Zuleyka brings her flavors to town Dominican cuisine finds following in downtown Red Bank BY GLORIA STRAVELLI Staff Writer Deborah Zurlo, Brick, serves a customer at Zuleyka’s Kitchen, where Zuleyka Farro, below, is introducing the cuisine of her native Dominican Republic to Red Bank foodies. What is it that has hungry hordes lining up at Zuleyka’s Kitchen in Red Bank? Exotic spices, inspired combinations of flavors, and bold takes on familiar comfort foods have the downtown lunch crowd embarking on a culinary journey into Caribbean cuisine with chef Zuleyka Farro as the irrepressible guide. “People can come in here and try food they never had before,” said Zuleyka, whose small kitchen serves breakfast and lunch with an emphasis on specialty authentic dishes from her native Dominican Republic. “I wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary, to give people a taste of my flavors. I’m always throwing different things at them like Cajun Sweet Potato Carrot Soup — it’s one of my signatures. “I just take a fusion of flavors and join them and see how it flies.” Judging by the packed house at lunch time, Zuleyka has tapped into a desire to experience new tastes and cuisines. CHRIS KELLY staff “The response has been unbelievable,” she said. “It gets packed in here. I keep hearing, ‘We love your menu because it’s different.’ “If you combine good quality, tasty food with something a little out of the norm, they will try it. And if they find that it works, they’ll come back.” Barely in business two months, Zuleyka already has a loyal following of office, retail and brokerage workers who have embraced her native cuisine and are eager for more. “Whatever I have [on the menu], they’ll take,” she said. “It’s more than I had hoped for.” The new eatery is located at 17 W. Front St. in Red Bank. Just hang a left off Broad Street or park in the English Plaza lot and use the rear entrance into Zuleyka’s welcoming kitchen. The breakfast and lunch spot is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Plans are to stay open later once the weather turns warm and to expand into catering. For early birds, there’s a breakfast menu featuring standards like egg sandwich for $2 and breakfast wrap for $4. By lunch time, Zuleyka’s bustles; the line of people waiting to take out or eat in at one of six tables keeps getting longer. The menu features salads — from garden to couscous — and a soup and hero combo for $5.25, a salad and hero for $5.95, and a pie and salad combo for $5.95. Here, the hero with ethnic roots takes on new meaning — like “The Roman,” Zuleyka’s take on the classic Italian hero, which layers prosciutto, apple and goat cheese on a panino. Or its Caribbean counterpart, “The Cuban,” which she is introducing to Red Bank, is a classic that combines roast pork, Swiss cheese and pickle. Both are priced at $5.25. Even standards take on a new twist at Zuleyka’s. Take chicken salad, made here with apricot, almonds and peppery mayo and costing $5.50. Warm roast beef comes with roasted vegetables on pita and is topped with Marsala sauce; $6. Think you’ve heard the last word on steak sandwiches? Think again. Zuleyka combines sliced steak, pears and gorgonzola cheese and rings it up at $6. “It’s a wonderful marriage of flavors,” she commented. Wraps get the same treatment. Standards are there, but currently on the menu is an example of the new tastes Zuleyka is introducing to the area — an Island Chicken wrap filled with broiled chicken, scallions, mixed bell peppers, pineapple, raisins, and a spicy and tangy sauce, for $6. But it’s Zuleyka’s homemade and original soups and daily specials that have the downtown buzzing. “By 9:30 in the morning they start calling,” she said. “Some days I have nine soups. I started with two, then it went to three and kept expanding. I discovered this is really a soup town.” As many as nine fresh homemade soups are available daily. “Last week, I included chickpea kielbasa — it’s one of my signature soups,” she said. “It was something I threw in. It’s become that I have to have it every week. Pumpkin and pear soup flew out of here. People called and said, ‘It’s such a unique taste. Can you make it again?’ ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘some of these days, I’ll make it.’ “ A following has developed around the daily specials that show off Zuleyka’s unique “flavors,” including authentic Dominican dishes like sancocho. “The house specials are where I’m going to hit them with my flavor,” she said. On a recent Friday, the menu board listed pea soup, chickpea kielbasa soup, southwestern corn chowder with pobleno peppers and chicken sausage, and Cajun sweet potato carrot soup. Specials included Caribbean chicken, turkey chili, creamy pesto pasta, and chicken sausage with fusilli. And, she’s toying with the idea of adding jerk chicken. “Being born in the Dominican Republic, I throw in a lot of Dominican flavors,” she said. “I’m still testing the waters, still trying to find what this town likes.” Zuleyka, who has settled in Howell, takes obvious enjoyment in expanding culinary horizons and introducing the cuisine she learned to cook as a child. “Cooking had always been in my blood,” she said. “When I was 7 years old, I was thrown into the kitchen to help out. When you have a large family you have to pitch in. I became a great cook at a young age.” She emigrated to the U.S. with her family in 1967 and, after 9/11, she, her husband and young daughter took a long-planned step and moved to Florida. It was there that Zuleyka realized her dream of attending culinary school. “I needed that for confidence,” she said, “to perfect certain things. It was the best experience of my life.” But when she looked around for a business, Zuleyka decided to settle in central New Jersey and before returning had a Realtor looking for business locations. Sight unseen, she leased the small sub shop on West Front Street, and when she got back to New Jersey with her husband and daughter last June, she immediately began work on her dream kitchen. Extensive renovations to the 1,000-square-foot space transformed the dingy luncheonette into a professional kitchen with crisp, modern décor. Zuleyka oversaw renovations that included stripping the interior ceiling, walls and floor down to the framework. “We peeled layers and layers off the ceiling, floor and walls,” she said, “and we found the brick walls.” The exposed brick walls were sandblasted and sealed, a professionally equipped kitchen was installed, and the front got a tile counter and floor. The interior is accented by warm colors that complement the convivial Caribbean atmosphere and flavors. The response to her Dominican flavors has been even greater than expected, she admitted, and she is still exploring the culinary landscape. “Right now, I’m still testing the menu,” she said. “I started with soups, like lentil and pea soup, safe things. Then one day, I threw in my signature sweet potato carrot soup. It has nutmeg, a little cinnamon, a little of this, a little of that.” “I said, ‘Let me see what’s going to happen.’ People said, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ ” With Zuleyka’s prompting, it doesn’t take much to get patrons to try a new dish, and invariably they ask her to add it to the menu. Her intuition that her ethnic dishes would be well received locally has proved to be right. “It’s cultural,” she said. “People want different things. They’re not afraid to try different things. “My first special was Dominican beef stew with rice and beans. Now people ask for it. I’ve already made it three times. That’s why I didn’t want to call it a sub shop. It’s a kitchen and anything can happen here.” Now that she’s introduced Dominican fare to an appreciative audience, Zuleyka plans to keep expanding the kitchen’s menu and continue initiating her patrons in the flavors of Caribbean cookery. “I’ll keep what works and expand to new things,” she said. “Now that I know, ‘OK, they like this,’ I’m going to throw a few curves.”