"This place is brilliant. The cooking is super-confident, rare and interesting. I never really want to go anywhere else again.” Giles Coren “The sexiest restaurant in London”

“5 STARS. Top 50 Restaurants in London.““Don Ceviche is a Top 10 dish of London”

“The opening of Ceviche heralded the start of Peruvian restaurant craze”

"I take a bite of Don Ceviche, theirs is the undisputed Daddy of them all.”

Tom Parker Bowles

"A gastronomic dream"

“I left Ceviche happy and wanting to go back or to visit Peru.”

“One of the capital’s big restaurant stories”“Don Ceviche is a Top 5 dish in Britain in 2013”

“The dining experience of the year”

“Ceviche has thrown Peru into the culinary limelight”

"This is cuisine with a kick"

“Walk into Ceviche in London’s Soho and you’re confronted with one of the liveliest dining rooms in the country.”

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“Walk into Ceviche in London’s Soho and you’re confronted with one of the liveliest dining rooms in the country.”

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5

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“This place is brilliant. The cooking is super-confident, rare and interesting, the look of the room is great and the bar must be fantastic in the evening, the music is lovely, the staff are incredibly sweet and kind and even the loos are very cute. I never really want to go anywhere else again.”

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“This is cuisine with a kick.”

“The sexiest restaurant in London”

“One of the capital’s big restaurant stories”

“The ceviches are sublime, at once bracingly fresh and alluring”

Tom Parker Bowles

“Peruvian food now has the most charming and dedicated ambassador in London”

“I left Ceviche happy and wanting to go back or to visit Peru.” “Delicious”

“A new embassy for Peruvian gastronomy”

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“The best place in London to try ceviche”

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“Ceviche showcases Peru’s extraordinary variety.”

“South American food is about to hit the big time

thanks to Martin Morales”

Features Martin Morales’s recipe

W4 | Friday - Sunday, March 16 - 18, 2012 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

FOOD &WINE

Vignerons Are Laying DownRoots the World Over

Wine struggleswith its ubiquity.“The trouble is, ev-erywhere seems tomake it thesedays,” remarked a

Canadian friend of mine whocouldn’t believe the number of sto-r ies she had read about countriesplanting vineyards. “Every day youpick up the paper and see anothercountry is giving it a go. Prettysoon they wil l be making wine ev-erywhere.” I had to agree.

Of course in commercialterms, Europe st i l l dominates thewine-producing map, but a quickf lick through the latest edit ion of“ The Wor ld At las of Wine” showsthat India, China, Japan, Uruguay,Malta, Luxembourg and even Can-ada, a count ry one associateswith vast prai r ies, soar ing moun-tain ranges and cold winters, allproduce wine.

For the record, Canada pro-duces some excellent wine. Alongthe Niagara Peninsula, geographyand climat e combine to producecondit ions suitable for the vine.I’ve tasted great Pinot Noir fromPelee Island, and wonderfulRiesling and world-class ice winefrom Niagara.

China, too, has a burgeoningwine industry. Domaines Barons deRothschild, owner of ChâteauLafite Rothschild, is among aswathe of overseas investors busyplant ing vines in Shandong prov-ince. How do they taste? “ It ’s tooearly to say,” Lafite’s head wine-maker, Charles Chevallier, said at a

recent tast ing in London. But Ihave tasted a Cabernet Sauvignonblend from a producer in the land-locked Ningxia region and it wasn’tbad. I wouldn’t bet against Chinaproducing some pretty drinkablewine in a few decades.

Within “The World At las ofWine” list , the U.K. is categorizedas a whole, but even on its north-ern shores, on the Fir th of Forth,in the home of Scotch whisky,hopeful vignerons have been plant-ing vines. As to whether thegrapes will make drinkable wine,we’ll have to wait a few years yet .

With all these new plant ings, Ithought it would be an opportunet ime to taste some wines not fromthe outer fr inges of the wine

world, but from its heart , thecount ries where it all began. In “ IDr ink Therefore I Am,” the phi los-opher Roger Scrut on notes thatarchaeologist s point to the areasouth of the Black Sea, in what istoday made up of Turkey, Leba-non, Syr ia, Israel and North Af-r ica, as an area that has cult ivatedthe vine since at least 6000 B.C. Adrink known as Irp was served atthe court of the pharaohs. Thiswas followed by the ancientGreeks, who int roduced vineyardsto southern Italy. They also drankwine from the Phoenician city ofByblos on the Levant ine coast ,which today sits in Lebanon and

cont inues to produce wine. In-deed, wine estates such as Mas-saya and Château Musar in theBekaa Valley make richly scented,spicy red wines.

Modern Greece is often over-looked in winemaking terms. Aswell as its more immediate eco-nomic concerns, there is also it shot , arid summer weather, whichcould be seen as an obstacle. Butsea breezes and high mountainsmake vit iculture possible. The wildand herbaceous Retsina is one ofits most famous white exports. InNaoussa, in the northern extremi-t ies of the country, red wines areproduced with an at t ract ive, lighttexture and full-throt t le, deep bou-quet . On Santor ini, the whitewines made from the Assyrt ikogrape variety are as dry as theycome, with a faint herbal charac-ter, while the island of Samos inthe eastern Aegean makes lus-cious, honeyed pudding wine.

Israel has maintained a healthyexport market with kosher wine,produced by large cooperat ivessuch as Carmel. Many of i ts indig-enous grape var iet ies were up-rooted dur ing the Muslim con-quest of the seventh century, butin the late 1970s, a range of newplant ings helped to create a thr iv-ing local wine industry. This wasled by the Golan Heights winery,whose plant ings 400 metersabove sea level inspired others tofollow. Today, it is forging a repu-tat ion on wines made fromFrench var iet ies, while the JudeanMountains, the hi lls that surroundJerusalem, are peppered withpromising small, bout ique winer -ies. In fact , there has never beena bet ter t ime to explore the an-cient wor ld of winemaking.

[Wine ]

BYWILL LYONS

Pisco bar at Ceviche

PaulWinch-Furness

Ceviche: Marinating a GastronomicDreamMathieu Rostaing-Tayard, the bestyoung chef in Lyon,recent ly sold hisnéo-bist rot Le 126to t ravel the wor ld,

looking at culinary t rends. Itcomes as no surprise that he plansto visit China and Japan, but hischoice to spend t ime in Peru mightst rike some as unusual.

Why Peru? Virtually unknown adecade ago outside of its nat iveland, the country’s cuisine is qui-et ly becoming the next food t rendarousing interest in the West. Cevi-che, raw fish marinated with limeand herbs, is the most ident if iableaspect of the cuisine, but it also in-volves a creative blend of Spanish,Japanese and local inf luences.

Last month, a restaurant bear-ing the name of that famous dishopened on Frith Street in London’sSoho neighborhood. The 85-seatCeviche (cevicheuk.com) has threezones—a pisco bar; an area servingsmall plates of ceviche, such asfresh sea bass with chili and on-ions, or thin slices of braised octo-pus with Peruvian olive sauce; andthe dining area, with its “HeroWall” of famous Peruvians.

The restaurant , the first cevi-che bar in London, is the fulf i ll-ment of a dream for entrepreneur

Mart in Morales. I f irst met Mr.Morales last fall, when the 39-year-old Anglo-Peruvian invitedme to at tend a culinary demon-strat ion in south London alongwith the Peruvian ambassador tothe U.K., Hernán Couturier, and 20or so potent ial investors. Thoughhe didn’t even have a chef for hisrestaurant at the t ime, he hadplenty of enthusiasm and market -ing skil ls, which may explain whyhe was part of the original launchteam for iTunes in Europe.

With his new venture, Mr. Mo-rales has managed to blend thethree passions of his life—music,Peruvian culture and, most impor-

tant ly, its cuisine. After moving toBritain when he was 11, Mr. Mo-rales says he began cooking Peru-vian food “ because I wanted to re-gain my her itage and keep intouch with my roots.” In his latetwent ies, he worked as a DJ andcreated food events to accompanythe music. After the successfullaunch of iTunes, he was hired byDisney to run the European sideof its music business. “ I really en-joyed my t ime there, but franklyall of that was too big and polit i-cal, as I am more of a creat ive andentrepreneur ial person,” he says.“ I wanted my own business and tobe in touch with my roots, and I

was also frust rated that there wasno great place for Peruvian cul-ture and food in London.”

In September 2010, Mr. Mo-rales and his wife sold their housein southwest London to help raisefinances for Ceviche, and then setabout with their business plan toconvince investors that there wasa need for such a place. Mr. Mo-rales had to raise around €1.25million for his restaurant , whichemploys 17 ful l-t ime staff and islocated in one of Europe’s pr imerestaurant locat ions.

Ceviche’s décor and busy atmo-sphere—customers usually orderhalf a dozen or so small plates per

meal—suggests a place estab-lished for some t ime. The dishescertainly taste like a dist inct ly dif-ferent cuisine, not as spicy asMexican or as mild as Japanese.“We have some dishes that seducein a subt le way and others thathave a kick to them,” says Mr. Mo-rales. Apar t from the wide var ietyof ceviche, the dishes that im-pressed me most were pulpo, thinslices of octopus marinaded inchili and accompanied by a cori-ander-infused potato cake, and aduck conf it with dark beer r icemixed with chi li and corn.

So far so good—people are f il l-ing the seats and the neighbors arefriendly. Sam and Eddie Hart, whorun several successful restaurantsnearby, such as Barrafina and QuoVadis, popped in while I was thereto congratulate Mr. Morales andextend an open invitat ion “ to dropby any time you need to borrow acup of sugar.” However, launchinga restaurant in the current eco-nomic climate isn’t without risks.“ I believe that you can do what-ever you want if you are honestand follow your gut feeling, but Iam not foolish enough to think Ican do it all myself as it is a teameffort ,” Mr. Morales says. “OtherPeruvian restaurants will open, butI welcome that . The real problemswill be not in the restaurant itself,but intangible threats that may in-volve the neighborhood, or whathappens in London, or perhapseven the weather.”

BY BRUCEPALLING

‘Every day youpickup thepaperand see anothercountry is giving it a go,’ aCanadian friend remarked.

Chanson Rouge 2010Clos de Gat,Judean Hills, IsraelPrice: £10 or €12

This winery takes itsname fromthe Frenchword Clos, meaning anenclosed or walledvineyard, and Gat,which is Hebrew forwine press. One ofIsrael’s best-knownestates, it is ownedby winemaker EyalRotem, who trained atGiaconda in Australia.This wine is a blendof Syrah, MourvèdreandMerlot, and sitsin the glass with adark purple color.Black- and red-berryaromatics dominatethe nose. Perfect fora winter’s night.

Quinta do Seival2006, Seival Estate,Campanha, BrazilPrice: £17 or €20

When I think of Brazil, Itend to think of thebeaches in Rio deJ aneiro and its silkyfootball teammorethan its winemakingprowess. But sincethe Portuguese arrivedthere in themid-16thcentury, there has beenawine culture. Thisred wine, a blend ofTouriga Nacional andTinta Roriz made onthe border withUruguay, is an absolutegem for the price. Onthe palate it offers rich,smooth, velvety fruitflavors andwarmingnotes of plumand fig.

Château Musar 2004Bekaa Valley,LebanonPrice: £23 or €28

ChâteauMusar hasfor many years heldaudience with thoselooking for offbeatwine fromunlikelywine-producingcountries, in this caseLebanon. Thanks toproprietor SergeHochar, this classic,exotically scented winehas a cult following.A blend of CabernetSauvignon, Cinsaultand Carignan, it hasbeen said that no twobottles taste the same.This wine’s appeal isits notes of driedleather, maturecherries and prunes.

Drinking Now

BibendumWineLtd.(Quintado

Seival)

[ Food ]

“Super-healthy, delicious and unlike anything you’ve had before.”

“Ceviche: Hottest food trend”

“Leads the way in the

latest foodie trend.”

“Restaurant of the Week”

“The flavours are clean and punchy, the fish silky and generously portioned, and the prices very, very right…We need more places like this.”

“What is clear is that this is a bit of a labour of love, and innovative too…It’s very tasty…”

“Ceviche, the city’s first high-profile Peruvian restaurant”

“Ceviche is breaking out of

the “exotic” mold and edging its

way into our city’s everyday food

culture”

“Predictions and recipes (from…Ceviche) for the 2013 food fashions you can’t ignore”

“Martin Morales: The new food Pioneer”