La Pescaderia / Cebicheria / Barranco

RT Gooch · 3 Feb 2013

La Pescaderia
Av. Grau 869, Barranco - 586-8423 / 477-0966
Monday - Saturday 9 am - 4 pm and 8 pm - close
Sunday 8 am - 6 pm
Also a branch in Callao
Link to their Facebook page

RT here. Back in August, the Wall Street Journal (of all people) published an article of the Best Cebicherias in Lima. Who am I to argue? I decided to try them out.

La Pescaderia is easy to find on Av. Grau. The dining room is very large, but I am guessing that they fill up on weekends, so you might want to call for a reservation for Sunday afternoons.

I liked everything about this place: It is clean, the staff is friendly, the menu has all the classics and some slight derivatives. Everything that came out of the kitchen looked delicious... this might be a good spot for a group outing.

Sadly, our group was just the two of us, so our ordering options were more, er, modest.

I started with a Almejas Kontiki, which was for all intents and purposes a clam cocktail (see the photo). Already, I was loving the place. For our main dishes, we shared a Cebiche Mixto and a Causa topped with a soft shell crab. Both were wonderful.

The tab for the three dishes and two soft drinks came to 102 soles, so it's not cheap there, but we felt that we got good value.

They have a small tienda where they sell something, I guess. I really couldn't figure it out. The one thing that they made a very clear point about was that they sell breakfast, and had some specials listed on the blackboard.

I returned two mornings later, sat down, and threw myself at the mercy of the waiter. There were apparently a lot of choices, but he basically forced me to order the caldo de mejillones and a fried fish sandwich. Well, it doesn't take much arm twisting to talk me into mussel soup or fresh fish, so I insisted on a coffee to go with it, and we were done. Much better than, say, an Egg McMuffin. The breakfast tab ran 21 soles, including the coffee.