Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Marco Rondon (left) and Kenny Payan, co-owners of Los Ranchos Cocina, enjoy a meal at the Saratoga restaurant.

Latin American food, culture come together at restaurant

By Suzanne Cristallo

Los Ranchos Cocina Latina in Saratoga is more than a Latin American restaurant. It is a reflection of history and family culture. For co-owner Marco Rondon, it is also evidence of the American dream.

Before the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua, Maria Theresa Rondon, Marco's mother, was the cook for President Anastasio Somoza and his family. Marco had been studying since he was 11 to become a Salesian monk. Then the revolution tore the country apart, and Marco, then 18, fled to America on a ship, cooking for his keep. In Florida, he worked at any restaurant job he could find, establishing himself well enough to send for his family in 1983.

The family came to California, where Rondon had been offered a job by the recently emigrated son of President Somoza, who had just opened a restaurant called Los Ranchos (now called the Second Floor) in Santa Clara. Rondon progressed through washing dishes, busing and waiting tables. Soon he was tending bar and then managing Florentine's restaurant in San Jose.

With these jobs, he accumulated the experience and the money he needed to buy his first restaurant--the Taqueria on Blossom Hill Road in San Jose--eight years ago. Now Rondon, 36, owns five restaurants of varying ethnic influences: Italian, Peruvian, Mexican, Nicaraguan and now Los Ranchos Cocina Latina in Saratoga.

The Saratoga restaurant has operated for more than six years as Mexican but recently was remodeled as a hacienda and is showing the influence of a new partner, Santa Claran Kenny Payan. Payan, 33, has created a new menu that emphasizes the seafood of his heritage.

"I'm a fish lover, and my partner's forte is fish," Rondon says, explaining that Payan's family comes from the coastal town of Waymans in Mexico. "Kenny brings with him all kinds of fresh family recipes for grilled fish and soups and Latin sauces."

While Mexican food is still offered, the new menu is more diverse, featuring dishes with Central and South American flavors such as swordfish with an Amazonian sauce composed of cilantro, garlic, wine and lemon. It comes with Spanish rice, galla pinto beans and sweet plantains--big bananas typical of Central America with the sweet taste to complement garlic.

The featured chef at the restaurant is Rondon's mother, Maria Theresa. A lifetime of cooking, including 15 years with the Nicaraguan president, has given her the finesse to create signature dishes such as churrasco--charbroiled tenderloin beef with chimichurri, a marinade of parsley, garlic and olive oil--or the Sante Fe, which is charbroiled chicken breast steeped in spices and covered with avocado and melted jack cheese. All entrées which range in price from $9.95 to $16.95, include salad.

Dessert lovers might want to try plantano dolce, plantains covered in a sweet sauce.

Los Ranchos Cocina Latina, 14554 Big Basin Way., Saratoga. Open for lunch Tue.-Fri., 11 a.m.-3 p.m., dinner Tue.-Fri., 5-10 p.m., Sat.-Sun., 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Closed Monday. 867-4595.

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