Pio Peruvian Rotisserie Chicken

Great flavors. We ordered the beef heart, rotisserie chicken, and steak stir fry. The food was delicious and portion size was very generous. Prices were very reasonable. Staff was super friendly. I recommend the beef heart appetizer. I look forward to going back and trying more of the menu with a pisco sour next time.

This place is awesome. Pio is a small family owned restaurant. The décor is great and the service is amazing. Our server was super friendly, teaching us how to order in Spanish and engaging in conversation. But the best part was the food! You cannot beat the value.

Really impressed with this little restaurant while we stopped over by the airport — we were an English family of 6. Nice chicken, really friendly proprietor — just ask about his video of the cliff houses in Peru…

This is definitely Peruvian food as I had it when I visiting the family in Lima.
We had the anticuchos, ceviche, and both chicha morada and maracuya to start.
For lunch there is all the favourites. Chicharones, lomo saltado, tallarines verdes, you know all the ones we have at home.
Then there’s their namesake. Rotisserie Chicken. It so much reminds me of Pardos Chicken. It is not exactly the same, but so close, so close.
This is now one of our places to go when we come to Calgary.

My sister highly recommended this place for peruvian food. So we headed there to try some of their stuff. I think their food is great. I love the rotisserie chicken, beef sausage and fries. Also I love the sweet plantains and feta, which my mom end up eating most of it. I guess now we know where I got the genes from liking plantain so much. The Lomo Saltado, which is like a beef stir fry peruvian style, serve with garlic rice and fries are highly recommended too. If you live in the area, this place is a great place for peruvian food.

Good was great! First time I had beef hearts and plantations. I’d go back just for that!
Chicken is tasty. I had the stir-​fry and the only thing I would change would be the fries that came with it. One it felt out of place, and two wasn’t nearly as tasty as the other items we had.

My first time at Pio Peru — Loved it! The restaurant opened a little earlier than expected and already, we were the 2^nd table of 4 in the restaurant. The restaurant was about ½ full when we left the restaurant after lunch.
Our waitress came by and brought us our menus and also taste tests of their 2 juices they have in the restaurant. One is the Passionfruit and the other was the Purple Corn with lime juice and pineapple. We decided on the Purple Corn as it was so delicious, light and not at all sweet. It’s called CHICHA MORADA on their menu.
We ordered:
ANTICUCHOS — «Super tender grilled Beef Heart skewers with crispy potatoes and Peruvian Black Mint sauce» (Huacatay). The most tender beef hearts I’ve ever eaten! 2 skewers on a plate with the Huacatay sauce (green sauce). I love Huacatay sauce!
PIO CON ARROZ — Roasted quarter chicken with yellow rice, comes with 2 sauces — Huacatay and Mayo sauce.
PIO CON QUINOA — Same as above but with quinoa and bell peppers salad. I had this dish and it was delicious. The chicken meat was so tender and juicy. I love the sauces and they go so well with the chicken.
Excellent wait service.
Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Will be back!

Great food! Great flavors and the staff was helpful. I got the pio chicken with rice and a site of Platinos. They have crema revuelta (flan) as well that was great! Eat here!

My most favorite restaurant. I can eat there every week. Excellent service. cozy environment. food was delicious.

The food is good and well made, but it seems to be the food we so at home. Nothing special and the portions are too small for the price you pay. For a heart need we paid $ 10 for a really small pieces if meat. For the same price I had a chicken with cassava, I mean a quite small chicken with 6 – 7 cassavas. Better you not be hungry or make sure you get an appetizer to avoid leaving the place hungry.

Rotisserie chicken was moist and flavourful. I enjoyed my meal there. Go early during lunch to avoid the rush.

This place is great! Very unassuming, just a casual open space with nicely decorated tables tucked away in a strip mall in the Sunridge area.
The staff was very friendly and helpful with recommendations and descriptions.
On Wednesdays and Thursdays they have happy hour from 4−8pm, with most of their drinks on sale for $ 5 — sweet! However, I highly recommend ordering a regular priced drink, what Peruvians know best — the Pisco sour. It was so delicious and delicate!
We ordered the ceviche, which I’ve never been too fond of, but it was truly wonderful! Definitely order it spicy!
Then we ordered their specialty — the rotisserie chicken. It was good — tender, juicy, and the fries were excellent.
But forget that, because you HAVE to have the Peruvian Curry dish! I swear, it changed my life. Mild, creamy, FULL of chicken, flavorful rice — it was heaven.
We also had the Tres Leches for dessert, which was delicious, but I was truly too full to enjoy it.
This place is a gem — unique, very reasonably priced (entrees around $ 10 – 14), and delicious!

Food is great. Service leaves a lot to be desired.
A perfect balance in a restaurant would include excellent food, great service, and reasonable prices.
This place scores on 2−½ out of those three. The chicken is great, I really like it, and i have returned many times.
However, I am increasingly frustrated by the consistently poor service. It takes them a long time to come and take your order. They ask if you’d like to order drinks first. Maybe that is a good idea because they have taken so long that one has already decided what they wanted and then forgotten so you have to look again!
So when you do make that «drink» order, be sure to order everything you want because chances are, they aren’t coming back to see if you need a drink refill, or water, or if they didn’t get something right with your food.
Yes, the food is very good but it is very quickly getting to the point where the lack of good service isn’t worth it.
Sad to see a restaurant that has hit upon a unique and tasty menu to blow it on the service side. I am not the only one who has noticed this, it has happened to quite a few others. Maybe this review is a good wakeup call for the restaurant!
And no, it is not good for groups as the service does not accomadate it well…

I’ve had an obsession with Peruvian food ever since my friend (whose parents are from Peru) introduced me to it in New York. Every time I google image search Lomo Saltada, I salivate just a little bit. Ok, I lied, I salivate a lot. This is why I was so excited to try out Pio when my friend said he’d go with me.
We both started with the Chicha Morada, a drink made out of corn. Now before you start your chorus of ewwws, hear me out. It’s mixed with pineapple and lime juice and while it may be different than juice that you’re used to, its quite tasty and not as boring as drinking a pop. So give it a shot.
We ordered appetizers with the intention to share, he got the spicy ceviche (a must, since Peru is where ceviche originated) and I got the Papa a la Huancaina. I love Papa a la Huancaina because of the yellow sauce the potatoes are served with. I don’t even know what it is or what’s in it, but this sauce is heaven. It’s right up there with hollandaise and lizano salsa. The ceviche was delicious and fresh tasting. Nowhere near having ceviche on a beach, but pretty delicious for landlocked Calgary.
Now for my main. Since I’ve had Peruvian before, I wanted to try something different. I ordered the Pio con Quinoa (at the server’s suggestion — she said it was delicious). And it was. The rotisserie chicken came with a quinoa salad with a slice of avocado on top. Everything was super flavorful and delish.
Well, since I’d already started the ball rolling, why stop it now? I ordered the Picarones for dessert because I have a huge girl boner for donuts. The sweet potato was an interesting but satisfying flavor, and the syrup was the icing on the cake. Or the syrup on the donuts. Whatever. Don’t judge me.
All in all, the food was yummy, the service was great/​fast and I would go again. 4 tres leches out of 5. Because they ran out of tres leches and I was sad.

I would have loved to have written a review but…
A colleague and I walked in to Pio at 8:40 pm eager to get some chicken but were turned away and told that they were only doing take out orders and could not sit down and enjoy a meal. We even said we would order a lot of food and we would be great customers but, they were more interested in cleaning up and going home.
We were both dressed in our work clothes, suits and even a tie, and did not look questionable in any way that should have triggered the refusal to be served.
Closing time was posted as 9:00 pm but apparently it is 8:30 pm and not 9:00 as posted on the door and on line.

I am adding Peruvian on my list of fave foods as of today!
Cute little place, no frills, maybe a dozen or so tables. We had to wait at the front door to get a table at 330pm on a Sat afternoon but there was no way the smell of that food was going to send me back out the door. YUM!
Do not come here if you are in a rush. I am not sure if the Peruvians work on a Mexican-​styled schedule but you will wait for a server and for your food. When you get both, you will hopefully be as happy as we were! The server was friendly and knowledgeable of the menu.
We had the Plantains and the feta cheese as an appy to share, ridiculously good. I appreciate when someone else preps the plantains as they are a pain to peel and cut even at their ripest.
I had the chicken with sunshine rice. The rice is seasoned, has a yellowy tinge to it — it was exactly what I was hoping it to be — simple, Peruvian and tasty. The chicken was really good on its own, but I added a 99 cents hot sauce to my order and that made it even better. Hubby had the chicken too (you get a leg cut but you can have a half chicken for another $ 5 or so) and he had the fried yucca. Man, you would never know these were not french fries and how much healthier they are for you than potatoes!
2 dips come with the chicken meal, both mild including a unique black mint sauce and a mayo sauce.
We were too full for dessert as this was just a lunch stop but there were about 4 offerings that looked really good. Tres Leches was our wedding cake some years ago, so we will be back to try their version for sure.
I found myself comparing this place to Nando’s that I have also tried recently. What I liked about Nando’s was that it was larger, the hot sauce is on the table (free) and the chicken was just a wee bit better. A smidge.
Pio has table service though and I love that, no ordering at the counter but we did pay our bill at the counter.
We will for sure be back, maybe to do take-​out. There was a lot of that going out the door!
Very casual, very kid-​friendly.

I’ve been to Pio several times and can’t get enough, the food is always amazing and the service is great. I’ve had the rotisserie chicken and it is always juicy and delicious, the platains are as good as any I had in Latin America. The Lomo Saltado is my favorite dish, yum. The prices are really great too

It’s a cold wintry fall afternoon. We’ve seen the place before but never had time to go in. This time we made time I’m really glad we did. We decided on the family PIO combo. This is a large whole roasted chicken with french fries made from real potatoes a large salad and sauces. The sauces are interesting one is mayonnaise-​based and the other one is mint based. I don’t like mayonnaise but the mayonnaise one was by far my favorite. We asked for them spicy and it worked out really well. For dessert we had Picarones which is a crispy sweet potato donut topped with a homemade sweet syrup and Crema Volteada a fairly standard flat topped with a caramel sauce.
We loved the chicken french fries and salad we had for our main And it was great value at $ 25.00. The head chef (Mother of the family that owns the place) is one of the owners and clearly cooks with love.
We will be back excellent quality food, great service all prepared and served with love.

I hesitate to write this review. I went in wanting rotisserie chicken but I was swayed by my server to order one of her two suggestions of «real Peruvian» food. I went with the Peruvian curry (not the name but I’m pretty sure it is the only curry on there). I was underwhelmed as it was bland, gloppy and not warm enough. Boo.
However, the people around me who did get the rotisserie chicken… their food looked divine. So I will revisit and get what I planned to order to begin with and report back.

Just went for lunch today and tried Pio for the first time. I loved it! I had one of the lunch specials, the Pio con Quinoa, which consisted of ¼ chicken with quinoa salad and included a choice of beverage (Jugo de Maracuya, Chicha Morada or pop) for $ 12 incl GST. The rotisserie chicken was so succulent and flavourful. The quinoa salad was amazing too. For a drink I had the Jugo de Maracuya which is basically passion fruit juice.
My coworkers loved it too. They all raved about how well-​seasoned and juicy the rotisserie chicken was.
Very well-​priced and good quality food.