La Cevicheria Visited 5/29/2014 3 Forks

La Cevicheria Calle Stuart 7, Cartagena, Colombia

La Cevicheria was made famous after Anthony Bourdain visited while shooting his show there in 2008.  They are clearly very proud of this fact because his picture is plastered all over the walls and on their menu.  While I do respect and love Mr. Bourdain, I'm afraid that his presence most likely led to this place being overrun by tourists, the restaurant jacking up their prices and possibly causing a decline in quality.  None the less, it was still a fine dinner, it just didn't blow my mind as I was expecting it to.  

We decided to check this place out not just because it was recommend by a friend but also because it was literally next door to our hotel (the amazing Sofitel Legends - talk about 5 star experience).  So after a long day hiking and then driving 4 hours back from Tayrona, it was an easy decision to have dinner so close to home.  I will say that it's a cute establishment and actually looks more like a Greek/Mediterranean place rather than a Colombian one.  I had high hopes for the food in Cartagena based on all the amazing food I had in Bogota.  But since Cartagena has a higher tourist population, my general opinion is that the food was definitely less exciting here than in Bogota.   

True to its name, La Cevicheria is all about the ceviche and seafood.  We had heard that the portions were rather big here, so we decided to split just two dishes.  We went for our usual ceviche and grilled seafood combination.  Despite all the different and funky kinds of ceviche they had, we opted for the classic Peruvian style (~$21) and the sizzling grilled seafood platter (~$33).  As you can see the prices are much higher than what we had experienced in Bogota and frankly were boarding on NYC prices. 

The ceviche was a bit different in that it wasn't sitting in a pool of lime/acidic juices.  It looked like it had already been soaking and then they took it out and piled all of the fish on top of each other.  It was served with these giant chips that had a guacamole like spread on it.  While it was definitely a good dish, it was definitely not in my top 5 ceviche experiences - especially at that price point.  Next came the sizzling seafood platter. 

I will say that it was very impressive at first glance and upon digging through the dish there was a TON of food on it.  We weren't able to finish it and I was bummed that we left a bunch of food on the plate. There was a good variety of fish, shrimp, octopus, squid, a whole lobster and 1 crab - so a pretty impressive spread.  The best part of the dish was the highly addictive butter/honey mustard/garlic sauce - you could dunk anything it in and make everything taste delicious. 

So while I was glad I tried this place out and I'm sure it was probably a different place 6 years ago when Anthony Bourdain first went there, I wasn't uber impressed with the overall experience.  If you are staying at the Sofitel, it's probably still worth checking out since it's so close but in terms of my overall Colombia experience, it wasn't in my top 3 meals.  Total bill:  $32/pp with tax and tip