Claudy’s Kitchen: What’s Vegetarian Editorial Review

Claudy’s Kitchen in the Bronx sells pollo a la brasa, and you can build a vegetarian meal here from empanadas, a vegetable stir fry, pesto pasta, and a few sides. Beef, chicken, pork, and seafood share the menu, but you can still order a full plate without special requests. The restaurant’s site calls it a Michelin Bib Gourmand Peruvian restaurant, and it sits at 5981 Broadway near Van Cortlandt Park.

Start with the empanadas, which cost $4 each on the online menu, or $12 for a trio. Veggie Empanadas hold cabbage, sweet peppers, tomato, and onion. Empanada Verde fills the pastry with spinach, mozzarella, and caramelized onions. Apple Caramel Empanadas double as dessert. Chicken, ground beef, chorizo, and pork belly versions sit on the same list, so name your order with care.

Veggie Saltado, at $16, makes the best main. Cooks stir fry roasted zucchini and peppers with tomato and red onions, then serve the mix over yucca fries with jasmine rice, which gives vegetarians the same format the beef lovers get. The menu says it carries the spirit of the Lomo Saltado in a vegetarian preparation. You can also order fettuccine with homemade pesto or Huancaina sauce, a creamy yellow pepper sauce, and add toppings. Chaufa, the Peruvian fried rice, comes with ginger, scallions, peppers, scrambled eggs, and soy sauce. Order it plain, from $7.30, for a meal on its own, or add toppings. Pasta starts at $8.50.

Sides help too. Papa a la Huancaina layers sliced boiled potatoes under the yellow pepper sauce for $9.50. Yucca Fries, French Fries, Roasted Zucchini and Red Peppers, White Rice, and Canchita, which is Peruvian popcorn, fill the rest of the list. Quinoa Salad, from $5.25, and House Salad, from $4.25, both use romaine, tomatoes, cucumbers, and red peppers, so a hungry vegetarian can stack two sides into a plate. Watch two items. Cooks simmer Frejoles Canarios, the canary beans, with a pork bone, and Chicken Noodle Soup starts from chicken bone broth. Outside the Veggie names, the menu tags no dish as vegetarian, so read each description.

Dessert is easy. Flan comes in passion fruit, vanilla, coffee, coco, and seasonal pumpkin, and you can add homemade alfajores, shortbread cookies filled with manjar blanco. The menu marked a few flavors out of stock when we checked. For drinks, try Chica Morada, a purple corn drink with pineapple, cloves, and cinnamon, plus lemonade, Inca Cola, and coffee brewed in house.

Meat and vegetarian items share the menu, and the restaurant says nothing about shared surfaces or fryers. If cross-contact matters to you, ask how the cooks handle the yucca fries and the French fries.

When we checked, the online ordering page accepted scheduled orders only, and its live status said the restaurant opens Monday at noon. The site hides the full weekly hours behind a link, so confirm them before you go. Call (718) 884-7378 or order through the site. Gift cards and catering are also available.

Order a Veggie Saltado with a Veggie Empanada and an Empanada Verde. Finish with a passion fruit flan.