The craze for all things Peruvian may have died down since its peak a couple of years ago, but this London showcase is still a great place for those either already acquainted with South American cooking or looking to try it for the first time.
Peruvian food "is the result of a complex ethnicity, Native American, Spanish, African, European and Asian, working on local produce - seafood, corn, peppers, potatoes" and can, therefore, "seem a hard cuisine for outsiders to read", says David Sexton in the London Evening Standard.
Yet Ceviche owner Martin Morales and head chef Alejandro Bello have addressed this problem by recasting Peruvian food as, in effect, tapas. And while this can add up to quite a hefty bill, "it does allow you to explore a bit further than would otherwise be possible".
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
Obviously the star of the show is ceviche itself and the restaurant does "a good job of stressing the variety of which the dish is capable," says The Guardian.
The "fleshy cuts of sea bass soaked in tongue-tingling leche de tigre are as famous as Francis Bacon in Soho" and go superbly with corn cakes, fresh and vibrant salads packed with avocado and lightly spiced chicken dishes, says Time Out.
That said, there is far more here than just fish, with the menu including slow-cooked beef heart, duck confit with coriander rice cooked in beer and strips of wok-cooked beef in a soy "saltado" sauce.
Of course, no Peruvian dining experience would be complete without the country's national drink, pisco, here best served in the form of a pisco sour, Ceviche's signature cocktail, "a shortish, frothy blast of deliciousness, somewhere between eggnog and a margarita, that has to be the second most addictive thing ever to come out of Peru", says The Independent.
Ceviche is at 17 Frith Street, Soho, London
