The new, old Piropos invites indulgence, South American style

If the economy had been better, Gary and Cristina Worden would have been perfectly happy running one restaurant: their Argentinian dining spot, Piropos, in Briarcliff Village. But in 2007, when the Wordens moved Piropos to the Briarcliff space from its original location — on a bluff overlooking downtown Parkville and the Missouri River — they kept the original building open for private events such as wedding receptions and corporate parties. By 2009, however, much of the special-events business had vanished, so the Wordens came up with a different plan: Reopen the old Piropos as a new restaurant serving a more varied menu of South American fare.

The decision to call the new venue the Piropos Grille instead of, say, “Taste of South America” or some such thing may be confusing to some diners who don’t realize that the two Piropos restaurants are different. Parkville’s Piropos Grille is more competitively priced (dinners range from $20 to $30) and is more casual and laid-back in both ambience and service style, and the service isn’t nearly as polished as at the Briarcliff restaurant.

Still, I’ve had two positive experiences at the Piropos Grille, where dining al fresco on the beautiful patio is so relaxing and comfortable that even a diehard fan of indoor dining such as myself — hey, I don’t even like picnics, OK? — was happy to eat outside, overlooking a glade of leafy trees and, off in the distance, the rooftops of Park University’s buildings.

I took my friend Kimberlee to dinner one balmy June evening, and she insisted on sitting on the patio for a couple of reasons: “It’s a beautiful night,” she whispered after I walked in and found her sitting inside at the bar, “and the people eating inside are so … stodgy.”

I glanced at an older couple sitting at a window table, grim-faced. “The constipated people are sitting inside,” Kimberlee said, “so the fun people must be outside.”

Well, the younger patrons had definitely opted for the great outdoors, where a sunburned server named Chad was doing a smooth job of juggling several different tables on three different levels of stone patio seating. Chad was attentive and nice, although he became flustered when I bit into that night’s empanada del día and found a seafood filling — scallops and such — instead of the seasoned chicken he had described to us earlier. “Are you sure it’s seafood?” he asked.

I told him that I’d been around long enough to know the difference between a scallop and breast meat, so he hurried off to the kitchen and returned, sheepishly, with an apology and a plate of light, crispy empanadas filled with chicken. “The chef made a mistake and made some of the empanadas he was planning to serve tomorrow,” he explained.

The chicken empanadas were actually better than the shellfish versions, but both required a spoonful or two of the sauces that had been served earlier with a basket of crunchy crostini. One was a creamy pink concoction that looked like an inexpensive salad dressing (which it was, essentially: ketchup, mayonnaise, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce), and the other was a traditional Argentinian chimichurri (a blend of olive oil, vinegar and chopped herbs, onion and garlic). I love empanadas. Kimberlee, however, preferred one of the other starters, a Venezuelan corn cake — an arepa — split open sandwich-style and filled with black beans, queso fresco and spiced chicken (a beef version is available, too). It was wonderful.

I had tasted this restaurant’s signature gazpacho on an earlier visit and had been underwhelmed by the chilled soup, which was oddly flavorless and had been puréed to a fare-thee-well. “We’ve improved that recipe quite a bit,” Cristina Worden told me later. “I tell the cooks how I want it, but sometimes they go in their own direction, you know?”

Kimberlee ordered a bowl, and the potage was filled with crunchy chopped vegetables — green peppers, onions, cucumbers and tomatoes — and was just fiery enough. “But it’s more like a stew than a soup,” fussy Kimberlee said. “The vegetables are too robust.”

I thought it was very good, but when it comes to gazpacho, I can go in any direction, you know? Unfortunately for me, I had overindulged on crostini and appetizers, so when Chad asked for our dinner orders, I wasn’t hungry anymore. “We can share something,” Kimberlee announced, looking at the six house specialties: a roasted chicken with mole; grilled sausage with adobo parsley sauce; grilled pork chops with plantains; a Kansas City strip topped with an egg; an eggless grilled rib eye; and the ground-beef dish called Picadillo de Carne.

None of those seemed conducive to sharing, so we agreed on the grilled seafood platter, a pretty arrangement of grilled asparagus, pink shrimp, scallops and a hunk of flaky mahi. Chad was kind enough to split the plates for us. Kimberlee just nibbled, but I ate everything on my plate. “I’ll take this home,” she told the server crisply, “and we’ll look at the dessert menu.”

Dessert? I passed on that idea, but Kimberlee wanted to sample that night’s trio of sorbets — mango, raspberry and wildberry — which were vividly colored and intensely flavored. “I like the wildberry best,” she announced. It had a little kick to it but was effectively soothing after all the chimichurri sauce that I’d slathered over my seafood.

On the night I dined at Piropos Grille with Bob and Carol Ann, I ordered — and loved — the modestly priced picadillo, a dish that Cristina Worden explained was prepared differently around the world. (In the Philippines, she said, it’s more like a soup.) At the Piropos Grille, the picadillo is a hash, almost, of ground beef, onions, red and green peppers, tomatoes and olives. Very simple, very tasty. Bob ordered grilled skewers of beef, and Carol Ann had one of the costliest entrées: Churrasco y Camerones, a 14-ounce grilled rib eye, sided with a few grilled shrimp on a jumble of mango black-bean salsa. “It’s out of this world,” she said.

We tasted more elaborate desserts that night, including a gorgeously light and creamy passion-fruit mousse and a dark-chocolate cake layered with meringue and dulce de leche. The latter pastry was almost too rich for words, but we managed to think of a few: decadent, delirious, delightful; all in English, of course, because no one in our group speaks Spanish. Carol Ann revealed that she has dated men who speak that language, although they seem to have communicated with her mostly by using their hands.

I used my hands a lot that night myself, mostly grabbing things to eat from the different items that we ordered from this restaurant’s selection of very sexy, sensual dishes. The cuisine at Piropos Grille is almost better than sex, actually.

“I’m not sure about that,” Carol Ann said, giving the handsome general manager, Christian, a come-hither stare. “But there’s something to be said about a restaurant where everything looks good enough to eat.”