The Queens neighborhood of Richmond Hill is far from Lima both geographically and atmospherically. This has not stopped Peruvian restaurants from sprouting up there. They line Jamaica Avenue under the shuddering elevated tracks of the J train, which by the time it gets here is nearly at the end of the line. Most are modest in spirit and unprepossessing in appearance.
Seen from the outside, Caleta 111 Cevicheria seems to belong to this category, too. It’s a narrow sliver of real estate, about as wide as a parking space. Not long ago it was a cellphone repair shop and, before that, a pet grooming service called New Happy Pawz.
Your first clue that this cevicheria’s ambitions are out of proportion to its square footage is likely to be the sight of the chef, Luis Caballero. He is easy to spot. His chef’s jacket is stiff, spotlessly white and double-breasted, and his name is stitched in black below the left shoulder. He brought the jacket with him from Raymi, a bigger and more elaborate Peruvian restaurant near Madison Square Park where he was the sous chef until it closed two years ago. In place of a toque, Mr. Caballero’s head is covered by a Panama-style hat with a wide, flat brim. In Peru, where he was born, raised and began his cooking career, this kind of hat is typically worn, with a swagger, by cowboys.
The restaurant debuted last fall. Now Mr. Caballero is usually stationed by the front window, behind a counter that runs about two-thirds of the way back, ending in a dining area with seating for about 20 people. In front of him, dozens of limes are spread out. Lime juice jolts through almost every dish that leaves his end of the counter, which is in fact the restaurant’s entire kitchen. It allows the dishes known as causas to escape the gravitational pull of the mashed potatoes they are built upon. It is trickled over choritos a la Chalaca, a platter of big, chilled mussels in their green-edged shells under a mound of raw Peruvian salsa.
And, of course, lime juice is the main ingredient in the leche de tigre, or tiger’s milk, that bathes all of Mr. Caballero’s ceviches and makes them stand out from ceviches prepared anywhere else. The lime juice is joined by ginger, the combination that makes Moscow Mules worth drinking. Further assistance is provided by garlic, cilantro, the mighty rocoto pepper and one or two other chiles.
There is corvina ceviche made with the sweet-fleshed white fish preferred by Peruvians, and there is shrimp ceviche. There is also an everything ceviche, into which Mr. Caballero will toss the whole fish market: clams, mussels, octopus, squid, shrimp and corvina. And you can have a ceviche built to your specifications, known on the menu as ceviche personalizado.
If you do have one personalized, you might skip the squid, which isn’t as appealing as the rest of the seafood. Whatever you choose will be outfitted with plantain chips, a few chunks of sweet potato and cancha, salty kernels of toasted Peruvian corn. (One of the best things about ceviche is that it comes with its own bar snack.)
Earlier generations of ceviche cooks generally left seafood in its acidic marinade for hours until its flesh turned opaque, as if it had been cooked. Like many of his contemporaries, Mr. Caballero prefers a shorter soak, just long enough to infiltrate the seafood and slightly roughen its slippery texture. The milky liquid that the seafood gives off during its bath is perhaps the most important component of leche de tigre, being the one that transforms it from a marinade into a beverage, and probably the source of its reputation as an aphrodisiac.
Some cevicherias serve a few ounces in a shot glass along with the ceviche. At Caleta 111, leche de tigre can be ordered from the menu, where it sits, alone, under the heading Hangover. It contains some marinated corvina but much more of its life-restoring liquid, so much more that it comes in a small glass bowl of the kind that usually provide a home for a Japanese fighting fish. Most ceviche connoisseurs will tell you that the leche de tigre is their favorite part of ceviche. This is how I feel about the leche de tigre at Caleta 111. It is what an energy drink would taste like if energy drinks were any good.
Other dishes that hope to live up to the level of the ceviches have their work cut out for them. One that manages it is a seafood stew, aguadito de mariscos. Rounded out with vegetables and rice, it comes to the table bubbling in a hot iron pot. The broth contains so much cilantro paste it is bright green, and it gets a quasi-Japanese flavor from strands of yuyo, the Peruvian seaweed that looks like purple fettuccine with legs.
A tamal filled with pork is another strong contender. The pork filling is fatty, which serves as a foil for warm and salty black olives. The ground corn surrounding the pork is exceptionally fluffy and sharp with dried ají amarillo peppers. They are not quite spicy, but the rocoto puree on the side is.
Sudado de pescado, kingfish in a tart seafood and beer broth, would have been more inviting if the main ingredient hadn’t been overcooked. Arroz con mariscos — rice with seafood — is cooked in beer, too, seasoned with ají amarillo and ají panca. The beer is Peruvian, Cusqueña. Following Peruvian custom influenced by Italians, Parmesan is grated over the top.
The menu names four desserts. What it doesn’t say is that they are available on weekends only.
At the back of the dining room is a screen on which surfing videos play without end. A surfboard is propped up beneath it. The walls are painted the blue that the inside of a wave takes on just before it breaks.
Beer is served in plastic cups, as is the excellent chicha morada, a purple punch Mr. Caballero’s wife, Yanet, brews each night from corn, pineapples, citrus peels and heavy doses of cinnamon and clove. The cups are out of keeping with the rest of the service pieces, which are more decorative. One plate is shaped like a whale. Another is shaped like a big whale and a baby whale swimming together. Cancha are served in a dish that looks like a spoon rest with the tail of a fish. Other dishes come in heavy, glazed ceramics or iron pots.
