Pio Peruvian Rotissaire Chicken

The family-run Pio Peruvian Restaurant serves bold, South American flavours that many Calgarians have only discovered since it opened in 2012. Mariza Mora-Vasquez’s recipes for rotisserie chicken, stir fries, pastas and curries get the thumbs up from Calgary’s Peruvian community for their authenticity and come as a pleasant surprise for Calgarians with culinary curiosity.

“She always wanted to do a restaurant and talked about getting a franchise, but my brother and I are opinionated and we told her, ‘No way. Your food is better,’” says Mariza’s daughter Sandra Ebrahim who handles the business side of the restaurant. After immigrating to Canada over 20 years ago, she was the go-to caterer for Calgary's Peruvian community events. Mariza’s reputation sprung from making authentic Peruvian dishes despite the impossibility of finding certain key ingredients in Canada. Sandra wrote a business plan for a restaurant as a project for her CMA program at SAIT Polytechnic. It went over well with her instructors, so the family decided to go for it.