Make time for affordable, delightful Puerto Rican eats at cozy Pikoteo.

“When I saw the smoker, I saw potential,” recalls Manuel Iguina. The driving force behind Pikoteo had his eye on several potential Northern Virginia locations when he saw the turnkey piece of equipment inside the former McLean location of Southern barbecue restaurant Boss Hog’s. “I fell in love,” he says.

The San Juan, Puerto Rico, native — best known for Mio Restaurant in DC — had an eye toward slowing down. “I wanted to be simplifying my life, coming from a background of fine dining to upscale casual. This was more like a retirement plan for me,” Iguina recounts.

Three years on, Pikoteo is still serving smoked meats, creative appetizers, and chalkboard specials every day. Tucked into a quiet back street near downtown McLean, it’s no surprise the restaurant remains largely undiscovered — even by many locals.

But that’s a shame. There aren’t many places left where a pair of diners can share three delightful courses for less than $100.

When Pikoteo opened in 2023, Iguina was its chef. Today, the food is created by a specialist who first worked for him at Mio, Roberto Hernandez. “We think alike,” says Iguina. “I can tell him [an idea for a dish] and he makes it better.”

That includes the chef’s ceviche, one of the most compelling fish dishes in NoVA right now. It’s served with taro and plantain chips, and fresh cilantro imbues the citrusy marinade with a Kermit the Frog–like hue and an herbaceous brightness that tastes like a summer day. The liquid sunshine “cooks” small cubes of tender rockfish. This would be enough, but chunks of cantaloupe and pineapple take the dish over the top.

I will return to Pikoteo for the ceviche alone. But it isn’t the only aesthetically pleasing appetizer to produce a complex mouthful at Pikoteo.

Another dish features pan-blackened calabaza squash with an oversized blob of burrata. Cut into quarters, each segment is colored like Christmas thanks to red pomegranate arils and molasses, onion-spotted green chimichurri, and crunchy spiced pepitas. Creamy, spicy, tangy, and sweet all converge in a single bite.

Those are both rare dishes at Pikoteo that aren’t embraced with smoke. The smoked meats form the backbone of the most recent menu, which Iguina says has been abbreviated due to staffing difficulties.