Chef Name

In Pucallpa, where the Ucayali moves slow and brown through the Peruvian Amazon, the kitchen of the Manish Hotel Ecológico cooks within sight of the water that feeds it. The hotel sits inside the city, wrapped in its own gardens, and its restaurant has built a quiet reputation on one simple idea. Cook the river, and let the fish lead.

That fish is almost always one of two. Paiche and doncella carry the whole seafood menu here, from the raw plates to the grill. There is no long list of imported catch. There are two great Amazonian fish, prepared with care and turned in a dozen directions.

[CHEF NAME], Head Chef of the restaurant, has cooked in the region for [years]. [One or two lines of background from the hotel, where he trained and what drew him to Amazonian cooking.] His approach is regional and unhurried.

A doncella fillet comes pale and firm. A paiche fillet is broad and clean and white, with a flake that keeps its shape under a sauce. The kitchen reads each one before it decides the plate. Raw, the fish becomes a clear ceviche cut with lime and ají charapita, the ceviche de la región brightened with camu camu, or the house ceviche bound in a cocona cream with octopus and prawns. Sliced thin, it becomes tiradito, plain with lime or tricolor with ají amarillo and rocoto.

Over heat, the same fillet changes character again. It is wrapped in bijao leaves with wild aromatic herbs for the patarashca, one of the oldest preparations in the region. It is finished a lo macho under a seafood sauce, steamed with fine herbs, or lifted with passion fruit.

What holds the menu together is the Amazon pantry that surrounds the fish. Cocona, ají charapita, sacha culantro, camu camu, chonta and yuca give the plates their place, while the fish stays the calm center. Nothing travels far to reach the kitchen. The flavor tastes of one region, cooked by people who live in it.