In the beginning, there was El Pollon. As far as anyone we spoke to can remember, it was the first explicitly Peruvian restaurant in Oklahoma City, opening in 2007. To be accurate, though, the history of Peruvian food in the metro begins in Mexican restaurants, like Nino’s and Ricky’s Cafe. In some ways, the history of Tayta, the new Latin American concept at 25 N. Hudson Ave. downtown, begins at Nino’s. 

“I met Niel at Nino’s,” Madeline Zambrano says. Niel is Niel Zambrano, who, with Madeline, owns Tayta, and they were the founding owners of El Pollon, La Brasa and Inca Trail. “My uncle played guitar at Nino’s — it was Peruvian owned, just like Ricky’s.” 

Madeline came to the U.S. from Chiriqui, Panama, in 2004 to join her mother and uncle, the latter of whom was a music teacher who played gigs for extra money. Niel Zambrano worked at Nino’s a few years before opening El Pollon with then partners Juan Castro and Raul Ramos. Niel came to the U.S. from Chiclayo, Peru. 

“I wanted to be an architect in Peru, so I came to the U.S. to study at OCCC and OU, but I didn’t finish the program,” Niel says.

Instead, he fell in love with the food service industry, having worked at Spaghetti Warehouse and Cilantro’s while he was in college. Nino’s was the last gig before he and Madeline, with his sister Samara and friends, opened El Pollon, which is now the original Naylamp at SW 44th and Penn. 

“We opened El Pollon after making chicken in our house for three or four months,” Niel says. “The baby was only a month or two old at the time.” The kids are now 17, 16 and 10, and Madeline has moved from back of house to front of house, with Niel holding down the kitchen; and the menu has expanded beyond pollo a la brasa, papa a la huancaina and lomo saltado to include Cuban, Panamanian and Venezuelan dishes, like ropa vieja and hojaldres.

Just trotting the words out there introduces the first and biggest problem for a Peruvian restaurant in OKC: a lack of local familiarity with the names of dishes. People who spend any time seeking out new experiences of food can tell you that Peru has more species of potatoes than you can name, and it’s also the place of origin for ceviche — 2,000 miles of coastline makes that pretty easy to understand, and given that ceviche has extended all the way up the Pacific Coast of Mexico, familiarity with it, at least, isn’t a problem here. 

“We want to help people get more comfortable and familiar with Peruvian food,” Niel says. “We use American food to help.”

What he means is that you begin with the basics: pollo a la brasa is roasted chicken, lomo saltado is stir-fried beef, lechon is roasted pork, etc. The ingredients themselves are part of our Oklahoma pantry: pork, chicken, beef, potatoes, peppers, soy sauce, eggs and bread. The way they’re recombined and the sauces may make them look different and sound “foreign,” but we’re at a point where food television, celebrity chefs and social media have brought international foods into sharper focus and made them more accessible. 

To round out the formula, though, it’s important to note that we have access to these dishes in their traditional forms thanks to immigrant families who brought recipes from home with them — delicious anchors and reminders of the culture and people left behind. Just as Lebanese food has become part of Oklahoma’s culinary DNA by dint of being here since before statehood (same for Mexican food), Peruvian food has now been making inroads for more than two decades. At some point, immigrant food becomes “our” food, and the word our should include the people who brought the food with them. 

When James Beard Award finalist Chef Jeff Chanchaleune brought Lao food to the Plaza District at Ma Der Lao Kitchen, he knew there would be a learning curve. Nam khao doesn’t benefit from the similarities in ingredients that lomo saltado has going for it, so in a best-case scenario, Peruvian food should have an easier road to acceptance. That Tayta makes delicious food makes that even more likely.

Samara Zambrano kept the original El Pollon after the founders left and renamed it Naylamp in 2010, the same year Niel started Inca Trail. Naylam is the Moche name for the god of the ocean, a South American Poseidon or Neptune. She came to the U.S. in 2001 to, in her words, “look for opportunities to have a better life for my family.” Her grown son and daughter now work at Naylamp while she focuses on Zambrano’s in Edmond. Her parihuela at Zambrano’s is a candidate for best seafood soup in the metro, and the chicken salad in her causa a la limeña at Naylamp has similar standing in that category. 

When asked why she chose Edmond for another location, she had a surprising answer. “Churches in Edmond have missions to Peru, so there was already broad familiarity with the food.” Turns out culture spreads through various, unrelated tracks. This in no way insulates the Zambrano family from the occasional Okie who will sit down, ask for chips and salsa, and leave angry when a server politely explains they don’t offer that. (Bolero, a Spanish restaurant, had the same problem when it opened in Bricktown years ago.) 

Niel and Madeline have ventured into untested territory with Tayta. They brought a menu that is 75% Peruvian to downtown, and conventional wisdom holds that immigrant food does better closer to immigrant populations, not in central business districts or suburbs. But it’s possible Peruvian food has been around just long enough to make the jump. Dinner service started Jan. 17, and Tayta will have live music on weekends. Madeline can’t help but say with a smile, “Maybe some nights we push the tables back and dance, too.” 

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