Celebrate Peruvian women
Find your way into Coya at 851 Higuera St. in downtown San Luis Obispo. Visit coyaperuvianfoodca.com for more information, or check out @coyaperuvianfood on Instagram.
Coya is intent on highlighting the Peruvian woman.
Everything in the new spot on Higuera Street in downtown San Luis Obispo points to that. Copper plates, gigantic murals, knit alpaca wool textiles, coffee beans, the menu, and the name itself—all of it, according to owner/chef Jhackelin Catalina Vargas, results from the tradition of Peruvian females.
Coya is the Quechua word for queen—”wife of the Incan king,” Vargas said.
Spoken by the Indigenous people in the Andes, Quechua is spoken by about 10 million people in the Andean region across South America and is one of Peru’s official languages.
Vargas’ grandmother is from Huancayo, Peru, an Andean city in the central part of the country. Her grandmother—father’s mother—and great-grandmother taught her to cook traditional dishes and how to respect the animals they used, helping her develop a passion for food that was different from the rest of her family.
“One day, she said, ‘Catalina, come here. You need to cook,'” Vargas said of her great-grandmother. “She’s a very, very special woman.”
As Vargas got older, she studied food at the university level, developed food products, and traveled around the country working. Everyone else in her family is an engineer, she said.
“For my family, I am crazy. I am the black sheep for my family,” Vargas said.
But she learned how to build a business from her father, who worked as a mineral engineer, traveled a lot for work, and helped grow businesses. She watched him as she grew up, she said, and has used his approach to help grow Coya.
Five years ago, Vargas moved to the U.S. to pursue her passion. Inspired by American companies like McDonald’s, she said she sees the United States as “un paÃs de los sueños” (country of dreams), where women are free and there are fewer restrictions.
“It’s a free country,” she said.
She started following her dream by serving Peruvian food out of the Sidewalk Market on Osos Street across from Mitchell Park almost four years ago. With three tables and six chairs, she served meals over the counter to customers and catered private events, building her base and growing slowly.
About three months ago, Coya moved into a much larger spot on Higuera with a patio on the sidewalk and a bar that leads customers back to an inviting dining area with murals on the walls, Peruvian textiles on the tables, and plenty of room. Alpacas of varying sizes greet people as they walk through the restaurant, and the lobby is full of products Vargas has imported from Peru—including Coya brand coffee from Villa Rica, a city that hovers between the jungle and the mountains.
Open for lunch and dinner, Coya dishes up food from across the country. From the mountains and jungle to the coast, Vargas said she doesn’t see herself as from one specific area, and her menu reflects that.
It includes ceviches such as Ceviche Coya, fish of the day, leche de tigre (a spicy, citrus-based marinade), red onion, and roasted corn, and cilantro oil; empandas Peruanas stuffed with beef lomo saltado (a sauté influenced by Peru’s Chinese immigrants); and Chalaco chicken seasoned with Peruvian spices, served on a bed of organic greens, fresh tomatoes, and carrots in lime herb dressing.
The dishes that defined her childhood and travels, though, aren’t the only things she wants to offer customers. Her vision for Coya is that it’s more than a restaurant.
“Peru is very strong in food, in superfood,” Vargas said. “Hay muchas cosas por hacer.”
And she wants to be the one to bring those things to the U.S. Vargas wants to make and sell a snack bar made from quinoa, maca, and passionfruit, for example. She dreams of importing alpaca wool products, quinoas, potatoes, and maca; teaching Peruvian women how to turn their talents into businesses; and standardizing food production for export. A stateside food laboratory is also included in those dreams, one where Vargas can experiment with food and create new products (like the snack bar).
Before she came to the U.S., Vargas worked in a food lab trying to find new flavors of cheese, butter, and yogurt. Some of it gets sold by her mother’s company in Peru, Macamilk.
Coya, she said, isn’t just for food. It’s an effort to build a Peruvian company in San Luis Obispo.
But, everything is a process, she said. And for now, that process includes getting the new espresso machine up and running so that Coya can eventually offer Peruvian breakfast options in addition to lunch and dinner. Δ
Editor Camillia Lanham is ready for Peruvian ceviche. Send some to clanham@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Apr 10-20, 2025.