Peruvian Family-Style Food Comes to Pacifica

San Francisco chef and native Jose Calvo-Perez’s newest restaurant called Puerto 27 Peruvian Kitchen & Pisco Bar will open for three meals a day by the end of this month, bringing more Peruvian food to the coast.

Puerto 27 will be located inside the Pacifica Beach Hotel and will open following safety inspections. The restaurant will seat 140 and will occupy a 3,700-square-foot space at 525 Crespi Drive in Pacifica. Calvo-Perez and his father Julio Calvo-Perez own restaurant Fresca, which has three locations in San Francisco. Jose opened his own restaurant, Pasión, in San Francisco’s Sunset District in 2010.

“We’re really excited to get it going,” Jose Calvo-Perez said. “It has a beautiful view on the beach. This is my first time serving breakfast at a restaurant, so that will be a fun challenge.”

Calvo-Perez has been in the restaurant business since his dad opened Fresca in 1996 and he attended California Culinary Academy’s culinary school, then traveled to Lima, Peru and various locations in Europe to continue practicing to cook.

“I’ve always had a passion for cooking,” Calvo-Perez said. “Cooking is an art. It’s about creating dishing and pushing ingredients together. Puerto 27 is about bringing food from my roots and modernizing it.”

Calvo-Perez said it’s important to him to make sure the food is authentic and places a heavy emphasis on the fact that it’s cultural cuisine. He adds that modernizing the dishes entails making authentic Peruvian food, but using some different preparations such as using pork belly instead of pork blood in their Andean pork stew.

So what does Calvo-Perez think differentiates Puerto 27 from La Costanera in nearby Montara Beach?

“We serve different styles of causas, which are basically like mash potatoes served with lime and salad,” he said. “We also serve breakfast and lunch, which they don’t.”

Puerto 27 gets its name since “puerto” means “port” in Spanish and the restaurant is near the water. The number 27 also has a big significance in their family, Patch previously reported. Twenty-seven is Julio's wedding anniversary, Jose’s own birthday and the birthday of one of Jose’s brothers who passed away as a teenager.

Calvo-Perez plans to cook at both his Irving Street restaurant in San Francisco and the new Pacifica one, but said his main focus for the moment will be on Puerto 27.

Dishes will range from $7 to $17 and will include seafood and meat dishes like "Arroz Con Mariscos" and "Jalea Mixta." Calvo-Perez emphasizes that he is including many small plates at this restaurant for sharing family-style, including a raw ceviche bar, and a full bar. Puerto 27 will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. There are plans for a happy hour every day and live music a couple nights a week.

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