We escaped to San Isidro for a no-so-quick lunch at Osso to revisit their menu, try new things, and have the perfect excuse to share some great news for the brand.
La Molina and San Isidro
Osso was born in La Molina, a small butchery with a table on the back that chef Renzo Garibaldi used to cater to friends and family. Renzo offered high-quality beef to the local clientele; he worked the meat on fresh cuts, dry-aged, and sausages. Clients shared the experience, and the Restaurant was born!
Now, with two locations, one on the original butchery in La Molina and another in San Isidro, Osso offers a menu centered on meats in different stages. We visited the San Isidro location, and this is what we had.
The Menu
Smoke and fire are essential parts of the flavors; the bread box has sourdough bread, smoked cheese bread, caramelized onion bread with pork rillette, and homemade butter, a great beginning while we chat with some cocktails.
The first thing coming to the table is a piece of dry-age strip steak, thinly sliced with a beef emulsion, avocado, sesame seeds, and chulpi corn. Then, tacos made with corn tortillas, sweetbreads with lomo saltado sauce, creamy on the inside and crunchy on the outside, are placed on top of sweet potato pureé with a fresh touch of “chalaquita,” small diced onions, and chili.
As a main dish, a pan with a perfectly cooked flat iron wagyu stake comes with a side of bone marrow risotto, tasty with pieces of lardon on each bite, and as one does in Peru, french fried yellow potatoes portraying the ambo yellow potato that is perfect for frying.
For dessert, we selected the Osso Mess, a restaurant staple: vanilla ice cream, strawberries, whipped cream, candied bacon, and crunchy bacon, and for us, a new plate, the Cheddar cheese apple pie, a cheddar crust with local “water apples,” a small creole variety that has a great texture and acidic/tarty touch, on top a crumble of cheddar.
Drink Experience
Cocktails also have a touch of meats; the Negroni Tocto has pork rinds, a Negroni using top-notch spirits like Talisker, Beefeater 24, and Mancino Rosso; the Kevin Bacon’s Club is a sour with raspberries, camu camu, Monkey 47 Gin, egg whites. The non-alcoholic Sweet & Sour is an herbal infusion of green tea and chamomile with pineapple foam.
International recognition
Osso has extended its fire all over the Americas, now with a location in Sao Paulo that has gained recent recognition as a Michelin Restaurant Select in the 2024 edition, a restaurant that caters to 150 diners every day with the same quality and menu using dry-aged cuts of Brazilian beef and a broad spread of wine with a cellar with over 150 labels; we had the opportunity to visit the Restaurant to celebrate it’s second anniversary and the experience was outstanding. In 2023, theMiami location opened in Miami Downtown at Julia & Henry’s (200 E Flagler St, Miami, FL 33131), a ground-level part butcher’s shop, part restaurant; the way this award-winning concept expands Renzo’s love for Meat.
IN THE KNOW: When you come to Lima, Osso is a must, and if you live in town, you can also enjoy their meats in supermarkets.
