Ceviche - review

Well, the big news here is the SUN, which heralded the normal panic purchase of 15 different exfoliation and tanning kits. It is understood that all of these will inevitably leave me looking more stupid than if I just left it well alone and spent my time doing something constructive, like finally getting round to the vodka homebrew idea, but ahead I went with it anyway.  I spent a whole evening buffing and polishing and bronzing and glycolic face peeling and when I woke up in the morning I did feel pretty good.  Now that my body was, temporarily, a temple, I thought I’d better keep up the good work with something that wasn’t pasta.  

So I spoke to my friend who writes a seriously good restaurant blog: http://gluttons-for-punishment.blogspot.co.uk/ . She is always useful for dinner and chat, and we had both heard great things about Ceviche, so we booked and made our way into Soho on a super sunny Tuesday evening to find some pre-drinks.  We settled on Pix, the little tapas bar on Bateman Street, and somewhere I now want to go to for actual food, as it looked great. Several glasses of pricy (£7.95!) but delicious white rioja later, we judged that we were probably about ready for some food to soak it up.  Ceviche is on Frith Street, on the uncool bit near Pret, Nandos and Starbucks. It’s a lovely bright room with a bar onto the road, and it felt like being on holiday. Disclaimer: that might just have been the sunshine. The bar serves pisco, which is not only an incredible name for a drink but a popular Peruvian spirit, and we ordered a Pisco Sour and a Pisco Soho to start with.  The Sour was nice and easy to drink but quite egg-whitey in the manner of a protein shake. The Soho was spicy. I’ve had a chilli martini or two before but this was something else. We decided to move on (or back) to wine, and went for the house white, an Argentinean Chenin, which was great.

Food wise, we tried one or two from each section of the menu, ending up with:

Don Ceviche
Seabass ceviche with chilli and red onions. Delicious, classic, the best way to eat raw fish that isn’t sushi.

Pulpo al Oliva
Octopus with an olive sauce. Really unusual and one of my favourites. The sauce was unusual and the octopus was squeaky fresh.

Causa Mar
A sort of seafood and avocado mayonnaise salad. Ice cold, soft, refreshing.

Corazon
Cow heart! This excited me just for the novelty value, but it was also delicious. Like liver but more dense and gamey. 

Lomo Saltado
Beef strips, tomatoes, chilli, wok fried. One from the ‘main courses’ section and double the price of everything else, although not that much bigger. Great quality beef and that intense smoky flavour you associate with South American meat.

This place is really, really good, and with the amount of attention it’s getting it will soon be really, really full. It’s not expensive (you could easily do £25 a head), the atmosphere is great and you’re right in the heart of Soho for that ill advised last drink.

A word of warning. I have not had a hangover that bad in a long time, so do go easy on the pisco as raw fish doesn’t seem to work as a sponge in the same way as pasta. http://cevicheuk.com/