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Seviche The word is out on this cool, elegant tapas restaurant that's helping to warm up the Cultural District. Mon.-Sat., 5 p.m.-1 a.m.; bar open until
2 a.m.
Say Seviche To my left, floating with us on the periphery of the action, was a wandering soul who had spent a few years living in Miami. Within minutes we were friends. After completing just a few bites of the popular "fire and ice," a spicy version of traditional seviche (served brightly on five porcelain spoons), he proclaimed the juicy morsels even better than the seviche he was accustomed to at his favorite Miami shorefront haunt. Seviche, also spelled cebiche or ceviche, is seafood prepared in a centuries-old method of cooking, wherein chefs substitute the acidic juice of citrus fruits instead of cooking over heat. Up close, private jokes broke the chef's routine, audible only to us lucky few with a catbird's niche at the eight-seater bar. Engulfed by the fray, we played back as the chefs worked feverishly, laughing and teasing, bumping into one another, replicating Brownian motion like the random movement of molecules colliding under the heat of a Bunsen burner. Not a prima donna in the bunch.
When you think of Seviche, imagine a très chic nightclub in South Beach, enticingly lighted, comfortably furnished, busy but romantic. There are nooks and crannies, places to stand with a cocktail, couches to sink into, multiple groupings of tables and chairs. Wooden floors are ready for someone in stilettos to do damage on Monday nights when they clear away tables (around 9 p.m.) for dancing. Individual oil canvases by local artist Andrew Vernon reproduce old Cuba circa the Bueno Vista Social Club, while complex, up-tempo Latino rhythms mesh with everyday life. Like the Calypso at Kennywood, there seems to be no motionless frame of reference. Even seated customers appear to undulate. "Motion-averse personalities may need to reach for the Dramamine," laughed my husband, Brad, a drummer, who likes a place with chemistry. So does proprietor Yves Carreau, a French transplant and visionary risk-taker who loves Pittsburgh and says it all started with Penn Avenue. "I really love this street, love this part of the city," says Carreau, who owns Sonoma Grille across the avenue. As the building now housing Seviche was being rehabbed, he kept noticing the unoccupied first floor, wondering if it was spoken for. With only 2,000 square feet available, this space, Carreau realized, would be a perfect venue for the kind of Latino tapas food he had fallen for while vacationing in Spain some years ago. As he explained, "I've always had a thing for Latino food and cultures, and I decided I didn't want to be traditional. I wanted it to remind me of the core of South Beach, its Cuban influences, art-deco architecture, Nuevo Latino food. I had fun with it," says Carreau. "It's an exciting time to be a restaurateur in Pittsburgh. The palate has become more refined, and locals are searching for bolder, more unusual flavors. Seviche is meant to be a stopover, not a destination, some quick cocktails and a few plates." "No rules about ordering; it's a tapas bar," added the gregarious (chef) Cory Hughes, waving us from our stopover at the bar to our real seats. He's a diverse personality who could thrive as comfortably fronting a "grunge" band as he could running an upscale restaurant (we discover later that his primary gig is executive chef at Café at the Frick.) From the cache of chefs (Curiel Bame is executive chef) to a sweet, industrious roving host (co-owner Albert Torchia), friendly servers and even regulars - everyone is an enthusiast, eager to brief the overwhelmed and undereducated in all matters seviche. To aid the learning curve, little cards are propped up on the bar for ready and repeated reference. Seviche may be new to Pittsburgh, but it had a presence in ancient Inca civilizations of Peru and Ecuador for more than 5,000 years. It's close to a religion all over Latin America, where seviche comprises numerous interpretations because each region has its own variations and subtleties. "The result is a sort of pleasant gastronomic chaos, like Fourth of July fireworks performing in my mouth," mused Brad. If you're not famished, order a warm-weather restorative: a tart, frosty, slightly bitter caipirinha (pronounced kie-peer-EEN-ya) with fresh lime, and consider a Chef's Tasting, a good start for first-timers, since half the fun is waiting to see what the chef has in mind apropos to you. As our plates appeared and we speared away at our favorites, the chefs gave us a guided tour of each item. Their narratives were interrupted on cue, as if caught in a programmer's infinite loop, to answer the iterative question of the evening: "What's this?" Traditional seviche with jalapeño pepper, scallion, red onion and cilantro marinated in fresh lime will immediately turn you on to the whole concept, a wonderfully pristine, citrus-y slate with exponential possibilities. A choice of raw and semi-cooked seafood can be added as you please. Eventually, you'll start talking in numbers, as in "I'll take "1," "3" and "5." (Note: Three tastes for $18 is a good deal).
Sub-versions include piña colada seviche with coconut milk and fresh pineapple, tomatillo and curried mango. Each menu selection has multiple permutations. If you like spicy, shock your guests out of summer somnolence with the aformentioned "fire and ice" (we added conch: delicious, not flabby or tough) with habañero peppers topped with a scoop of soothing, sweet prickly-pear granita. As we eat, we think of all those hands working an assembly line as one chef fills nori rolls for Asian tartare while another squiggles on wasabi mayo and sprinkles on Tobiko caviar; a final chef implants a crisp, lacy crown for each. It's kind of like Christmas morning, working your way through package after package, one morsel after another. Just as you finish something and set it aside, another tapas surprise appears. Slow-cooked mojo crillo pork shank with a traditional Cuban citrus marinade falls off the bone into a lovely jícama butternut-squash slaw, sweet and clean against the tangy meat. Mini-ahi burgers are great with micro-greens and wasabi mayo served with a tasty plantain/malanga hash. Other treats include steamed mussels with green curry, coconut milk, carrots and fennel brunoise; and asparagus salad with grilled serrano, chayote slivers, baby frisée, roasted peppers with balsamic vinegar and fresh herb coulis. A cheese plate and a chef's surprise (a piña colada scallop) precedes the finale: tre leche (three-milk) cake and coffee, wonderful nightcaps. Back outside, 930 Penn Ave. stood lovely and stark in the cool evening air. We pleaded with imaginary sun gods to bring us better weather, and we cast our vote for more development along Pittsburgh waters. Maybe the Latino music will double as a sun dance. The valet pulled up, halting our admiration of the stunning deco exterior but not before we caught an uninhibited gentleman parting his coif in its lustrous reflection.
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Each month, Deborah McDonald jump-starts appetites with lively restaurant reviews that scrutinize who's cooking what and where. She works anonymously, visiting each restaurant at least twice before writing her column. Do you know of a restaurant you'd like to have reviewed? | ||
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