Gentlefish of the Sea

In which we sample the offerings at a new Peruvian restaurant near the Abasto.

We have sampled the wares of chef Raul Zorilla at his three previous (and still extant) restaurants in town - Kamay Lounge, Kuro Neko, and Tori Chipchi. The first is an interesting, but not always successful Nikkei style restaurant, though I saw in Zorilla’s Instagram feed that he’s completely redoing it, and moving to a new location on Pasaje Carlos Gardel (formerly where Las Palmeras, and before that, Larco-Mar were located). The second is one of my favorite spots for sushi handrolls. And the third is a very good place focused on pollo a la brasa and pollo broaster - rotisserie chicken and fried chicken. So I was intrigued to see what he’d do with a seafood focused restaurant with adaptations of classic recipes.

Two visits in the last week or so to Grau Cebicheria, Guarda Vieja 3372, just a half block from the Abasto. First, the name - Grau is a tribute to Miguel Grau Seminario, a 19th century Peruvian naval officer who rose to prominence during the War of the Pacific where Peru and Bolivia allied against an incursion on their southern territories by Chile. Chile won and Peru and Bolivia lost a portion of their lands. Grau Seminario was known by the moniker of Gentleman of the Sea by both sides for his chivalrous treatment of captured enemy combatants. I get the ocean connection, though it seems a stretch extending it to the cooking of seafood. Then again, Zorilla’s naming of his previous restaurants has always been a bit offbeat.

The room is long and narrow. It’s really brightly lit, and mostly hard surfaces. With five large screen TVs all blaring out music videos on the first visit it was beyond noisy and distracting. On the second visit, they’d toned down the volume and the screens were just showing the album cover of whatever song was playing - far more conducive to dining. Twenty years of experience eating at Peruvian restaurants - I’ve never quite got the addiction to high volume noise in casual eateries, but it’s commonplace. It’s also common at home where my other half is often to be found with a movie or tv series playing at high volume, a music video at top levels blasting out of his laptop, and carrying on a multi-person video chat on his phone.

The menu is intriguing, and with the exception of two dishes offered for the non-seafood inclined, is all fish and shellfish. One option that is a specialty, which we didn’t take advantage of either night, is to pick your own whole fish from an array in front of the kitchen of whatever was freshest that day in the market, and have it prepared in one of two ways (42000 pesos, or about $32).

Cocktails were, of course, de rigeur, both my friend on the first visit and Henry on the second went with pisco sours, proclaimed good, if a touch sweet. I found the same with my chilcano, it was tasty, but just a touch sweeter than I tend to like. We noticed something similar with the huancaina sauce (front and center), one of two served with little nibbles of cancha (fried corn), chifles (fried plantain), and some sort of sweet, possibly plantain or sweet potato infused breadsticks. The sauce was sweet too - Henry offered that it was likely made using sweet crackers rather than bread or saltine style, a common approach particularly in and around Lima. The offered hot sauce is not particularly spicy (the back left there), but a rocoto based ajicito is available on request - though only one dish of it, if you ask for a second, there’s a charge of 1000 pesos. In fact, if you want more of any of the sauces, or for a to-go order, there’s a charge of either 1000 or 1500 pesos. And to-go leftovers if you don’t finish a dish and want to take it home get charged 500 pesos per plate. Seems a bit petty to me - I hate being nickled and dimed on stuff like that.

By the way, you can just barely see in the far back the ice-bed with all the fish on it where you go to select your whole fish if you want one.