It is obvious that the location of the new Passeig Escribà Nikkei (València 249), a stone's throw from Passeig de Gràcia, is good. What is not obvious is the dining room of the restaurant that Joan Escribà has just opened, because it is not at street level. It is accessed through a metal staircase that goes down to the lower floor and leads to a huge space divided into a main dining room with tables and a bar where they prepare cold starters and cocktails (pisco is the star); another smaller room, which they have already begun to reserve for dinners or private parties, and there is still a third room, which they will condition in the future. In all of them you can choose from a menu of hot and cold preparations, with sections dedicated to sushi, temaki, tempuras, various hot starters, Josper and wok preparations.
Escribà chose this place whose interior design still seems to be in progress and which previously housed the Japanese restaurant Miul, where they say that he first thought of combining the rice dishes that he successfully works with in his Xiringuito Escribà and the Peruvian offering from La Picantería Escribà. But he soon saw that both were difficult to combine or, in other words, that paellas and Peruvian cuisine did not even match. So he decided to focus on that Japanese-Peruvian fusion that we know as Nikkei cuisine and in which both he and Mariana Silveria, his partner who runs La Picantería, have seen potential.
It was once that decision was made that it was clear to him that the ideal person to run the kitchen was chef Roberto Sihuay (Lima, 1981), known in Barcelona for the years in which he was in charge of Ceviche 103 and later also of Nikkei 103. We will remember who lost track of him, who has been living in Eivissa for several years, where he runs a restaurant and at the same time advises the Lima London establishments in London - he took over from Virgilio Martínez, from Lima's Central - as well as other establishments in Bahrain and in Lisbon. Now this chef is setting foot again in the Catalan capital, where he is thinking of settling and where for the new adventure he has trusted Marco Aliaga as head chef and in the room he has efficient and friendly staff like Alejandra Campaz, who serves us.
Roberto himself explains that his conception of Nikkei cuisine has evolved in recent years, and that his reference is Micha Tsumuru, from Lima's Nikkei cuisine Maido. “Although I have to focus on the products I find on this side of the world.” Ingredients such as the Galician blonde that he uses in a tasty uramaki, the prawns for the hot corvina ceviche or the Iberian prey that he prepares on the grill and serves with a ramen sauce, yellow chili and Japanese plum, which accompany an impeccable chaufa rice.
His vision of Nikkei cuisine today leads him to resort to Peruvian recipes but with Japanese ingredients or techniques, which sometimes serve as condiments. He plays with miso or soy sauce and indulges in rocoto tiger milk, like the one we pour at the bottom of the plate of tuna tiradito with yellow chili and achote, or in the causa, like the one he successfully prepares chicken base and crunchy purple potato.
Some of the most renowned Peruvian chefs grew up in wealthy families who were able to send their children to study cooking in Europe. Some time after returning to their country, they have freely confessed, they discovered the pride in their gastronomic culture that at first made them self-conscious. This is not the case of Roberto Sihuay. This man from Lima studied at the very expensive San Ignacio de Loyola school in his city thanks to the efforts of his mother, whose first trip outside the country was to Barcelona to work in a nursing home and thus pay for those studies.
In their menu there are nods to the most popular Peru, such as the cebiche carretillero (with the touch of squid chicharrón that they add to the classic ceviche in the street stalls). Or the picaron, the popular fritter that in this case is prepared with pumpkin, sweet potato and fig honey by his sister Carolina Sihuay, trained in Espai Sucre.
