Le Cap Horn

Le Cap Horn Review

As Piaf and Aznavour compete with croaking tree frogs in a trellised, plant-filled room lighted by straw lamps, it's easy to imagine yourself in a tropical St. Tropez. Begin with escargots in tomato, onion, and pepper sauce (sop it up with the marvelous home-baked bread) or the ultimate in hedonism (and expense), lobster-foie gras millefeuille; then segue into tiger shrimp swimming in gossamer vanilla-lobster sauce or duck breast wrapped with mango in rice sheet floating in rum-tamarind sauce. Or cook your own seafood and/or beef on a hot volcanic stone at your table. Gustavo Belaunde (he's Peruvian of Catalan extraction) elicits delicate, almost ethereal flavors from his ingredients; his versatility is displayed in the restaurant's other half, a pizzeria replete with wood-burning oven (with much lower prices and rowdier ambience). Finish with wife Hélène's divine desserts or a cognac and cigar.