FEAST PERUVIAN-STYLE AT MADRE SELVA!
The fact that service is a priority at Madre Selva becomes obvious as soon as you walk through the heavy wooden door. Smiling staff members invite you to place your hands over a bowl for the restaurant’s welcome ritual: Water enhanced with essential oils is slowly poured from a pitcher over your hands, then you’re presented with a steaming towel. The impetus may be to freshen up, but there’s a comforting sense of ahhh that comes from the sort of greeting more often found at a spa or first-class cabin of an airline than at a restaurant.
Located in Uptown Atlanta near the Lindbergh Center area, Madre Selva— “mother jungle” in Spanish—makes no small claim on its website: It aims to be a “sensory retreat where Latin coastal cuisine meets modern refinement,” a place where scratch-made dishes showcase “bold regional flavors, seasonal ingredients and the untamed spirit of the Mother Jungle” for a “journey worth
Opened in spring of 2024, this restaurant boasts a Peruvian ceviche bar, a wide array of creative cocktails that taste even better than their photogenic good looks, artsy food presentations on custom plates, a vibrant mural spanning the wall over the kitchen, a lineup of fish on ice, a well-stocked bar and an upbeat vibe. If this is jungle fever, you’ll be happy to get it.
Over the course of a meal, you’ll likely meet most of the staff on duty. One person keeps water glasses filled, another takes orders, others deliver drinks and food, and anyone passing by will ask how things taste and if you need anything. “We work as a team,” one server explained, as if that wasn’t readily apparent. Somehow, they manage to be incredibly attentive without veering into the annoying zone. If you’re less than fluent in Peruvian cuisine, trust staffers to help interpret the menus.
Cocktails are a genuine treat here with fresh ingredients, well-balanced flavors, showy presentations and even some fun myths. Don’t miss the Pisco Sour, a frothy delight with sweet and sour notes. Peru’s national drink showcases the native pisco brandy with lime juice, sugar, egg whites and bitters. NGT, a spirit-free “not gin and tonic,” combines botanical and citrus notes so delightfully you’ll swear it’s the real thing.
Echoes of Chavin, with tequila, kombucha and sage, is described as a “potion that brings health and good fortune to those who perform the ritual” and served in a rocks glass with a skullshaped ice cube that lights up. The pastel, petal-adorned Forest Infusion towers over a glass in a dispenser that looks like a mini chemistry lab. The gin-based beauty is touted as an “ancestral shamanistic remedy that has been brought back to sip at your own discretion.”
Dinner options merge tradition and innovation for refined dishes with zesty flavors. One appetizer coats octopus cooked in a Josper grill that sears and smokes with a smokysavory- spicy anticuchera sauce. It’s piled onto a plate alongside corn and potatoes with a drizzle of tangy chimichurri sauce, dots of sweet cream and a crown of red-veined sorrel leaves.
Lomo saltado is a standout entree featuring stir-fried beef tenderloin, bright aji amarillo peppers, tender potatoes and fluffy white rice with choclo, a large-kernel variety of Peruvian corn. It’s the stir-fry you wish you’d grown up eating. Raices de la costa, which presents as a smoky cousin to paella, is a seafood and rice dish showcasing prawns and calamari that’s served bubbly hot with chopped avocado for cooling bites.
The Peruvian ceviche bar, where the focus is on the simplicity and purity of each dish’s featured ingredients, serves up a range of seafood as well as several vegetarian and vegan options. Vegetarian causa layers bright mashed yellow potatoes with red beets, cherry tomatoes, avocado aioli and microgreens; it’s gorgeous with earthy and tangy notes.
Brunch offers the same high-quality service and creative cocktails, but kitchen preparations are more casual and relaxed. “It’s what a mother or grandmother in Peru might make,” one server explained. Huevos a la brasa, a Peruvian spin on steak and eggs, tops juicy churrasco-style beef with a crispy fried egg, a stripe of herbaceous chimichurri sauce and a drizzle of spicy rocoto carretillero sauce featuring a chile native to the Peruvian Andes alongside a pile of perfectly-cooked golden potatoes. Desayuno costeño gives meat and eggs a Peruvian spin with a choice of chorizo and a fried egg with arepitas (cornmeal cakes) or crispy pork belly and scrambled eggs with tostones (crispy fried plantains).
Finish on a sweet note with chocolate de altura that tops rich, smooth, dark chocolate gelato with lucuma foam made using fruit with caramel-maple notes native to the Andes valleys and a splattering of crunchy quinoa and cocoa nibs.
A friend who routinely travels South America ranks Peruvian cuisine as his least favorite on the continent. After dining at Madre Selva, I think my friend’s palate is as useful as a broken compass. Don’t let anyone steer you away from this place.
Madre Selva
470.516.1389
madreselva.restaurant
@madreselvaatl
Prices: Cocktails, $13-$42; starters, $13-$25; ceviche bar, $17-$45; mains, $21-$73; sides, $3-$8; desserts, $14-$16; brunch plates, $10-$36; brunch sides, $3-$5.
Recommended: Pisco sour, vegetarian causa, octopus anticuchero, lomo saltado, raices de la costa.
Bottom line: Upscale service, vibrant decor and eclectic tunes accompany fresh, robust Peruvian dishes alongside high-quality cocktails.
PHOTOS: Erik Meadows
