K'kinaco - Nikkei & Pisco Bar — Restaurant in Hopkins

My husband located this place nearby and we were pleasantly surprised with our experience.

ARRIVAL/PARKING/ATMOSPHERE-- We arrived around 6 p.m. and easily found street parking. When we entered we were instantly greeted and the restaurant is quite small. At this time there weren't many people there, probably 2 or 3 other parties so we were able to be seated right away which was super nice. However, later on within an hour or less the restaurant became busy rather quickly.

SERVICE-- Our server came to greet us right away. Sorry I did not catch her name but she wore glasses and she was very pleasant, friendly, and informative. The night eventually got pretty busy and it seems like they were short staffed on servers as we had to wait a little for our server to circle back to us and/or wave her down, but it's understandable.

FOOD-- We very much enjoyed the food!!! I ordered the Udon Saltado which I LOVED. I was so happy with my order that I would definitely come back for this. We also ordered the ceviche which in our opinion we can skip the next time (not that it's bad. It was in fact good but we didn't find anything special or different about it compared to other ceviche), and we ordered the Inka Roll which we also thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend. Probably the only thing we don't recommend is the flan. It's on the rough side.

All in all, we enjoyed our experience and would...

Amazing sushi. Maybe the best sushi I have ever had. We got two rolls - the K'kinaco roll, which was so interesting and fresh and unique - no need to add soy sauce/ginger/wasabi, bc it was so flavorful on its own. I can't recall the exact ingredients but it was tempura shrimp with tuna and on top was thin, crispy fried sweet potato strings - just delicious. We also got the spicy salmon roll, which to me actually tells you how good this place is, because it was so fresh, with small cubes of salmon - no mushy pieces - in a slightly loose roll and you could taste each individual element - the sesame oil, the pickled veggies, the salmon, etc. Just insanely good.

Also ordered miso soup - could tell that was homemade, also delicious - and steak udon noodles, my husband loved the steak and I loved the noodles (don't eat meat).

We had the pisco drink with passionfruit - sweet but in a natural way - and wine (BIG POURS). Our server was Max, he was great, and the vibe on a rainy weekday night was nice - not too crowded and a decent mix of people.

My two suggestions would be to slow down the service so food comes out a little more slowly, but that is my personal thing, and the owners should consider taking the window coverings off the front windows at least - it hides how charming and nice the interior is - it's very welcoming once inside, so ignore the exterior vibe if that...

K'kinaco is an authentic and delightful culinary experience.

My mother is from Lima and it had been years since I found genuine Peruvian cuisine in the U.S. (outside of her kitchen). Enrique, the co-owner, met with us and told us the story of the restaurant and his family's experience coming from Peru (his father was the head chef working that night). I brought my fiancee and her mother and together, we sampled some delicious ceviche and nikkei offerings. I specifically recommend the K'kinaco and Mancora rolls, complex and refreshing sushi options that perfectly marry the flavors of traditional Peruvian fare (e.g., citrusy leche de tigre, sweet potato) with those of Japan (e.g., hamachi, escolar).

To finish the experience off, we shared orders of crema volteada and suspiro de limena, two quintessential desserts from Peru. These were exquisitely presented and equally tasty; they did not last long on our table. We loved the desserts so much we asked Enrique if we could serve them at our wedding in downtown Minneapolis (spoiler: he agreed and they were a huge hit!)

Whether you are looking for genuine Peruvian food, curious about the fusion of Japanese / Peruvian dishes, or simply want to try the national drink of 2 South American countries (obviamente el estilo Peruano es mejor), K'kinaco has what you are looking...