Say “ceviche” and Laura Enriquez, owner of , Tequila Kitchen (1043 Mainland Street) pictures the sunny paradise of Playa del Carmen, Mexico, where she used to live. “I’m watching the blue Caribbean, and I’m sitting back in a wooden chair,” she reminisces. “That’s for me the ceviche.”

Enriquez sighs longingly as she thinks of relaxing on the beach and eating ceviche bought from a nearby stand. One of her favourite botanas (snacks), ceviche (pronounced “seh-VEE-chay”) is a traditional Latin American dish of raw seafood in a citrus marinade. Although associated with tropical climes, ceviche can be enjoyed year-round in Vancouver, especially on a dreary rainy day, when you need an injection of endless summer.

“It’s very, very simple. One hour before, you toss it [raw seafood] in the lime. You let it sit and then you add the rest of the ingredients, and that’s it,” she explains at the restaurant. She recommends serving it with tequila or chelada (spiced beer served with a slice of lime in a salt-rimmed glass).

Enriquez loves to use a Mexican fish called boquinete for ceviche, but here in Vancouver, halibut has become her whitefish of choice. The cooks at Tequila Kitchen marinate it for about an hour in a zippy mixture of lime juice, salt, pepper, and dried bay leaves and oregano. They drain it; add cucumber, onion, tomato, and chilies; and send it to the table along with a spicy salsa. It’s refreshingly authentic—with the exception of a merciful nod to Vancouverites’ more heat-sensitive palates. “In Mexico, we put more chili,” she says, chuckling.

Ceviche appears in kitchens throughout Latin America. The Colombian owners of Baru Latino (2535 Alma Street), Nicole, Carlos, and Camilo Fonnegra, make jaunts to Central and South America, returning with memories of ceviches enjoyed there. Cook Mark Fremont listens to their stories (without envy, of course), zeroes in on key ingredients, then helps reinvent the dishes. “They just bring back the basics, and we change it,” he says by phone.

Fremont describes a ceviche that plays on the Honduran passion for coconut. First, he marinates thawed, sushi-grade chopped tuna in a mixture of lemon juice and salt for a couple of hours. Then he combines the fish with a reduction of ginger, brown sugar, chilies, bay leaves, and lemon juice. The mixture is fragrant and a touch sweet, and has a kick of heat that works beautifully.

For an Ecuadorian escape, Fremont creates a ceviche with a salsa that’s similar to aji, a hot sauce that spices up milder Ecuadorian cuisine. Roasted red peppers, chipotle peppers, and charred tomatoes and onion are blended together into a smoky concoction. He puts a scoop of it with octopus, shrimp, and scallops marinated in lemon, lime, and salt, and then serves it with some crisp patacones (fried plantains) on the side. Close your eyes and you almost feel somewhere tropical.

Chef Stuart Irving remembers his first ceviche in the warm climes of Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. The dish was basic but expertly done with whitefish, sliced chilies, and plenty of acidic lime punch.

Irving puts his own nuevo Latino stamp on ceviche at Cobre (52 Powell Street) by drawing on a range of ingredients and flavours to make it “twisted and different”. A case in point are sliced local diver-caught scallops flavoured with pink grapefruit juice, lime juice, and mirin. The latter adds sweetness and slows down the curing process. He then combines the scallops with jicama and cucumber, and tops it all off with tajin, a Mexican seasoning of dried chili peppers, lime, and salt.

“I don’t want to make ceviche [sound] like rocket science,” Irving says. He admits, though, that making it is trickier than it seems. There’s an art to knowing when to remove the fish from the marinade, so that it doesn’t become chewy and the flavour wincingly intense. As well, sourcing is especially important because while the citric acid “cooks” the fish by denaturing its protein fibres, it does not kill parasites as heat does.

However, Irving assures that food-safety concerns aren’t an issue with high-quality fish. He did an exhaustive search for sashimi-grade albacore, one frozen beforehand and with a high fat content and velvety texture that would pair well with causa (potato salad) in a smooth pipian rojo (dried chili, charred tomatoes, and pumpkin seed) sauce.

If the flavours and textures aren’t convincing enough, the recent hipness of ceviche is another reason to try it. “It has the cachet of being around forever but not getting its due respect,” Irving says. “People who get into it can really research it and explore and do a ceviche tour of South America.” Fortunately, if a trip isn’t in the crystal ball, there are great ceviche options close to home.