JMF. Actually, their menu offers a variety of cuisines besides Peruvian. I believe their place in Port Chester recently moved to a new location off Westchester Ave…

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No, that’s what Peruvian cuisine is. It is literally the most diverse in the world. It is made up of Incan/Amerind, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese, Japanese, African, and more. (Smaller effect from Austria, England, France, Croatia, Lebanon, Syria, Korea, assorted South Asians, India and Pakistan.) The country is a huge melting pot cuisine wise.

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You are right, JMF. The restaurant also offers specialties from Argentina and Brazil.

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We had been regulars at the Port Chester location of Inca Y Gaucho for years
Unfortunately haven’t been in a while … I am grateful for your current review of the new and closer, to me, location. Are they heavy handed with the salt? The beef dishes in Port Chester were consistently over salted but not enough so to keep us away from them … I agree with your assessment of the ceviche and the other items you mentioned. I almost always ordered from the list of specials. I do not remember the name of the purple drink, but we liked that too, well I did with the addition of seltzer to avoid a sugar coma

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Purple drink is chicha morada

easy on the salt. I don’t like too much salt and it was fine.

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What dishes? I saw a few that had Argentinean sausage, but it was a typical Peruvian style dish.

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Thank you

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We also were longtime regulars at the original PC branch. The restaurant has been through a few owners by now. We haven’t been to that one in some time but are now regulars in WP. (Usually dinner.). The original owners were from Peru and Uruguay (almost Argentina.). The Uruguayan/Argentine side of the menu is toward the end, all the grilled items. For a variety of reasons, both personal and work related, we have been fairly frequent visitors to Argentina through the years ( and my husband, more recently, to Uruguay,) so we have often been drawn to that end of the menu – grilled sweetbreads are a whole different experience than most other preparations of that item – but a combination of items from all parts of the menu can be fun. We’ve never had the gumption to try the jalea, an enormous pile of fried seafood. The staff are very friendly, and I find the WP room more comfortable than the one in PC.

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@JMF Thanks for this great review and the mini lesson on Peruvian cuisine! We used to have a Peruvian place in Ossining but it has since closed so we will have to go down county to check this out. I remember being surprised to learn how diverse the cuisine is. I particularly remember some dishes being very similar to dishes I’d had at Chinese restaurants.

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Mike Colemaco did a few episodes in Peru They were very interesting.

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Was it El Tambo that closed?

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Chef/restaurateur Jose Andres has a restaurant in D.C. called China Chilcano that plays with this Peruvian ethnic culinary mix…

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Hmm I can’t remember the name. It was in a really hard-to-see location.