From pop-up to permanent, Tio Lucho's specializes in Peruvian coastal cuisine

Over the past decade, restaurant pop-ups have become a common launching point for entrepreneurial chefs. In the summer of 2021, “City Lights” profiled La Chingana, a popular Peruvian pop-up from chef Arnaldo Castillo. The success of La Chingana caught the eye of longtime Atlanta restaurateur Howard Hsu, best known for Sweet Auburn Barbeque and Lazy Betty. Together, they’ve brought Castillo’s dream of owning a brick-and-mortar eatery to fruition, opening Tio Lucho’s on North Highland Avenue. The new restaurant is named after Castillo’s father and specializes in Peruvian coastal cuisine. “City Lights” senior producer Kim Drobes visited Castillo and Hsu at the new space to hear their story of this pop-up made permanent.

Walking Drobes across the restaurant’s threshold, Castillo points out the prominent mural on display. He said, “This is the first thing that I like people to see is the mural, which in Spanish says ‘En Atlanta se come rico,’ and the translation is ‘In Atlanta, you eat good.'” The mural is a piece by local artist and social worker Franco Bejarano. Beyond its charming message, the mural’s visual style echoes the “chicha” aesthetic of Peru. “In terms of design, Cumbia groups in the ’70s in Peru started using these very colorful and bright flyers to market their shows and stuff like that,” Castillo explained. “It became the sort of iconic way of using these colors and the writing and style, so I thought it’d be really neat to just grab that aspect of Peruvian art.”

Although Castillo’s proud of his new permanent location, he still cherishes the memory of how he got to now. To prove it, he’s kept his old pop-up cart inside the restaurant to serve as an expo display. “This is our La Chingana little street cart, where I was making sandwiches outside of Chop Shop in Edgewood,” he showed Drobes. “Typically I’ll stand here and just finish dishes before they head to the table. And the artwork was done by my wife. [She’s] super multi-talented. All the plants are done by her, and if you can believe it, I think over 50% of these plants came from my house.”