Lazarus Gastronomique

Ceviche. It’s the Peruvian dish that lives on the menus of so many San Francisco eateries, from tapas places, to Japanese and traditional Peruvian restaurants like Amasia Hide’s Sushi Bar, Inkas , and Mi Lindo Peru. Then there are other joints like fancy La Mar on the Embarcadero and the hip, loungey Destino on Market who are putting new twists on the almost 100-year-old dish with new fusion-esque ingredients.

For those of you who don’t know what ceviche is, it’s thin slices of raw fish (usually sea bass or halibut, but also shrimp, calamari or clams) marinated citrus (usually lime) juice, spices and herbs (like cilantro). It’s healthy and almost better than sushi. I talked with James Schenk, owner of Destino and Pisco Latin Lounge, both on Market Street, about his experience with ceviche, how Destino makes it unique and what makes it so damn delicious:

Ceviche is also easy to make, as James mentions at the end of the video. One night not long ago, Isaac and I made ceviche from a Costa Rican recipe I tore out of an old issue of Bon Appetit magazine. We used fresh sole fillets that we cut up into bite-sized pieces, red onion, garlic, habanero, tapatío, salt & pepper, tons of cilantro and a mountain of limes. Eaten with salty tortilla chips, this lean protein meal makes you the best kind of full. We also decided to eat brie and grapes and crackers and drink white wine. Obviously we weren’t going for a theme. Check out our handy work:

Isaac dealing with a couple pounds of limes:


A really dark photo of the finished product. It’s about 154,688,273 times better than it looks:

And here’s how the experts at Limón, a place on South Van Ness we frequent, do up their ceviche to perfection: