Good Taste is a menu to eating well in the Bay Area. This week, we learn about a cooperative effort among local restaurants that could lead to your next getaway.
Three years after the star Peruvian chef Gastón Acurio opened a branch of his international restaurant concept La Mar Cocina Peruana on the Embarcadero in San Francisco in 2008, I had the pleasure of interviewing him from its transportive, boat-docked patio. Everything was perfect, including the sunshine, but he insisted that one of his greatest joys comes from messing up.
“I know my limits,” he said, “ but I love taking risks all the time. I love to make mistakes because I learn a lot.”
Yet I’ve never experienced anything but flawless food and service in the many times I’ve eaten there since, sometimes on my own dime, or, as in a recent brunch, at the invitation of the restaurant. For most of those years, that’s due to the leadership of Victoriano Lopez, who I’ve long considered one of San Francisco’s best and most interesting chefs (check his YouTube cooking show for proof). Lopez worked with Acurio in Peru for 20 years and helped him open places around the world before coming to San Francisco in 2015.
The menu’s classic cebiches, tiraditos, causas, nigiri sushi, and popular Peruvian dishes like lomo saltado remain in addition to new dishes that showcase a wide range of international flavors, with prominent Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Californian, and Andean influences. Of the new dishes I sampled, I can’t stop thinking about the Chaufa Aeropuerto, a thick shrimp omelet and Wagyu skirt steak-topped fried rice; and the California Tiradito, a whole pre-shelled sweet Dungeness crab and halibut dish that’s currently a weekly special.
La Mar also recently remodeled its interior to be more welcoming and playful, and the restaurant organized a fun way to showcase the breadth and depth of local Peruvian food. Twenty-two Peruvian restaurants in the Bay Area are participating in a second annual promotion called Passport to Peru that’s been running all month and ends on July 27, which is Peru’s Independence Day. Each restaurant offers a stamp for ordering a dish; collect three stamps to enter for the chance to win a four-night trip to Lima, including lunch at La Mar, a private VIP Pisco tasting, and a 10-course dinner at Astrid & Gastón.
For an international restaurant with 10 locations, La Mar sure does feel like it has real Bay Area heart, no mistakes and all.
Passport to Peru participants:
San Francisco
Altamirano
El Dorado
Chotto Matte
el Rincón de Jorgito
La Mar Cocina Peruana
Limón Valencia
Lomo Libre
Mariposas
Mochica Peruvian Kitchen
Puerto 27
Sanguchon
East Bay
Barranco Cocina Peruana
Limón Oakland
Limón Walnut Creek
Parada
Paradita
Peninsula/South Bay
Limón Burlingame
Limón Mountain View
Limón Redwood City
La Costanera Cocina Peruana (Half Moon Bay)
North Bay
Ayawaska Hilltop
Ayawaska Restobar
Tamara publishes the California Eating newsletter, and has just launched the Food Book Club.
