Llama Inn opened in 2015 in Williamsburg, where restaurateur Juan Correa and chef Erik Ramirez focused on modern Peruvian fare. Though Correa closed Llama Inn in late 2025, the address is staying in the family as the new South American-leaning tavern Cafe Bar J.F., opening at 50 Withers Street, at Meeker Avenue, on Wednesday, May 13.
About Llama Inn, “we found the narrative around Peruvian food [and] we had a really good run at the beginning,” Correa tells Eater. “But the world is not interested in something that’s been around for 10 years; they are interested in what’s new.” (Meanwhile, Ramirez has remained the executive chef of Correa’s other business, the Peruvian Nikkei restaurant Papa San in Hudson Yards, which opened in 2025. Correa also still runs Llama Inns in Madrid and London.)
For Cafe Bar J.F., Correa teamed up again with chef Francisco Castillo, who was chef de cuisine at the now-closed Llama San. Together they’re pulling the lens back to showcase South American cuisines more broadly — Peru, yes, but also Chile and Argentina — in a casual setting they’ve been calling a tavern.
Cole Saladino
“It is about places that you can go back again and again,” Correa says. He reflects back to when he first moved to New York City from Peru. “It was exciting to just mingle with everyone from everywhere and see this mix of things happening,” he says. “That’s what a tavern embodies.”
Cole Saladino
The Cafe Bar J.F. core menu features grilled seafood, vegetables, and South American staples. The swordfish ($36) is basted with an olive oil-white wine-garlic concoction before it’s grilled and served with yellow-eyed beans.
The menu that leans on humble dishes allow them “to push a little bit more creativity and show that culinary ambition in a certain way,” says Castillo. “At the same time, it’s very comfortable when you eat it [and ] it’s not something complicated.”
The arroz meloso ($43) uses carnaroli (a risotto-style rice) for a creamy texture, Castillo says. The rice is cooked with lobster stock, a butter created with lobster brains, and oil made from the shells, and served with a grilled lobster tail. “The dish has a very ’80s vintage look,” he says.
For sweets, Castillo is bringing back his tres leches dessert ($14) from Llama San, along with a cheese course ($20) curated by C. Hesse Cheese.
Pierre Buffet —the sommelier formerly of chef residency restaurant Fulgrances, who is now a co-partner of Greenpoint rotisserie Gigi’s —curated the wines. The list draws from regions like Argentina’s Valle de Uco, Peru’s Pisco Valley, Chile’s Valle de Itata, and European options, with a good amount of under-$100 bottles and by-the-glass options mostly ranging from $16 to $18.
The team tagged Sarah Morrissey, a Golden Age Hospitality manager — behind places like Le Dive — to develop the $19 cocktails. There’s a vodka mojito, a tapped Old Fashioned made with Peruvian chiles, and a daiquiri with purple corn falernum. The $17 combinados are two-ingredient drinks popular in South America. The pisco sour is made using a version of a Correa family recipe. He recounts how his 95-year-old mother would talk to his bartenders, telling them how her brother taught her to make pisco sours with four parts pisco (typically, the drink is made with two parts of pisco).
Inside Cafe Bar J.F. Cole Saladino
Madrid architecture studio Plantea Estudio designed the revamped 1,800-square-foot space, its first American project. The dining room seats around 56 people, with a 10-seat bar. Later, the team will open the 500-square-foot 25-seat rooftop bar.
The walls feature South American and personal touchstones, movie posters, and cultural items, including a Lima soccer team jersey and a pamphlet for a 1960s exhibit in Paris for Chilean artist Roberto Mata.
There’s also a poster for Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Together, which takes place in Buenos Aires and whose characters work at restaurants. “It captures the feeling of a city for which I think both of us are very nostalgic,” Correa says.
Correa compares restaurants to movies: “You can see the flashy movies that capture your eyes immediately, but then you become bored because there’s no substance behind it.” Correa says. “What we want is to have that slow burn where you start growing infatuated with what’s happening.”
Cafe Bar J.F. is open from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., Wednesdays and Thursdays, and 5 to 10 p.m., Fridays through Sundays. Reservations are available on Resy, but the restaurant accepts walk-ins.
Chef Francisco Castillo and Juan Correa of Cafe Bar J.F. Cole Saladino