Rubi’s Peruvian Taste
Address: 970 East 3300 South
Telephone: 801-899-7507
Website: instagram.com/rubisperuviantaste
District: Millcreek
“Food is my language. I bring my spices from Peru, I cook with my heart, and I believe everything will turn out well.” Rubi’s Peruvian Taste is Rubi Gutierrez’s life’s work and love letter to two homes. She grew up in Lima as the youngest of six, the daughter who stayed closest to her mother and the one who loved the kitchen most. Her mother ran a small restaurant three blocks from their house, and by eight years old Rubi was chopping onions and tomatoes, learning that the pot only tastes right when the cook cares.
On school days Rubi finished homework at a corner table in her mother’s restaurant, then helped through the dinner rush. On weekends she stood at the market with a big basket, selling whatever her mother had packed in small paper bundles. When the family closed the restaurant, her mother simply kept cooking from home, turning out plates by the hundreds. “Everyone around us knew my mom’s food was real and homemade,” Rubi said. “She taught me to work hard and to make people happy with food.”
Rubi had a gift for it, and she also had a dream. After secretarial studies and a year in office jobs, she followed family ties to the United States. She spent a month in New Jersey with an aunt, making dinner and dessert each night just to feel useful, then came west in 1998 to visit a brother in Utah and felt something click. “I loved it here,” she stated simply. She took a job at Wendy’s and cried through the early days when the manager was hard on her. She did not quit. “I am a very strong woman. I learn fast. Every job I have had, people love my work because I do it right.”
Rubi married, and in 2000, her daughter Kiara was born. Years later, when Rubi divorced and money was tight, she did what felt natural - she cooked at home. Friends came for birthdays, then friends of friends. Folding tables replaced the living room couches. One afternoon, she looked up and saw a full house and a line at the door. That was the moment she decided to find a proper space.
She opened Rubi’s Peruvian Taste in 2016. The first night, every table was filled. “I was the only server,” Kiara remembered, laughing. “Luckily, it was friends and family, so they told me to breathe. We got through it.” Mother and daughter learned as they went, together. Rubi wrote her menu in Spanish because it came out truer that way. She kept the dishes she trusted and added a few more over time. She hired a small team, including a head cook who became a true friend and a prep cook from Guatemala who, as Rubi likes to tease, is now “half Peruvian.” When staff left for benefits elsewhere, they still called to say she had been their best boss. Twice a year, she shut down to take everyone to the lake for a day, or for their Christmas party. She reminded everybody that kindness is part of the job. “We never know how someone comes in,” she tells her team. “Be nice. Help them. Make their day.”
Today, the restaurant hums at lunch. People flock for the food and for the feeling in the room. Groups call in the morning and ask for a full spread on the table at 11:15 sharp. Regulars order in advance for office lunches. Walk-ins look around and say they have never seen anything like it at midday. Rubi smiles and shrugs. She believes in quality and in people. “Some days, a guest tells my server, ‘I had a bad day, and you made It better. That is why I do this.”
The flavors are Lima in full color. There is chicha morada, the purple-corn drink simmered with pineapple, cinnamon, and cloves, fragrant and not too sweet. There is lomo saltado, steak tossed hot in the wok with tomatoes and onions and served with rice and fries. There is arroz con pollo, cilantro-bright rice with tender chicken. There is ceviche for those who crave spice. There are thoughtful options for vegetarians, with vegetables or tofu standing in where chicken might be, and appetizers that can be made without meat by request. Desserts appear like treasures from home. Picarones, the crisp, ring-shaped fritters glazed with fig-leaf syrup, draw reservations the minute she whispers that she will be making them that day. “I try to teach Kiara to mix the batter, but it falls flat,” she joked. “It has to be my hands.” Alfajores arrive tender with dulce de leche, a Peruvian kiss on the plate.
Once a month, often for only a day or two, she and her family fly to Lima to deliver care packages for missionary families and to restock the ingredients that are hard to find in Utah. The service began in 2000, when Kiara was born, and it never stopped. Parents bring sealed boxes with peanut butter, Chick-fil-A sauce, a favorite lotion, a warm sweater. Rubi opens each box to check, hand-carries them as luggage, helps route deliveries across Peru.
Mother and daughter are the heart of the restaurant. You can feel the love in the way they tease each other, in the way Kiara still lights up when she talks about that first night, and in the way, Rubi talks about belief. “I always believe in God. He is first in my life,” she said. “When I wake up, I say thank you. I know what I need to do, and I know what my people need.” She does not think in fear. She thinks about the possibility. “If there is something you want to do, do not let fear stop you,” she tells Kiara, and Kiara hears it. “I have been coming to realize that as a young adult,” Kiara admitted. “Honestly, it is because of her. I have watched her jump toward everything and figure it out.”
Rubi thinks about her mother every day. She thinks about the little girl at the market with a big basket, about the smell of onions hitting hot oil, about the way a sold-out lunch says that she has done her job. She thinks about the way a daughter learns by watching a mother, then begins to stand next to her. She thinks about the next person who will walk in the door and need a good meal and a kind word. “Everyone can make a dream,” she said. “Do not think negatively. Believe it will go well. Work hard. Love people. The rest will come.”
