Cicero, N.Y. — With a backlit mural of the sun setting behind the Andes Mountains overlooking its intimate dining room and high-top counter where giant coffee beans mark the ceiling, Kurimanka is one of the most aesthetically pleasing restaurants you’ll find in Central New York.
With its menu of traditional Ecuadorian cuisine and fine dining touches, Kurimanka has the feel of an Armory Square hotspot, drawing attention with both its standout food and inviting atmosphere. It’d feel right at home in larger cities. Instead, Kurimanka occupies a narrow storefront that was once a vape shop in a small brick building between a beauty supply store and a vacant space with a condemnation notice posted on the door. The restaurant’s name isn’t yet on the plaza’s sign — the only way passing motorists along busy Brewerton Road would know it’s there is to slow down enough to read the single sign posted above the front door.
Yet, against all odds, here is Kurimanka, a beautiful restaurant serving gorgeous food that’s as good as any you’ll find in the region.
Dinner began with an amuse-bouche of fried pork chicharrones, a gift from the kitchen that whet our appetites and upon reflection, perfectly set the stage for what was to come. The bites of melt-in-your-mouth fatty pork were indulgent, with a richness that the small dollop of cilantro sauce on top could only begin to offset. Moreover, the bites, served upon squares of banana leaf floating like lily pads in a pool of red beans, reflect the restaurant’s style of presenting traditional dishes and familiar flavors with a fine dining touch.
Bolones de verde ($13), or fried green plantain fritters, are a common breakfast item in Ecuador. Here at Kurimanka, they’re stuffed with cheese or pork chicharron and served with a mix of pickled red onion, tomato and cilantro (the acidity of which balances the fritter’s heft), along with crispy cheese crackers and a creamy sauce. I opted for the chicharron filling, though the pork didn’t make its presence felt. To be fair, the fried chicharron I ate not long before the starters arrived set the bar high.
Did I have enough chicharrones? Apparently not, though the chicken chicharrones ($11), made with small, thin-cut filets of chicken breast, bore little resemblance to the fatty pork that started the meal. Served with fresh lime and a creamy dipping sauce, these little fried chicken bites were simple, though delightfully crispy and the meat was juicy.
Ecuador is known as the Country of Four Worlds, referring to the Pacific coast, the Galapagos Islands, the Amazon rainforest and the Andes Mountains. Those four worlds — mundos in Spanish — are found in the 4 Mundos platter ($42), offering four distinct dishes that are as varied as the geography of the regions they represent.
Guatita, a traditional Ecuadorian tripe and potato stew that represents the Andes Mountains in this quartet, is reimagined as a dish of tender, lightly blistered potatoes, crunchy fried tripe and a smooth peanut-based sauce that’s poured tableside over the rest of the ingredients. If you’re usually squeamish around tripe, these crunchy bits, which provide more texture than any real standalone flavor, would be a great introduction.
Shrimp ceviche, representing the Galapagos Islands, was similarly finished tableside with a pour of a citrus-and-tomato-based sauce that could’ve been lovely on its own as a chilled soup. Unlike other forms of ceviche, in which the seafood is raw and only “cooked” through the acid in the marinade, the shrimp in Ecuadorian ceviche are cooked before being marinated. Garnished with avocado, tomato and crispy plantain chips, the dish’s usual in-your-face acidity gave way to a milder version with a touch of sweetness…