Peruvian fine fusion cuisine, flamboyant decor and stunning bar infused piscos.
That’s perhaps how I would describe COYA. Oh and there’s also a private members club but with a slightly different setting.
We’re kindly shown the private members club by the manager, with its live music and quieter, more secluded seating spaces I see its popularity especially in such affluent area as Mayfair.
We however, first settle at the bar to observe the ambience there. I spot a whole list of piscos, COYA infuses them in the pisco library. The large bottle shaped jars sit high under the ceiling.
For anyone who doesn’t know, myself included, pisco is made from grapes in wine regions of Peru and Chile. So pisco sours or macerados as they call them here, are COYA’s signature drink, I of course have to try it.
I go for strawberry sour. It has a fluffy froth on top with subtle strawberry flavour. It’s very smooth and the egg white taste is almost absent. For years I avoided pisco sours because of its strong eggy taste, turns out I was having the wrong kind.
It’s time for our reservation so we proceed to our table. The dining area has similar green, golden and dimmed dark decor. It’s certainly impressively decadent; if you take a date or a client here they’ll be pleased.
It’s a sharing concept, with three kitchens each with a specialty – grill, raw and pastry.
We start with the classic guacamole with corn tortillas. It’s also a bit of a theatrical concept. Instead of serving guacamole already mixed, we are presented with half of the avocado and spices.
Our waiter skillfully mixes it all in front of us to ensure freshness. The avocado is exceptionally ripe so it turns into guacamole in seconds.
Its bright green colour is striking against the black Inca three legged stone mortar. It’s an underrated dish, if prepared properly with freshly made nixtimaozed corn torilas it’s truly something special.
The chefs prepare a wide range of dishes for us from all the three kitchens, it’s not enough space to describe them all although they all deserve to. Needless to say I would definitely come back to try more from the menu.
I’m picking the very top of the evening -wagyu bao buns although a petit dish and pricey at £24 for two.
If you like wagyu and baos it’s highly recommended. The tiny carb clouds are stuffed with melt in a mouth wagyu. It’s delicately grilled releasing the wagyu flavour.
Stone bass ceviche was highly liked by us. Normally I find ceviches are too sour and pickled with the lime juice. This was balanced with quality stone bass chunks and roasted white corn kernels for an added crunch.
It’s certainly interesting to sample the less common authentic ingredients including the purple corn in tortilla chips, green chilli pepper in yellowtail tiradito and aji amarillo (locoto – yellow pepper variety) to name a few.
From the grill kitchen we enjoy a ribeye. Perfectly medium rare with one of the tastiest chimichurri sauces I tried in a long time. Another signature dish was Arroz Nikkei, chilean seabass, lime, rice and aji amarillo. The perfect thick flake consistency of seabass almost made me think it was cod.
Like guacamole, seabass is also mixed in front of us. The rice comes in a creamy with sweet notes of butter and yellow tone from the aji pepper. That was our perhaps mutually top favoured dish of the night.
For a dessert we share the classic churros paired with an equally authentic caramel like dulce de leche – one of my favourite sweet sauces.
And a light coconut mousse with coconut meringue shards and tropical passione fruit and mango sorbet. It’s light, zesty and refreshingly cold, this would be a definite hit in hotter months.
We pair it with one more drink old fashioned and raspberry infused pisco for me.
If you want to impress your date or a client, I have some friends in finance who take their clients here, visit COYA. It won’t be a cheap meal but its ambience, high quality service and most importantly flavors will be well worth it.
COYA, 118 Piccadilly, London W1J 7NW