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Connecticut Dining | Orange

Down the Stairs, Latin With a Twist

LATIN STYLE Ola has the feel of a hip eatery in Miami or the Caribbean.Credit...Nancy Wegard for The New York Times

THERE are no windows at Ola, a Nuevo Latino restaurant that opened quietly about two years ago in Orange, and the place does not look promising from the outside. The front door opens onto one of those unfortunate strip malls that line Route 1 south of New Haven. But down the stairs — just past the fish tank — it’s another world.

The lack of a view accentuates one of Ola’s strengths: a sunny, whimsical, beach décor so well executed that it transports you seamlessly to a hip eatery in Miami or the Caribbean. And that’s before you even get to the food. Exuberant Latin music, Caribbean colors and eye-catching cocktails beckon. The back of the restaurant is a painted blue wall of “ocean,” complete with fish. Suddenly, it’s summer vacation.

The interior design is the work of Ola’s owners, Melvin and Wagner Lopez. Melvin runs the kitchen while Wagner, his brother, mans the front of the house. (It’s a family affair: their sister makes desserts, and the paintings are the handiwork of the men and their mother, Zoila.) The Lopezes are natives of Guatemala, and the restaurant’s palette of pastels, rich blues and bright oranges are borrowed from the city of Antigua, Guatemala’s capital from the mid-16th to late 18th centuries.

Melvin Lopez, who worked, among other places, at Westchester and New Haven locations of the Nuevo Latino restaurant Pacifico, offers a collection of tapas and entrées, traditional dishes refurbished with a personal twist. Such embellishments often don’t improve the food; in Ola’s case, they work.

The tierra (perfectly grilled skirt steak) and churrasco (strip steak), for example, are traditional Argentine beef dishes. But the skirt steak is served with a delicious, nontraditional rice garnished with plantains and lobster and flavored with soy sauce and scallion. The churrasco comes with the chef’s version of a chimichurri (spiked with horseradish) and a mellow sun-dried tomato-roasted garlic sauce.

Two paellas are offered; the excellent one we tried used Asian black rice flavored with chorizo, piled high with clams, mussels, shrimp and oysters. And traditional or not, the passion-fruit-coated ribs (grilled and accompanied by deep-fried fingers of yucca, doused with a very fresh, lively passion fruit salsa) are lean and delicious.

Ola’s attention to décor is reflected in the dramatic presentation of the food. The guacamole, one of the best of the tapas, arrives in the traditional stone molcajete (mortar and pestle); the waiter adds fresh lime juice and gives it a final mash before serving it with plantain, yucca and malanga chips, the latter stained a deep red with beet juice.

A very good Caesar salad, strewn with sweet plantain and deep-fried yucca croutons, arrives in a mound that’s “belted” around the waist with a band of deep-fried potato strings. (This treatment also dresses an entree plate of wild salmon and quinoa, but in that dish the band stands upright on the plate like the Gateway Arch.)

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Churrasco with all the trimmings.Credit...Nancy Wegard for The New York Times

The vegetarian quesadillas (stuffed with spinach, shiitakes, asparagus, goat cheese and sun-dried tomato) and beef empanadas (in a delicious, reddish-orange cornmeal crust) are less dramatic, but they’re both fabulous. The only tapa I wasn’t wild about was the shrimp ceviche; the V-8 juice added to fresh tomato, red onion, avocado, lime and cilantro gave the dish a processed taste that was at odds with the rest of the cuisine.

For dessert, you might try the caramel-flavored dolce de leche cheesecake (the flan was tasty but grainy). And I particularly liked the sorbets — lime, mango and coconut.

There are a few problems — the black bean mashed potatoes (accompanying the bahia shrimp) were tepid and needed salt, as did the shrimp tapas; the saffron mashed potatoes on the churrasco plate were also cool — but all in all, Ola does a great job. The food is good, and in a couple of months, that fun, sunny ambience will be particularly welcome.

Ola Restaurant

350 Boston Post Road

Orange

(203) 891-0522

olarestaurantct.com

WORTH IT

THE SPACE Ola is down a short flight of stairs in a strip mall. The interior is colorfully decorated in contemporary Latin style, with the bar in front, dining area in back. Separate room available for private parties.

THE CROWD A mix of folks, all of whom appear to be having a great time; Ola would be a fine place for children, too.

THE BAR Full bar and cocktail menu with selection of special margaritas, mojitos, martinis and sangrias. Small wine list (predominantly Spanish, Chilean and Argentine), many from $30 to $40. Most wines are available by the glass ($8 to $9).

THE BILL At $8 to $10, the tapas are a good buy — a couple of them would make a fine light dinner. Entrees are also fairly priced, at $19 to $26. All major credit cards accepted.

WHAT WE LIKED Guacamole, Caesar salad, empanadas de carne, calamares, vegetarian quesadilla; churrasco, cana (salmon), tierra (steak), black paella, bahia (shrimp), barbacoa (ribs); dolce de leche cheesecake, sorbets.

IF YOU GO Open Tuesday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m. (at the earliest). Parking in front and back.

RATINGS Metropolitan has changed its restaurant rating system to: Don’t Miss, Worth It, In a Pinch, Don’t Bother.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section CT, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: Down the Stairs, Latin With a Twist. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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