You know how some days you’re just desperate for delicious? Your rote at-home dinners suddenly repel. Your go-to local dining rooms seem dull. Run, then, to Chayote Barrio Kitchen. It’s a new restaurant in Winter Park Village that will shock you — delightfully so — with exciting new flavors in a grandly appointed space.
Chayote — pronounced chai-ow-tay (rhymes with coyote) — is a bustling, casually elegant restaurant. The kitchen merges Caribbean foods, French techniques and, most notably, chef-owner Mario Pagán’s culinary whims.
Pagán, known for competing on Food Network’s Next Iron Chef, has been a big-deal chef in Puerto Rico for many years. His new venture bills itself as a “New Latin Table (Nueva Mesa Latina).” That rather expansive descriptor means that the kitchen can freely mix and match Caribbean flavors with those of Central and South America.
Finesse, though, is always involved. Take the lobster tail, for example, which I might have been prone to dismiss as dated. Well, as it turns out, this is one of the best dishes I’ve enjoyed all year — and it’s refreshingly trend-forward despite incorporating retro ingredients.
The base is a warm-water “spiny” lobster plucked from its shell, sautéed in butter and brushed with a housemade lobster oil. “That gives it a little bit of a kick,” says Pagán, who knows every detail about every dish and cocktail on the menu despite having nine other restaurants in Puerto Rico.
But the meat doesn’t stay plucked. It’s placed back in the shell and served sitting atop a mofongo of yuca — a lighter version of the mashed plantains popular in mom-and-pop Puerto Rican restaurants.
The sauce is creamy, kind of like an old-time French béchamel, only more ethereal. It’s a lightened take on Creole thermidor sauce with cheese blended in. It’s also dotted with smoky, salty bits of “bacon” made from baked shiitake mushrooms. Sprinkled breadcrumbs offer a citrus zing.
So how did Pagán — a culinary celebrity who could have opened his first U.S. restaurant in any market that struck his fancy — wind up in Winter Park?
He and partners David and Robert Tyson were intrigued by the $50 million remake planned for Winter Park Village. “It’s a marriage made in heaven,” says Pagán. Chayote opened in October 2023 in the gussied up 5,500-square-foot space that was once home to Crispers, across from the Cheesecake Factory.
Inside, the place is captivating wherever you look. A boomerang-shaped bar in the center, built around an existing beam, is a gathering space all its own. You can also sit outside on a patio. The verve and variety are enhanced by a sexy soundtrack featuring Latin American artists like the Colombian Montoya and Bomba Estéreo.
The cocktails, all small-batch crafted, are interesting. The watermelon- and blueberry-flavored Paloma Rosa, for example, is a not-too-sweet refresher spiked with smoky mezcal. Pagán recommends the Skinny Colada for a different take on the tropics lightened with coconut soda.
While you sip, you can nibble on small bites meant to share, such as battered and fried Gouda cheese balls called bolitas crowned with papaya preserves and shards of salt. Choripán is a plate of four mini burgers made with Argentinean sausage under a blanket of melted provolone cheese and a smear of herb-garlic chimichurri. You’ll receive them sandwiched inside mini poppyseed buns.
You could make a meal out of two or three appetizers. For piononos, the chefs roll up shredded rotisserie chicken with sweet plantains and housemade adobo seasoning. The plate has a smear of smoky piquillo sauce plus dots of yellow pepper coulis.
If your palate is tentacle-friendly, try the pulpo. It’s tender octopus slow cooked and served with dashes of annatto and chive oil as well as smoked paprika. Underneath, refried black beans are made even darker by squid ink. Orange sauce brings extra life to the multidimensional dish, in which crackers of tapioca add some crunch.
As you eat, a bread called sobao — which Pagán aptly likens to a Parker House roll — will suddenly appear at your table. The recipe involves coconut milk and a Japanese-style yeast. Pumpkin seeds and onion bits dot the tender crust, while the insides are enchantingly fluffy. Add airy whipped butter and you’ll want to take a bagful home for breakfast.
The entrées encompass a mix of long-time Pagán big sellers and just-for-Winter-Park dishes.
In addition to the previously described lobster, you’ll appreciate the unusual way in which tuna is prepared. Raw inside with a seared salt crust, thin layers of the fish are served with tempura-like eggplant discs ready to swipe in the green pistachio-cilantro sauce below. Squiggly, crispy sweet potato strips sit atop the dish.
Desserts are purposefully not too sweet. The tres leches cake, for example, transforms a ubiquitous Latin-American confection into something truly special. Pistachio flour, cream and bits of flower-shaped meringue contribute to this delightful post-meal treat.
The “barrio” in Chayote’s name is comical, an apparent effort to make a fancyish restaurant feel like a hole in the wall. But why not? Many of its foods — not the ones with fois gras or caviar, but several others — are elevated tributes to familiar dishes like chicken-and-rice.
“I take Latin food into another dimension,” Pagán says. “It’s a little more polished, marrying Latin dishes with modern techniques and high-end elements.”
Chayote Barrio Kitchen
Winter Park Village
480 Orlando Avenue, Winter Park
321-343-3003
hayotewinterpark.com