Everything You Need to Know About New York’s Mission Ceviche

1. You’ve probably never had ceviche like this before.

Even though Chavez is half Peruvian, he didn’t try ceviche until he moved to Lima, Peru, for cooking school in his early 20s. “It literally changed my life,” he recalls. “You can have a glass of tiger milk at 10 in the morning!” The liquid, also known as leche de tigre, is a heady mix of citrus, chiles, herbs, and fish stock that’s left in the bowl after you eat the semi-cooked fish, or ceviche. And while in South America it’s customary just to slurp it down, Chavez realized, after serving the dish at the first iteration of the restaurant — a stand at Gansevoort Market — that American diners were craving something different. “They were asking if we had bread, rice, or even lettuce to sop up the liquid,” he says.

From that eureka moment, Chavez realized he could customize traditional ceviche dishes to be even more alluring to the American palate. At Mission Ceviche, many of the more traditional recipes for ceviche have been tweaked with unique ingredients: The tuna, for example, is finished with popped quinoa and watermelon, and the sea scallops come with truffle shaved over top. While the ingredients differ in these small plates, all of them share a striking presentation, with splashes of brightly hued sauces and high-design platters and plating.

The Union Square location will get even more up-close-and-personal when it comes to ceviche, offering tableside service via carretilleros, named for ceviche that’s created and sold via cart, Chavez says.

2. Their expansion has been a long time coming.

“For me, [the expansion] has been just a nightmare,” Chavez laughs. “It’s a part of the process. Brice [Mastroluca] and I are so passionate about the industry but it’s a learning process. You have to learn business, marketing, administration, and numbers. Any action you take is going to affect so many people.”

In the five years since the original Mission Ceviche location on the Upper East Side opened, the team has been focused on expansion. First, they took over the former hair salon next door, turning it into more seating and an expanded bar area.

“We can seat around 65 people [in that area]. It’s a pretty nice space for an event, too,” Chavez says.

Now, they’re gearing up to open an even larger, more central location downtown in Union Square. “Union Square is the middle of everything,” Chavez says. “In five minutes, you can get everywhere downtown [from there]. When people talk about Peruvian cuisine in New York, they’ll know to go right to Union Square.”

Much of the menu will remain the same at the new downtown location. The space itself is designed to wow, with an Italian marble fireplace and bespoke wall art made up of more than 4,000 fish-shaped “scales.”

Even with the expansion, the team — now soon to top 150 employees — still shares the same passionate and driven force behind the uptown location.

“It’s like a big family and everyone is an immigrant, so we share that in common,” he says. Most of the team is from the Americas — there are staff members from Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, to name a few — but “we also have a dishwasher from Burkina Faso,” Chavez adds.

3. Japanese influences play a huge part in the menu.

The current raw fish section of the menu includes both ceviche and Nikkei dishes, the latter being the food of Japanese immigrants who came to Peru at the turn of the last century. The cuisine features South American ingredients prepared in a more Japanese style (ceviche is actually an example of it, although it rests more or less in its own category now). And while not every New Yorker may be familiar with Nikkei-style food, or even ceviche, Chavez knew that nearly everyone would recognize sushi, making it an accessible touchpoint for the menu.

In Union Square, they plan to expand on this Asian influence even further. They’ve included a sushi bar, which will showcase the catches of the day on ice, and invested in two enormous woks to make rice, or chaufa, and noodle dishes.

“[That influence has] always been in our DNA. It’s always been there. Now, we have more space and we have more equipment in order to elevate it,” Chavez says.

Mission Ceviche only has a few desserts on the menu and if you have enough room, they are all worth ordering. But the tres leches cake has a depth of flavor that’s not often found in other varieties from Latin America, or even Peru. “We use algarrobina, which is a syrup from the Black Carob tree that only grows in a certain part of the north of Peru,” Chavez notes.

4. Come for the pisco sour …

As anyone who has spent time in Peru (or Peruvian restaurants) is aware, the national drink is the zesty pisco sour. Pisco is a South American brandy, with notes ranging from fruity to grassy, and is mixed with citrus – hence the sour – to create the popular cocktail. At Mission Ceviche, beverage captain Adrien Lefort has created a whopping eight varieties of the drink, ranging from the classic recipe made with Pisco, limón juice (here a mix of lime and lemon), sugarcane, and egg white; to the delightfully tropical maracuya version, which adds in passion fruit.

“He’s a very passionate man,” Chavez says of Lefort. “He reads and researches a lot and has more than 15 years of experience as a mixologist.”

5. … Stay for the chica morada.

Don’t sleep on the non-alcoholic beverages here, though: The restaurant is one of just a few places in New York where you can try homemade chicha morada, a jewel-toned drink made from a base of dried purple corn that’s been enlivened with warming spices and fruit. If you’ve never tasted it, you might be surprised to find that it tastes nothing like corn — it’s more like a tropical-leaning cider.

Mission Ceviche Union Square will be open daily for dinner from 5 to 11 p.m. with plans to offer lunch and brunch service in the coming months.

Mission Ceviche on the Upper East Side is open daily for lunch and dinner, and serves brunch on weekends.

Ellie Plass is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. Follow her on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).

Juliet Izon is a New York and Hudson Valley-based freelance writer who specializes in food and travel. Her work has appeared in outlets such as Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Saveur, Zagat, and New York Magazine. Follow her food adventures on Instagram. Follow Resy, too.