On the topic of comfort food, chef Javier Uriarte says his small plate, tapas style menu with an authentic Peruvian twist is just that. Comfort is not a portion or a style, he says. It’s a feeling. The chef-owner of Ratio carved out a space for his first restaurant in Northeast Columbia—amid the global pandemic—and what has resulted is a dining experience that represents who he is and where he’s from.
“I come from a country, Peru, that is very high on the culinary scene in the world. I am proud of who I am and where I’m from, and I actually should be focusing on doing that and promoting that,” he says. “I think we need a little more diversity in Columbia in terms of food, so when I opened Ratio I thought if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it all-out. We are going to do it exactly the way that I want it to be. Nothing else.”
Uriarte veered away from traditional Southern food and big plates and decided to focus on bold flavors in smaller doses. At Ratio, you’ll find dishes like chorizo empanadas, pollo a la brasa made with Peruvian grilled chicken, seafood paella, and pork spare ribs—a nod to the South. “I made it a tapas place because I think it’s the right portion—that’s where the name Ratio came from, the right ratio of food on a plate—but also the right ratio of ingredients in there,” he says. “Also, it makes it so that everybody who comes in here has to have at least two plates, so therefore you are kind of pushed to be more open to try different things and learn and have fun with it.”
“We’re doing comfort food, it’s just not Southern comfort food. It’s Peruvian comfort food,” Uriarte says. To him, comfort food is defined by the emotions it evokes. For him, that means dishes that take him back to being a little boy in Peru, eating the foods he loves. “When I was thinking about the food for Ratio, I knew that I wanted to do Peruvian food. It’s that comfort food for me because when I was little, I ate Peruvian food,” he says. “If I can just put that emotion into my food and they can feel that when they’re eating that strange Peruvian food, they will appreciate that. They will be like I can taste the love, I can taste the commitment, I can taste the intention, I can taste that they do care about what they are doing.”
