Everything about Ola Martini’s is lovingly created — maybe that’s why there are usually so many women dining there.
The night a girl friend and I stopped by, the small restaurant was teeming with women. “It’s the drinks,” said our waitress, pointing to numerous tables with colorful cocktails accessorized with fruit chunks and sugar cane. In addition to classic mojitos and the traditional margaritas ($8–$10) there are drinks such as the mojito de uva with light rum, seedless black grapes, lime and mint leaves and the mora margarita made with fresh blackberries.
Our food was just as colorful and beautifully presented as the cocktails and the traditional Central American art hanging from brightly painted walls. Everything about the place — from the food to the ambience — screams Caribbean, no easy feat at a Boston Post Road strip mall.
Ola Martini’s is a family affair, owned by Melvin Lopez and his brother Wagner. Melvin cooks, Wagner whips up drinks and their sister Nancy helps with the fanciful dish presentations. The paintings on the wall are by their mother.
The family is from Guatemala. Melvin moved to New York City when he was a teen and began cooking. There he got into the nuevo Latino movement, a spin on traditional Latin cooking.
The night we visited we started with empanadas de carne ($9), two golden pockets brimming with sirloin steak, sweet roasted red peppers and shiitake mushrooms, topped with passion fruit salsa and a cool green drizzle of mint sauce. We also had table-side guacamole ($11), which came as thin slices of avocado hugging the sides of a molcajete (the traditional mortar and pestle) along with diced tomatoes, fresh cilantro and a small bowl of fresh lime juice. As our waitress mixed up the concoction, she explained that the accompanying chips — plantain, yucca and malanga (a tuber) — are homemade fresh daily. In fact, everything — including the empanada dough — is made fresh daily.
The ingredients on the tapas and entrée menus are not usually found at Latin restaurants, but Ola Martini’s mixes ingredients like shiitake mushrooms, beets and goat cheese with more typical ingredients like black beans, plantains and avocados. “Some people may be surprised by the combinations,” says Melvin. “It’s not typical of South America, but those ingredients are the ones that bring the Latin cuisine to a different level.”
The entrées are all tempting but the descriptions (example: sugar cane caramelized wild salmon served over baby spinach, shiitake mushroom, sweet plantain, quinoa warm salad with ginger lemon grass, $23) aren’t as compelling as actually seeing the dish, thanks to the fanciful stylings Nancy gives each plate.
Fish dominates the menu and we shared two dishes. The plantain chip–crusted tilapia ($22) tasted light but with a pleasant crunch from the garlicky plantains. It came alongside two enchiladas wrapped in bright red tortillas. The filling — shrimp, mushrooms, baby spinach, asparagus and corn — was far from the typical beef-and-cheese enchilada, and the texture was heavenly.
The second dish was just as colorful. The mahi mahi ($24) was coated in red malanga chips and perched atop a mound of fufu, a Guatemalan dish similar to mashed potatoes but made with sweet plantains. It was sweet, mixed with braised onions and pancetta, and went well with the meaty fish.
Aside from the fish there are options like steak with lime horseradish ($26), passion fruit-glazed barbecue ribs ($23), seafood paella ($25) and black rice seafood paella ($26).
The restaurant is above what used to be Martini’s, a basement bar known for rock shows and karaoke. Martini’s closed a few weeks ago and Ola Martini’s is renovating the space as a lounge area serving the same menu available upstairs. It’s expected to open in about a month.
byagla@newhavenadvocate.com
