REVIEW
CHAKANA BIRMINGHAM By Simon Carlo
The squid dish could be from one of these drug-addled visions of Amaringo; a white base with softly cooked strands of squid bobbing on the surface. Flecks of green and blobs of jet black and gold set within lipstick pink. It is food almost too pretty to eat. Almost. That’s a lie; it demands to be eaten. Dive in deep and it rewards you with savoury notes spiked with acidity, where garlic presents as gentle heat rather than a fierce pungency. 14
There is the subtle tang of chive and a brightness from plenty of lime, whilst at the base sits a creamed starch; fudgy and substantial. It is glorious. Prior to this is bread naturally dyed from a Peruvian grain to a purple the shade of Barney the Dinosaur, best used to dredge the bottom of a bumblebee yellow corn ceviche simultaneously sour and sweet. There are cork-sized rolls of mashed potato the colour of amaranth dressed in white crab meat and slithers of pickled onions the quiet pink of a baby-grow, best washed down with Pisco Sours, impeccably made and vivacious. We try three different types of quinoa; green, orange, and purple – as if this were Mardi Gras and not a former bank in Moseley – brunch like, with something akin to guacamole underneath it all. Everything has a freshness to it. It is food to enliven the soul. Cibare Magazine
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PICTURE CREDITS: Simon Carlo
There is no restaurant in Birmingham which does colour like Chakana. Robert Otiz’s Peruvian food is a visual kaleidoscope of brightly lit shades, as if food drawn from the mind of a child imagining their perfect dinner. Each dish uses a Mark Rothko palate with Jackson Pollock flourishes or, more likely, draws from the dreamscape painting of Pablo Amaringo whose art was the result of drinking hallucinogenic plant brews.
