The cutting-edge Nikkei 225
If I had to remember the password to access Wong's restaurant (Chez Wong Enrique León García, 114 Santa Catalina, Lima Tfno: (0) 1 470 6217), I couldn't even get the first word right. Maybe I should just say ceviche. Because If there is a place in Lima where you can eat the best ceviche, it is there , in that little school room, tiny and packed with photographs of Javier Wong with writers, artists and other entertainers; souvenirs from different parts of the world hidden in a disheveled shelf and four small tables with plastic tablecloths overlooking a patio where a large wok reigns.
Javier likes to go out first thing in the morning, before he wakes up in Lima, to one of those fascinating fish markets that the city hides. He carefully chooses the piece that he is going to serve that afternoon in his house-restaurant. The best is always in the hands of Wong waiting to be slaughtered in the sight of avid and privileged diners, he butchers beautiful fish with the skill of a surgeon, silent and absent, without thinking that those ten or fifteen guests who have been lucky enough to get a table are looking at gestures and hands tearing apart what the sea has given him.
Frankly, there is a before and after after trying this caprice of marine meat bathed in lime, sprinkled with a very fine and powerful red onion, and that chili able to lift the spirits of any excess of the previous day. Sometimes, trips end and begin at the corner of a few lips, in the memory of moments like the one that Wong can give you, but life goes on and the journey, which is living, also, then sometimes you look elsewhere for that round trip ticket that takes you along the paths of a distant sea and so it appears in Madrid Louis Arevalo.
The Peruvian chef of the Nikkei 225, Luis Arévalo
Today, this young Peruvian is considered one of the best masters of Japanese-Nikkei cuisine in Europe . I'm not exaggerating, among other reasons because, how many Nikkeis are there in Europe and how many do things with the delicacy that Luis has? Few, frankly. Luis also likes to cut the fish in sight of the diner, but the scenario is different. No messy living room, no dilapidated patio with a gas fire, no plastic cutlery, much less survival tablecloths; In the house of Luis Arévalo, in Nikkei 225, luxury is written in capital letters.
Other places worth stopping and time is a small restaurant located on Hortaleza street in Madrid, it is called La Panamericana and it has become fashionable. Normal. Whoever does it well deserves recognition. I'll stick with their prawn ceviche with Bloody Mary.
La Panamericana innovates with different types of ceviche