This one may be an excellent present for the season; La Mar, the world-renowned cebichería by Gastón Acurio, created a coffee table book with the history and the recipes to recreate their classics in your home. Gastón Acurio and the whole team presented this book at a special dinner event to celebrate the restaurant and its neighborhood.
Bringing the sea to the plate
La Mar is a contemporary cebichería created by Gastón Acurio in a homonymous avenue of Miraflores; back in the beginning, it brought a huge change to its surroundings, which slowly changed from a car shop mainly avenue to a culinary destination with over 50 restaurants in 13 blocks.
The concept is simple yet complex and packed with flavor. It uses what the sea has to offer with Peruvian techniques and flavors they adapt to each sea they work with, a concept that has turned into the most profitable, with nine locations in four continents.
La Mar, The Book
With a bold and striking design, the book pays tribute to the most iconic dishes from his restaurant, which is not only a symbol of Peruvian cuisine worldwide but also the first to highlight the critical importance of Peruvian food and Latin American flavors.
It features delicious and traditional cebiches, aiming to make the world fall in love with this undeniably prestigious dish. Acurio is undoubtedly the man who understood that a country’s cuisine is a cultural asset. In these nearly 250 pages, he shares the restaurant’s history, his profound gastronomy vision, and over 65 recipes to bring Peru into kitchens across the globe.
The Launch Party
We attended this magical dinner crafted in 5 steps, reflecting the connection to the restaurant’s history, neighborhood, and a family celebration with friends worldwide.
The first course was the memories, Gaston Acurio’s connection to his history in Peruvian food using ingredients of the ocean to adapt recipes, with an alfajor filled with fish paté, a butifarra sandwich with cured fish, and a tart that evoked Gaston’s childhood bakery.
The second moment was all about community, in which they told the story of the evolution of La Mar avenue with two plates, the Cebiche del Castillo giving homage to Jose Del Castillo’s family that has La Red cebichería in the same street and a Limean Poke, portraying the modern style of the city.
The third moment was all about sustainability, a staple of the restaurant’s culture, that works with fishermen to collect the species on their prime moment and uses invading species to help balance the ecosystem at this moment; they offered a finger-licking plate of prawns and a deep fried Suckermouth catfish, also known as devil fish, an invading species cooked to perfection.
The fourth stage was about the quality of the produce; they inspired this plate on the kebaps of the arab-palestinian club, but using fish skewers. The fifth moment was “The World,” speaking about the brand’s expansion and, why not, the takeover of the fish culture worldwide, represented by their garlic Peruvian grunt, a restaurant staple.
The last yet important ending was “The Party,” a celebration with their cacao mousse dessert and the spring flavors of their homemade ice cream.
The whole celebration was paired with wines by the Zuccardi family wines, which are close to La Mar and were among the guests attending this celebration.
Ultimately, the book is a perfect way to savor the essence of La Mar; it is more than a collection of recipes—it’s an invitation to celebrate Peruvian culture, the art of cebiche, and the flavors that unite communities worldwide.
