Have fish, will travel: a Peruvian chef takes his restaurants across the region and beyond to the United States.

Gaston Acurio feels he has all the ingredients he needs to become a world-renowned restaurateur. The 38-year-old Peruvian chef has spent the last decade building a chain of high-end Peruvian restaurants across Latin America from his home base in Barranco, near Lima. He is one of the leading proponents of Peruvian cuisine on the continent and he is ready to break into the U.S. market with his new brand, La Mar, a franchise specializing in dishes like ceviche, fish cured in citrus juice and spices.

Peruvian cuisine has some room to grow on U.S. palates. Restaurant-rating publication Zagat lists 41 quality Peruvian restaurants in eight metropolitan U.S. cities: Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. That trails 54 Brazilian restaurants, many of which are steakhouses. Zagat also rates 40 Argentine restaurants. South American cuisines are clearly a niche market. The guide rates 353 Mexican restaurants in those same eight cities. To put that into perspective, Mexican restaurants pale in comparison to the 1,479 Zagat-rated Italian restaurants, by far the most popular in the eight metropolitan areas.

Over the centuries, Peru has been a crossroads for dozens of cultures and its cuisine reflects the subsequent mix of styles. The Incan civilization as well as other ancient tribes created a foundation that still can be found today. Later, Spanish conquistadores arrived, bringing European influences. They were followed by waves of Chinese, Japanese and Italian immigrants who helped spice things up. You'll even find a hint of African and Caribbean tastes mixed in.

The first La Mar opened in Lima during mid-2005 after a year of fine-tuning. The restaurant mixes the casual, open-air feel of a roadside Peruvian cafe with the formal coolness of a typical sushi bar. The menu is full of Peruvian seafood standbys served in their more traditional methods as well as in new and more creative ways that often mix other Peruvian favorites. "I wanted it to be the type of place you can go with your family and friends and spend the entire afternoon," says Acurio. "I wanted to create a cebicheria that we could do here and then take to the rest of the world."

Already, La Mar restaurants have opened for business in Mexico City and in Panama City. Franchises have been sold in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Those should be up and running by the middle of next year. By the end of next year Acurio plans to have one in Los Angeles. To ensure continuity, Acurio plans to supply training to the staff of each restaurant and a head chef from Lima who has worked at the flagship La Mar. To ensure the authenticity of Peruvian tastes, all sauces and base mixtures--particularly those requiring Peruvian ingredients--will be made in Lima and shipped to the restaurants worldwide, good news for suppliers.

"It is a model to follow that will keep the quality and our philosophy the same but adapt to the local markets," Acurio says. He's very aware that the stakes of entering the U.S. market are higher. He estimates that it will cost about US$500,000 to open each La Mar in South America but the costs for the U.S. outfits will run at least three times that. "We have the financing ready but we want to wait until we open some of the others to make sure everything is ready to go," Acurio says.

Acurio is a bona fide celebrity in Peru. His cookbooks top sales lists and his cooking show airs on a local cable channel. Not too long ago, though, Acurio knew more about European plates than those from his own country. He left Peru in the early 1990s to study cooking at the Cordon Bleu, a leading culinary school in Paris. He returned to Lima with the dream of owning his own restaurant. That dream came true. He opened his first restaurant, Astrid y Gaston, in 1996 with a $45,000 investment. "I wanted to offer fine dining and for me, because of my training, fine dining was French," he says.

In the next few years he poured more than $400,000 into the venture and changed his cooking philosophy. "I found that my cooking was becoming more and more influenced by Peruvian cooking," he says. "By the fifth year the whole menu was Peruvian in some way. So we were able to lead the market along. The people followed me."

Having created a market for high-end Peruvian cuisine in Peru with the Astrid y Gaston brand, Acurio set out to do the same elsewhere in South America. He opened a second Astrid y Gaston in Santiago. There are now restaurants in Quito, Bogota and Caracas with new openings planned in Mexico City and Panama City by the end of the year. "These are tastes that can go anywhere," says Diego Oka, the head chef of the Lima La Mar, who has since gone on to open the Mexico City restaurant. "Our challenge is keeping the quality of the food the same in all of them."

The menu is catching on across Latin America. And the timing is perfect in the United States, says Marcel R. Portmann, vice president for international development with the International Franchise Association in Washington, D.C. "Ethnic foods are very strong right now," Portmann says. "Anything with a new twist, or a new concept, is in demand."

But there are potholes that many Latin American restaurants face when tapping the U.S. market. They can be pretty deep as well. There are vastly different health and safety standards with which they will need to become familiar with before they fire up their kitchens. Then there's the different paperwork and other regulations to which any foreign business must adapt when setting up shop abroad. All those factors can drive up start-up costs.

And then there's the high competition that's already out there. Mexican, Italian, Chinese, French and countless others are well-established markets in both Latin America and elsewhere. "Its tough if you do the numbers," Portmann says. "A Chilean restaurant owner once told me that to make $1 million in the U.S. he had to bring $2 million."

Acurio won't be the only Peruvian chef serving up dishes abroad. Others have, and they've done well. In the past several years, Peruvian food has begun to gain popularity in the United States. In addition to the restaurants that cater to cities and regions that have significant Peruvian populations, more and more Peruvian-style dishes have begun popping up in other communities. Andina, a Peruvian restaurant in Portland, Oregon, has done just that. Since opening in June 2003 Andina has been mentioned by Gourmet and Food & Wine magazines and was named the restaurant of the year by the Portland Oregonian.

Something new. Andina owner Doris Rodriguez de Platt is a native of Cajamarca, Peru and she works closely with her chefs--all of whom hail from Peru--to create authentic Peruvian dishes.

She attributes part of her success to her restaurant's position as somewhat of a rarity in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. However, there is also a growing demand for cuisines such as Peruvian fare across the entire United States, she says.

"There are many people in this country looking for something new to try," says Rodriguez de Platt. "Peruvian food is something they may have heard is good, and it is completely new to them and they want to try it. And when they do, they love it."

FINE DINING

South American Zagat-rated restaurants
in the United States.

Brazilian    31%
Peruvian     26%
Argentine    25%
Colombian     4%
Venezuelan    4%

Restaurants in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York
City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington D.C.

SOURCE: Zagat survey

Note: Table made from pie chart.

C.J. SCHEXNAYDER * LIMA