Today Monday Sept 29, 2008; Peruvian International celebrity chef Gaston opens La Mar Cebicheria Peruana to the United States in San Francisco. I will be at this grand public opening tonight with my party at 7:30PM for drinks at their new posh Peruvian Pisco Bar (1st bar of this type in the United States) and then dinner!
Below is the address & phone info. If you can't get dinner reservation tonight, ask for seating at their brand new Cebiche Peruano Bar (1st Peruvian Cebiche bar in the United States). It is my understanding, since the last 2-week, La Mar is sold out for opening day! But you might be able to get seating past 9:00PM tonight?
Quite a few of us will be there tonight, so please joins us for dinner. Or just hangout at the Pisco Bar for drinks.
Address & Phone:
La Mar Cebicheria Peruana
Categories: Peruvian, Seafood
Neighborhood: Embarcadero
Pier 1 1/2
San Francisco, CA 94111
Reservations (415) 397-8880
A spectacular few of Gaston's La Mar Cebicheria Peruana in the Embarcadero on 1-1/2 in San Francisco, California USA from the Bay.
Here is the original post and an update of a respected San Francisco restaurant critic regarding his observation of this high profile restaurant.
Hangover Observations: La Mar Cebicheria's Soft Opening
Tuesday, September 16, 2008, by Paolo on ESF
Last night, we had the good fortune to take a sneak peek at La Mar Cebicheria Peruanaat one of the restaurant's soft opening rehearsal dinners. With the ceviche and pisco flowing, here then, are some preliminary observations from last night, the night that was:
1) First, the news. The opening, originally scheduled for tomorrow, has been pushed back to Monday Sept 29, 2008. The delay is mainly due to finishing off the construction and coordinating with Gaston Acurio's schedule, because the La Mar head honcho is hoping to attend the debut.
2)Since it was a soft opening, we'll hold off on the food comments (though for a test run, both the FOH and BOH were running rather smoothly), but the space itself—a 100 year-old building on Pier 1.5—is a unique one and still coming together. There are basically three distinct areas: the dining room, where high ceilings make for good acoustics while Latin music and palm trees make for a festive, if slightly cheesy, environs; the ceviche bar that wraps around the kitchen and spills into the entry area with lots of bar seats there (clearly expecting big crowds); and finally, another more self-contained bar area in the rear along the Embarcadero. Plus, that patio.
3) A word about the bathrooms: unlike the majority of SF restaurants, it looks like some thought/design was put into the restrooms at La Mar, which we can appreciate. It's the little things sometimes.
4)Prices—at least on the incipient version of the menu—were surprisingly reasonable for a celeb chef endeavor. Most dishes were in the mid-teens, with only two entrees over $25. The wine list, in particular, had a good number of moderately-priced bottles and glasses. The pisco-centric cocktails were mostly $10.
5) At least in its scope, the place reminded us a lot of the Slanted Door, being an ambitious restaurant that's going to try to elevate a relatively-unfamiliar cuisine to a new level in the city and in America. La Mar has already been pegged as Peruvian cuisine's ambassador by national media.