Uchu Cevicheria and Raw Bar Coming to Chinatown From The Folks Behind Suyo

It’s barren and dusty in the old Sai Woo spot, and though the shuttered Chinatown eatery has been cleared out, there are still remnants of the once-busy restaurant at 158 East Pender—namely the ghostly portrait of a founding member of the Chin Wing Chun Society (which owns the building) against the brick wall, and hanging circular lights. 

Later this year, it’ll be revamped into Uchu, a modern Peruvian cevicheria—the first of its kind in Canada, says restaurateur Ricardo Valverde.

Valverde is known for being the chef and co-owner behind Suyo, a buzzy modern Peruvian restaurant with  a “menu [that] delivers knockout flavours” in Mount Pleasant. In case you’ve been sleeping under a rock in the last few months, the spot earned the gold spot for Best Latin American Restaurant in Vancouver Magazine’s Restaurant Awards this year, so you know that what comes next is going to be good.

With all the (rightful) recognition and accolades that Suyo has received in the past couple of years, Uchu will be decidedly different. For starters, it’ll dig deep into Valverde’s Chinese-Peruvian ancestry, and highlight the country’s Chifa cuisine as well as coastal cevicheria culture.

“My mother’s side of the family immigrated from China by sea. They arrived to Peru—they were jewelers—and settled down into what is now known as downtown Lima,” Valverde tells VanMag.

“So, when I came to Chinatown, there were a lot of things that went through my mind. I went back to all these stories I tell people about my Chifa roots, and it just felt right. Being in Chinatown, it doesn’t feel like I’m an outsider. I feel like this is the right place and that I belong here, and I’m making, somehow, maybe making a full circle to my heritage.”

As for the menu, it’ll have a few contrasts to what’s on offer at Suyo.

“Suyo celebrates all Peruvian cuisine, so the whole country [from] the coast Highlands [to] the Amazon,” Valverde explains. “Uchu, being a cevicheria, will celebrate coastal Peruvian cuisine. Just the coast. Our main focus is we’re a seafood restaurant—that’s what a ceviche is.”

Diners at the bar will be treated to “ live-action ceviche,” (being able to watch the ceviche get made), and the menu will include four-to-five varieties of ceviche, four-to-five tiraditos (a sashimi-style of cuts with ceviche sauce poured over top), Peruvian nigiri, leche de tigre shooters and a seafood tower featuring scallop-stuffed prawns, mussels stuffed with pate, ceviche—of course—and then “finished with a little salsa.” 

The drink program will feature a pisco bar (with several different flavours of the traditional South American spirit), lucuma sours (lucuma is a Peruvian fruit that has notes of caramel and butterscotch) and a few classic ceviche cocktails like the—as Valverde says—cholopolitan, a Peruvian take on the cosmo.

As I drool over the bill of fare, Valverde sits on a flipped-over milk crate in the near-empty space and paints a mental picture of how the space will shape up by the time it opens in September.

That’s earthy tones with a beach-side vibe, with hanging junco reed sculptures by Peruvian artist David Goicochea—all under the design of Evoke International Design, who are responsible for the sleek interior of Suyo along with other locales like The Cascade Room, Electric Owl and El Caminos—just to name a few.

And just to drive home that atmosphere is of the utmost importance to him, Valverde declares that the cevicheria will seat just 68—even though the spot has a capacity for 110. When asked why, he says, bluntly, “I believe in quality and not quantity.”

Uchu is set to open in September.