La Royal sits on Concord Avenue in Cambridge, the work of chef JuanMa Calderón and Maria Rondeau, who previously opened Celeste in Boston and Esmeralda in Vermont. Where Calderón's cooking at Celeste drew on his mother's home kitchen in Lima, La Royal widens the lens to dishes from across Peru's regions, served a la carte around an open kitchen counter.
The menu runs through ceviche mixto and leche de tigre, lomo saltado and patarashca (whole branzino grilled in plantain leaves), and a tacu tacu de pallares built on lima beans, mussels, shrimp, and squid. A chifa section applies Peruvian-Chinese technique — Chinese condiments worked with Peruvian peppers, a cuisine with roots in 19th-century Chinese immigration to Peru, including Calderón's own family history. Cocktails center on pisco, including a hibiscus-pomegranate La Royal Sour and a line of macerated liquors developed with cookbook author Darra Goldstein.
The room is low-lit, with exposed brick, a copper bar, and close-set two-tops around the open kitchen. Dishes arrive as gratineed scallops in the half shell, ceviche spooned into cut-glass stemware, and branzino steamed in banana leaf with onions, peppers, and herbs.
La Royal was a James Beard Foundation Best New Restaurant semifinalist in 2023.
The menu runs through ceviche mixto and leche de tigre, lomo saltado and patarashca (whole branzino grilled in plantain leaves), and a tacu tacu de pallares built on lima beans, mussels, shrimp, and squid. A chifa section applies Peruvian-Chinese technique — Chinese condiments worked with Peruvian peppers, a cuisine with roots in 19th-century Chinese immigration to Peru, including Calderón's own family history. Cocktails center on pisco, including a hibiscus-pomegranate La Royal Sour and a line of macerated liquors developed with cookbook author Darra Goldstein.
The room is low-lit, with exposed brick, a copper bar, and close-set two-tops around the open kitchen. Dishes arrive as gratineed scallops in the half shell, ceviche spooned into cut-glass stemware, and branzino steamed in banana leaf with onions, peppers, and herbs.
La Royal was a James Beard Foundation Best New Restaurant semifinalist in 2023.