[media-credit name=’JEFF SCHORFHEIDE/Herald photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]If there's one thing Madison has no shortage of — in addition to protesters, dive bars and minority bookstores — it's vaguely ethnic restaurants. When a Mexican-Mediterranean restaurant goes under, and an Afghani-Mediterranean restaurant immediately replaces it, you can't help feeling there's nothing new under the sun. But fret not, Madison gourmands: The recent addition of a seldom-tapped cuisine will take your palate up the Andes, if not without a few hitches and missteps on the way. And while the mountains are all about the sweeping vistas, Inka Heritage's menu also surprises with some subtlety, sorely lacking in the college-catering State Street crowd. After making the long trek down Park Street and almost missing the entrance, which could easily be swapped with the matching Blatz sign just up the block, you might have soured expectations for a culturally immersive experience. But as soon as you step into Inka Heritage's intimate, sunny but well-coordinated color-washed walls, and you feel the guitar trio a foot away heat the room with soft, passionate Andean folk songs, your incredulity about the existence of an authentic Peruvian restaurant in Wisconsin disappears. A professional and knowledgeable, if sorely short-staffed, team seats you in a corner, lights sculpted glass candles that give off dramatic, wing-outstretched shadows and places in front of you a cup of cilantro dip and dozens of gleaming corn kernels. This may seem simply the latest gimmicky pre-dinner snack food — Peru's version of the peanut dish. But Inka Heritage takes the humble kernel and deftly roasts and salts it to a vulnerable crunch whose continually fascinating texture and taste are worth the trip alone. Inka offers a modest but distinctive drink selection to complement its mouth-watering appetizers, including a full-bodied sangria that is almost as good as eating the alcohol-soaked fruit afterward. The imported soda on tap, Inka Cola, has a light lemon-and-bubble-gum flavor that mixes well with many rice and seafood dishes offered. The Chicha Morada, "a delicious purple corn refreshment, with pineapple and apple water, cinnamon and lime" lives up to its description, although the cinnamon overpowers the more delicate ingredients. Incidentally, the menu is full of similarly whimsical nonstandard phrases, my favorites being "bite size beef tenderloin grilled at the moment," "Chicken Finger," "100% aphrodisiac" and "Peruvian specialty … from Peru." There are also an unusual number of vegetarian options for a South American restaurant. Whether this is authentic to the people of Peru or catering to a Madison clientele, I have no idea, but the simple but pleasingly arranged rice-and-avacado-based entrées were delicately cooked from extremely fresh produce. Be careful when you order, however, as attempting the Spanish names got our table the wrong dish on two occasions. Meat-eaters also enjoy a range of "post-conquest" (as the Amazon-born owner described it in an interview with The Isthmus) Incan dishes, highlights including the coastal city-caliber seafood and the aji de pollo, a dish reminiscent of chicken alfredo if it were made with an expensive, sharp cheese. The beef tenderloin, served with the inexplicable combination of rice and French fries, was lacking, however, somewhat rubbery and without much flavor. It isn't often that a desert can surprise anymore, but the dulche leche mousse does just that: Caramel, vanilla and cream are transformed into a symphony for the palate. The sweet ingredients, moreover, never become saccharine or lose the intensity of their bite, and despite the amusing addition of Andes mints with your check, it is that transcendent moment that will linger on your tongue afterward, beckoning you to climb again.