From Peru15 years ago, another revolution within the revolution arrived to which Madrid Fusion Foods of Spain 2025 dedicates this XXIII edition. He did it with a marked social character that transformed the Andean country from gastronomy and with a … key protagonist such as the chef Gastón Acurio. In parallel, new culinary forms emerged there that elevated dishes as popular and traditional as ceviche to a new dimension, that of haute cuisine.
At that moment in Peru, a young chef, then light years away from the levels of celebrity he would reach, Dabiz Muñoz He traveled there and knocked on the door of Acurio, who welcomed him into his home. That inspiring visit, as he shared with him on stage on this first day of the congress, forever marked the cuisine of DiverXO’s three Michelin stars. And he also made Lima a place of pilgrimage where people from Madrid continue to look for references.
Acurio, which is about to open a branch of its La Mar Cevicheriaexplained the shared passion he has with Muñoz regarding this way of preparing raw fish. «Tradition and innovation seem like two irreconcilable paths that end up converging. “La Mar is an embassy of Peruvian culinary culture in the countries where it is located,” he described before giving the keys to the most classic version of a ceviche.
The keys to a classic ceviche according to Gastón Acurio
Under the watchful eye of DiverXO, the Peruvian has explained some keys to making a good tiger’s milk –base of all ceviches–. Lime, ají limo (red), red onion, salt and cilantro are the ingredients in which to marinate minimally, for a few seconds and lightly “flashing” the fish – croaker or sea bass, for example – so that the juices are released. «Lemon does not cook, it only transforms the texture of the fish. When I was little, ceviches were made over hours because it was thought that the citrus cooked the raw fish,” Acurio pointed out. To assemble the classic ceviche dish, with the fish cubes cleaned and previously seasoned with the mixture described above, it is covered with leche de tigre, chopped aji limo, red onion, choclo (cooked corn) and chopped cilantro.
Dabiz Muñoz, attentive to the steps of someone he considers a teacher for him, has said that he is “someone from whom I have been greatly inspired.” “In my restaurants there is a lot of their work,” he added. In StreetXOFor example, they serve one of hamachi fish, in the style of a usuzukuri – raw fish in slices –, cured in salt and sugar with an Andean mojo with huacatay and chinco. To it he adds a mixture of Japanese spices, shichimi togarashi and hedgehog. The base is a creamy tiger’s milk, with passion fruit and bergamot, to which they add yellow chili and mirasol chili (yellow too, but dry), paprika oil and plantain chips with vinegar. “The latter is a nod to the flavor of our anchovies in vinegar on a fried potato,” he described.
Acurio, for its part, has presented other more contemporary forms of ceviche that it serves at La Mar, but based on tradition. For example one that they do with wild sea bass and artichoke. «When I was little, during artichoke season, at home we ate its leaves soaked in lemon juice. “I loved it,” he said about the inspiration for this dish, to which he adds tiger’s milk with artichoke puree and some fried chips of this vegetable.
Hot ceviches
Dabiz Muñoz has explored another concept of ceviche in a hot version, in which he also explores Chifa cuisine – the one developed by Chinese immigration to Peru. Inspired by all this, he has presented a dumpling with a tapioca dough, glutinous rice, wheat and dyed with cilantro and huacatay. Inside, it is stuffed with red mullet stewed with ají limo. Also take advantage of its spine and fried head. On top of that dumpling, Dabiz serves two sheets of raw mullet, and the tiger’s milk that he makes with the remains of the mullet and saffron to achieve a kind of “Mediterranean suquet.”
Muñoz, after presenting this dish, enjoyed spoonfuls of the following ceviche that Acurio presented: scallops, sea urchins and scallop corals, accompanied by avocado, chili and onion. “It’s a bomb of eroticism,” said the Peruvian.
Lastly, that of DiverXO has closed its ode to ceviche with an ‘oriental’ one with coconut milk as the protagonist. The protein, a red shrimp, has gone hand in hand with a sphere of Kalamata olive, kafir lime and a sweet and sour pickle with many aromatics. “There are few people as great, as generous and as talented as Gastón,” the Madrid native concluded before the Ifema auditorium burst into applause for two geniuses representing two brilliant attempts in world gastronomy.
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