Family business expands from fish market to restaurant

Cafe Andinori is a little place on Avenida Mexico, a stone’s throw (if you are a major league baseball player, anyway) from the American Consulate and not much farther from the US Embassy. As these words are written, I have just come back to the office after a very nice lunch of combination ceviche, grouper al ajillo, rice and lentils, cucumber salad and lemonade. I also return to my computer with just the excuse I needed to review this place.

This establishment is a spinoff from a couple of vending stalls at Panama City’s municipal seafood market. The proprietors are a black family from the Darien coast, a cultural milieu in which there is a sophisticated appreciation of good seafood but “restaurant” means a rustic bohio with the most basic facilities. There are good restaurants and bad ones according to the qualities of the cooks and the ingredients used, but many of the concerns of the urban restaurant scene just don’t apply to the Darien, and people who grow up there often have little or exposure to norms that most of us take for granted.

Over a series of several visits, I have observed the Cafe Andinori get its countrified act together for the big city, in the process progressing from an establishment that I wasn’t sure I wanted to review to someplace that I’m glad to recommend.

For one example of what I mean, understand that they’re located across the street from the Universidad del Istmo and when they opened their doors during the school year they attracted a number of diners from the university. Now in the Darien hunger is a persistent fact for many of the people, and feeding you well for your money is one of the hallmarks of one of that province’s better restaurants. But serving massive portions --- fish that mostly hang off the edges of large plates and that sort of thing --- is not such an appealing thing for young university women on diets.

And then there were cleanliness and service issues with which to deal. Paper place mats that are not changed from one group of diners to the next may be a trivial matter in a Darien diner, for another example, but city customers notice. And maybe in the Darien they serve wine in glasses with ice cubes, but in the city that just shows that you’re dealing with folks for whom wine is cultural esoterica.

But over several months, the Cafe Andinori has learned these and other lessons, and meanwhile they haven’t forgotten the craft of preparing simple but good meals in the Darien country style.

As in ceviche that’s a bit spicier than is usual in the capital --- the way that most black Panamanians, and Colon boys like me, prefer it. As in a grouper filet fried just crispy enough to not get soggy from the topping, moist and perfectly done on the inside, smothered in a garlic sauce done just right. As in white rice with a little dish of culantro-flavored lentils on the side, and a bottle of hot sauce on the table that allows you to adjust the heat to taste. As in a salad or vegetable side of the day, like the seafood determined by what’s fresh on the market at the time.

Is there progress to be made? Of course. As in ceviche served with a little spoon instead of a little fork, something sure to horrify the snobs. But then I’m the sort of guy who has v-shaped marks on my feet from my usual choice of footwear and who wouldn’t mind all that much if my ceviche came with chopsticks. I know and appreciate formal standards, but my restaurant reviews are based on more fundamental factors.

And getting down to the basics, Cafe Andinori has put its act together. This venture by a fishing family transplanted to the capital from the Darien is thus attracting a growing lunchtime crowd. It has been a pleasure to watch --- and taste.

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Cafe Andinori
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dining

Watching novices get it together