Pan-Latin cooking was a new idea in New York 10 or 12 years ago, when upscale chefs first started dotting their menus with once-exotic words like plantain and empanada. By now this cuisine is quite familiar. So it feels a little patronizing when the servers at Rayuela, a crowded new downtown restaurant, recite their well-rehearsed routine about how the restaurant’s name means “hopscotch,” and its culinary influences “hop all over Latin America and Spain.” And may they recommend one of the special $12 cocktails? Meanwhile, the floor shakes with loud music, and glamorous patrons nestle in cozy upholstered armchairs.

Chef Máximo Tejada knows better: He’s worked at half a dozen Nuevo Latino restaurants in New York with pioneering chef Douglas Rodriguez. His menu at Rayuela is wide-ranging and impressively large, with almost 50 dishes on offer, not even counting desserts and beverages. To start, there are a dozen seafood ceviches, cured in various juicy permutations of fruits and spices, which suit the summer deliciously. Mild white hake ($15) is sliced and paired with segments of red grapefruit in a citrus broth fired with Peruvian rocoto chiles and dappled with mustard oil; a few little pieces of sea urchin strewn around the plate add oceanic depth. Tuna is paired with watermelon and lemongrass ($16), yellowtail with wasabi and avocado ($15), and the “lobster revolution” ($17) recruits grilled pineapple, coconut water, and caviar to its cause. The fish’s quality is good if not exceptional, except for one glass of bay scallops I had ($11) — the cava-based dressing and hunks of kiwi and crisped ham were tasty, but the little mollusks had a faint funk indicating they’d seen better days.

High turnover at a big, busy restaurant usually ensures freshness, but quality control is important: Past the prime moment when those scallops could be served raw, those scallops would have been fine in the jalea ($12), a big platter of fried treats that also includes shrimps, squid, and yuca. A smear of aioli flavored with mango and aji amarillo (Mr. Tejada has a generous hand with Peruvian peppers) gives the fry a spicy tang. Appetizers also include a couple of empanadas, one stuffed with steak ($10), the other with fibrous, tender skate ($9) that contrasts with the delicate doughy shell. Exquisitely sautéed chicken livers ($10), soft and rich inside with sweetly caramelized surfaces, come with golden raisins and pasty, starchy fufu.

Cuban-style roast pork ($24), three garlicky, fatty hunks capped with deep-fried pork rind and backed up, as is traditional, with fried plantain slices and a thick, savory bed of rice and beans — and, in this case, succulent pigeon peas. It’s a tasty, hardly upscale tribute to the hearty Caribbean meals that can be found for a quarter the price at authentic joints around the city (including El Castillo de Jagua, a block away). Beef churrasco ($31), a tastily grilled tenderloin, comes topped, unexpectedly, with crabmeat, which does little for the dish. Its underlay of wild mushrooms, purple potatoes, and melted cheese is a worthier foil. Big clams, mussels, and good scallops form the heart of the excellent sureña ($22), an Ecuadorian seafood stew with a coconut-milk base, a substantial kick, and a bright yellow tint from aji amarillo. It’s a bit too rich to eat as a soup, though, and no starch is provided to mop up the liquid remains of the stew after the seafood is gone.

The best of the main courses is a flavor-packed duck breast ($30), which Mr. Tejada marinates with sugarcane and serves in a fragrant sauce that tastes sweetly of unrefined sugar, like molasses or good pecan pie. The duck itself is rare and tender, its earthiness set off by a firm corn cake that sops up the sauce, and its richness buttressed by an unctuous lobe of seared foie gras tucked in a corner of the plate. After all the menu’s creativity, its desserts (each $7) are disappointing. A little disc of cooked apple comes with vanilla ice cream, and could hardly be less interesting. Tembleque, a firm Puerto Rican coconut custard, comes on a grainy corn cake; both are very mild in flavor and only faintly sweet. The accompanying basil ice cream, faithful to the taste of the herb, is the star of the dish.

Wine is not a specialty at Rayuela; instead, there are Latin beers ($6), such as Peru’s excellent Cusqueña; and a panoply of fruity cocktails, such as the Coming Up Roses ($12), a concoction of rosewater, rum, and Champagne garnished with rose petals, or a nameless slushy blast of tropical richness incorporating rum, coconut cream, and passion fruit ($11). Four types of sangria ($10) include a pink sparkling one spiked with huckleberry vodka, and a sake-based one with grapes, cucumber, and pear liqueur.

Rayuela (165 Allen St., between Stanton and Rivington streets, 212-253-8840).