Ride the Storm: Navigating Through Unstable Periods / Katerina Rudko (Belka G...
Ceviche press cuttings 25.06.14
1. "This place is brilliant. The cooking is super-confident, rare and
interesting. I never really want to go anywhere else again.” Giles Coren “The sexiest restaurant in London”
“5 STARS. Top 50 Restaurants
in London.“
“Don Ceviche is a Top 10 dish
of London”
“The opening of Ceviche heralded the
start of Peruvian restaurant craze”
"I take a bite of Don Ceviche, theirs is
the undisputed Daddy of them all.”
Tom Parker Bowles
"A gastronomic dream"
“I left Ceviche happy and wanting to go
back or to visit Peru.”
“One of the capital’s big restaurant stories”
“Don Ceviche is a Top 5 dish in Britain in 2013”
“The dining experience of the year”
“Ceviche has thrown Peru into
the culinary limelight”
"This is cuisine with a
kick"
“Walk into Ceviche in
London’s Soho and you’re
confronted with one of the
liveliest dining rooms in the
country.”
2. 2
“Walk into Ceviche in London’s
Soho and you’re confronted
with one of the liveliest dining
rooms in the country.”
7. “This place is brilliant. The cooking is super-confident, rare
and interesting, the look of the room is great and the bar must
be fantastic in the evening, the music is lovely, the staff are
incredibly sweet and kind and even the loos are very cute. I
never really want to go anywhere else again.”
19. W4 | Friday - Sunday, March 16 - 18, 2012 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
FOOD &WINE
Vignerons Are Laying DownRoots the World Over
Wine struggles
recent tasting in London. But I
have tasted a Cabernet Sauvignon
blend from a producer in the land-
locked Ningxia region and it wasn’t
bad. I wouldn’t bet against China
producing some pretty drinkable
continues to produce wine. In-
deed, wine estates such as Mas-
saya and Château Musar in the
Bekaa Valley make richly scented,
spicy red wines.
Modern Greece is often over-
[ Wine ]
BY WILL LYONS
Pisco bar at Ceviche
PaulWinch-Furness
Ceviche: Marinating a Gastronomic Dream
Mathieu Rostaing-
Tayard, the best
young chef in Lyon,
recently sold his
néo-bistrot Le 126
to travel the world,
looking at culinary trends. It
comes as no surprise that he plans
to visit China and Japan, but his
choice to spend time in Peru might
strike some as unusual.
Why Peru? Virtually unknown a
decade ago outside of its native
land, the country’s cuisine is qui-
etly becoming the next food trend
arousing interest in the West. Cevi-
che, raw fish marinated with lime
and herbs, is the most identifiable
aspect of the cuisine, but it also in-
volves a creative blend of Spanish,
Japanese and local influences.
Last month, a restaurant bear-
ing the name of that famous dish
opened on Frith Street in London’s
Soho neighborhood. The 85-seat
Ceviche (cevicheuk.com) has three
zones—a pisco bar; an area serving
small plates of ceviche, such as
fresh sea bass with chili and on-
ions, or thin slices of braised octo-
pus with Peruvian olive sauce; and
the dining area, with its “Hero
Wall” of famous Peruvians.
The restaurant, the first cevi-
che bar in London, is the fulfill-
ment of a dream for entrepreneur
Martin Morales. I first met Mr.
Morales last fall, when the 39-
year-old Anglo-Peruvian invited
me to attend a culinary demon-
stration in south London along
with the Peruvian ambassador to
the U.K., Hernán Couturier, and 20
or so potential investors. Though
he didn’t even have a chef for his
restaurant at the time, he had
plenty of enthusiasm and market-
ing skills, which may explain why
he was part of the original launch
team for iTunes in Europe.
With his new venture, Mr. Mo-
rales has managed to blend the
three passions of his life—music,
Peruvian culture and, most impor-
tantly, its cuisine. After moving to
Britain when he was 11, Mr. Mo-
rales says he began cooking Peru-
vian food “ because I wanted to re-
gain my heritage and keep in
touch with my roots.” In his late
twenties, he worked as a DJ and
created food events to accompany
the music. After the successful
launch of iTunes, he was hired by
Disney to run the European side
of its music business. “I really en-
joyed my time there, but frankly
all of that was too big and politi-
cal, as I am more of a creative and
entrepreneurial person,” he says.
“I wanted my own business and to
be in touch with my roots, and I
was also frustrated that there was
no great place for Peruvian cul-
ture and food in London.”
In September 2010, Mr. Mo-
rales and his wife sold their house
in southwest London to help raise
finances for Ceviche, and then set
about with their business plan to
convince investors that there was
a need for such a place. Mr. Mo-
rales had to raise around €1.25
million for his restaurant, which
employs 17 full-time staff and is
located in one of Europe’s prime
restaurant locations.
Ceviche’s décor and busy atmo-
sphere—customers usually order
half a dozen or so small plates per
meal—suggests a place estab-
lished for some time. The dishes
certainly taste like a distinctly dif-
ferent cuisine, not as spicy as
Mexican or as mild as Japanese.
“We have some dishes that seduce
in a subtle way and others that
have a kick to them,” says Mr. Mo-
rales. Apart from the wide variety
of ceviche, the dishes that im-
pressed me most were pulpo, thin
slices of octopus marinaded in
chili and accompanied by a cori-
ander-infused potato cake, and a
duck confit with dark beer rice
mixed with chili and corn.
So far so good—people are fill-
ing the seats and the neighbors are
friendly. Sam and Eddie Hart, who
run several successful restaurants
nearby, such as Barrafina and Quo
Vadis, popped in while I was there
to congratulate Mr. Morales and
extend an open invitation “to drop
by any time you need to borrow a
cup of sugar.” However, launching
a restaurant in the current eco-
nomic climate isn’t without risks.
“I believe that you can do what-
ever you want if you are honest
and follow your gut feeling, but I
am not foolish enough to think I
can do it all myself as it is a team
effort,” Mr. Morales says. “Other
Peruvian restaurants will open, but
I welcome that. The real problems
will be not in the restaurant itself,
but intangible threats that may in-
volve the neighborhood, or what
happens in London, or perhaps
even the weather.”
BY BRUCE PALLING
Drinking Now
[ Food ]
22. “The flavours are clean and punchy,
the fish silky and generously portioned,
and the prices very, very right…
We need more places like this.”
23. “What is clear is that this is a bit
of a labour of love, and innovative
too…It’s very tasty…”
24. “Ceviche, the city’s first
high-profile Peruvian restaurant”
“Ceviche is
breaking out of
the “exotic” mold
and edging its
way into our city’s
everyday food
culture”
