Perfecto Mundo

Note: Steven Del Lima is no longer chef at Perfecto Mundo. Newsday has not reviewed the restaurant since he left.

In a perfect world, there would be more than one Perfecto Mundo.

Executive chef Steven Del Lima's Latin-fusion festival lights up the neighborhood like a gift, stylishly wrapped, presented with flair.

Following Del Lima's career is a full-flavored pastime. You've tasted his cooking recently at Black & Blue Seafood Chophouse and the departed Wild Fin, both in Huntington. He enjoys the interplay of tastes and textures, tweaking tradition and crossing borders.

It's all on display at Perfecto Mundo, a sunny eatery that brightens the old address of Maize Cantina.

Westbound drivers will spot the storefront. Eastbounders: just pull into the Northgate shopping center.

THE BEST

Sip the Patrón Reposado margarita, tinted with pomegranate juice; and sample the house-made guacamole. Savor the grilled, sweet-potato pancake, a foundation for pulled-pork barbecue, roasted corn, Fuji apple and cotija cheese, surrounded by roasted-pepper cream. Share the seafood tostada duo: part jumbo-lump crab salad, part smoky tuna tartare, separated by pickled seaweed, finished with asparagus tempura and a mirin-soy glaze. It's rivaled by the soft-corn taco trio, starring pulled chicken. Break into the crisp tortilla bowl that holds an updated Caesar salad, completed with Manchego cheese, roasted corn-and-black bean salsa and smoked-paprika croutons.

Del Lima prepares an excellent, coriander-crusted pork tenderloin with grilled linguiça sausage and spicy coconut broth; and a juicy, marinated, grilled skirt steak with banana sauce, roasted-pepper chimichurri and yucca fries. His seafood paella won't convert purists, but it's a fine-tuned, deftly cooked number, with shellfish, chorizo sausage, vegetables and saffron-tinted risotto.

Baked plantain crème brûlée and Perfecto's own cinnamon-sugar-dusted churros lead the sweets. Fine teas and coffees, too.

THE REST

Overcooked chile-glazed shrimp tostada; flat blackened mahi mahi; bland tortilla-crusted crab cake; overorchestrated, dry "impossible coconut custard."

THE BOTTOM LINE

Chef's showtime.