La Bodega de la Trattoria

We've been to the La Trattoria di Mambrino many times in the past and have enjoyed every visit. This review covers our first visit to the Bodega which is located near Huaca Pucllana. It was a weekday night around 6pm.

There is an outdoor patio which has a nice view of the huaca and a grassy park area. It's a quiet area and feels a bit like a European cafe. They have magazines to look at while you wait and there is a cafe display for desserts and pastries. There was a dimly lit back dinning room that was very elegant looking, but we decided to enjoy the nice day on the patio.

We started out with a piadina completo which comes topped with 2 sections; sun dried tomato and Ugo's pesto. Each piece had a nice piece of tasty piquillo pepper. It was an amazing appetizer and we would have gladly ordered seconds.

For the main course, I had a tiradito of lenguado and my wife had a tartar of salmon and tuna. The tiradito was pretty much perfection in the mix of the spices and flavors. I personally like it a little spicier though. The meat was thinly sliced, carpaccio style, perfectly Italian but not very filling. The tartar had a touch of spice to it. Both the salmon and the tuna were fantastic and had strong flavors. My wife was very happy with it (the only better tartar that we've had was of scallops at the Observatory in the Miraflores Park Hotel).

For dessert, we had a vanilla cheesecake with a raspberry sauce. I'm a very big critic of cheesecake as I've tried them all over Peru and have almost always been disappointed. Many of them don't even use cream cheese. The bodega was an exception. The cheesecake was perfect and extremely satisfying. There was a good flavor of cream cheese that I really enjoyed.

The bathrooms were well stocked and clean, but a little cramped. The prices were reasonable and certainly were exceeded by the extremely high quality of the food. The service was good overall, but the waiters were a bit busy (most of the tables were filled).

Quality: 10
Flavor: 10
Presentation: 10
Selection: 9
Value: 9
Environment: 10
Bathrooms: 8
Overall: 10