The Breakdown: Ruka’s Anticucho Skewers

Photograph by Nina Gallant

From left:

• Aji dulce sauce accompanies fermented black-bean-marinated chicken thighs.
• Served with bonito mayo and sea beans, tamarind-glazed octopus is braised, then grilled.
• Luscious rib-eye cap is dolloped with dashi butter and slivered raw watermelon radish.
• Trumpet mushrooms are confited with chilies, then drizzled with an herbaceous sauce and hot mustard.

How do you follow up a stunner like Yvonne’s, Downtown Crossing’s gilded supper club? Give diners something entirely fresh. That’s what partners Chris Jamison, Mark Malatesta, and Tom Berry wanted to do with their latest, Ruka, which opened in December. Focusing on two new-to-Boston cuisines, Peruvian-Japanese (nikkei) and Peruvian-Chinese (chifa), the team is turning out a menu heavy on seafood, citrus, and fire. That translates to stylized sushi, bright ceviches, and these creative skewers, known in Peru as anticucho. Traditionally a simple snack of grilled beef heart, “These are Ruka anticucho,” Berry says. “Latin flavors, mixed with Asian, give us the opportunity to do things that are more vibrant.”

505 Washington St., Boston, 617-266-0102, rukarestobar.com.