Michel Falcon is expanding his unique Peruvian cuisine concept to New York City after launching it during the pandemic in Toronto.
Falcon, Founder and CEO, said the latest Brasa Peruvian Kitchen is scheduled to open in June in Manhattan and there are plans to bring the Peruvian cuisine and culture to many more locations in the future in both Canada and the U.S.
The concept currently has three locations in Toronto which all opened in 2022 following the introduction of a pop-up ghost kitchen in July 2021 to prove out the product.
“I have built this company to share how great the flavours of Peru are and introduce more people to the majestic elements that is Peruvian culture. We do this by serving everyday, familiar foods with real Peruvian flavours from the Pacific Ocean, Andes Mountains and Amazon Rainforest,” said Falcon.
The first location opened at First Canadian place followed by locations on Bloor Street West and then Queen Street West.
“This brand has been designed for the North American consumer and although we started in Toronto and it’s been treating us rather well from inception, I wanted to make sure that the brand was going to appeal to other metros in North America, including in Canada also,” he said.
“New York became attractive to us because of its proximity to Toronto, the density. Our advisors are there as well to help us enter that market and New York has a customer type that is more familiar with Peruvian cuisine and flavours, given the larger market and population, but also Peruvian restaurants there some of them have Michelin star.
“So I believe where in Toronto it’s taken a bit of coaching and education with the customer of what is Peruvian food and flavours, New York I believe will be more aware of it because of the legwork that prior Peruvian restaurants have done.
“This is our second location with Brookfield Properties, with the other being First Canadian Place. We chose One New York Plaza as our first in Manhattan because of our strong relationship with Brookfield and we know how to serve the professional office customer well.”
The New York location at 1 Water St. in the One New York Plaza FiDi building will be 864 square feet which is in line with the three current locations.
“One of the things I recognized during COVID and leading up to COVID is the price per square foot was increasing and will continue to increase. So as I was thinking of the model I thought revenue per square foot was a key KPI for me and how can we maximize the square footage within the locations to be able to have a financially-sound business,” said Falcon.
“That extended to our equipment schedule. We don’t have fryers or flat tops or anything that requires heavy HVAC. We only use convection ovens and rice cookers so that we can maximize the square footage. The business was built to be lean for today. I like anywhere between 600 and 1,500 square feet for today. What the future holds we will see in terms of the demand of the customer for more seating.”
Neal Ohm and Pierce Thompson from Newmark is representing Brasa for the US-based expansion.
Falcon said the brand has a pathway to 100 locations in North America.
“COVID was a blessing and a curse for me. A blessing because it gave me a chance to sit and pause. I was supposed to open this in February 2020 and I had to wait until July 2021 to do the pop-up. It was a blessing because it allowed me to kind of look around at the landscape to see what was happening. What was happening to construction prices? What was happening to relationships with the landlords and leases? And it was a curse for obvious reasons,” he said.
Falcon, who is Canadian Peruvian, said the brand’s biggest critics and one-star reviews are from Peruvians of an older demographic.
“But we are not traditional Peruvian food. We are very cautious in how we position ourselves on Instagram, on our website, in the restaurant, how we train our team members,” explained Falcon. “What we are is fresh salad, warm bowls, superfood smoothies with real Peruvian ingredients and superfoods. And we import our products from Peru. We have over a dozen Peruvian superfoods and the reason I went down this path is because I would like to believe I know consumer behaviour and food psychology in that when one individual is presented with a cuisine that is not familiar, like Peruvian to many Torontonians, going the traditional path will garner you a subset of customers. It won’t give you mass adoption because not many people are willing to be the first.
“So instead as I was thinking of this, I looked at companies like Chipotle and how they positioned their Mexican angle. And you’ll have individuals from Mexico saying that is not traditional. And they’ll never say that they are . . . My goal was to have people, if they have never known Peruvian cuisine was amazing, to be a stepping stone. They’re familiar with the salads and bowls and smoothies. And then we introduce you to these ingredients and we educate you through our email list or through Instagram and what’s actually happening – and it’s always been a goal of mine going back to my heritage – our customers are coming and saying this is phenomenal, I’ve never had Peruvian food before and then we track them and say we’re not like traditional but we use traditional ingredients.”
He said that every month the brand purchases a handful of gift certificates to traditional Peruvian restaurants in Toronto and gives them to its customers.
“That helps us build the brand. The number one and number six restaurants in the world voted this year are in Lima, Peru and food tourism in the country is exploding right now and we want to play a part in that,” said Falcon.
