La Paisana

It sits on the corner of C. 28 de Julio and Jr. Huamanga in Magdalena del Mar, a few blocks from Av. Brasil: a plain neighbourhood room of the kind that fills up at one o'clock. The cooking is northern-Peruvian and coastal; among the dishes Google flags as popular are the mackerel ceviche and the green tamalito, while reviewers keep naming the ceviche, the grouper and the jalea. Our read: this is a lunch picantería with generous plates, not a modern cevichería — the kitchen leads and the room follows, and you have to go early because it closes at five. It opens Wednesday to Monday from 11:30 to 17:00 and closes on Tuesdays; it takes cards and parking is street-only. Curation note: the house has no website of its own, so the phone number and hours come from the Google listing; the brand has a second location, «Picantería La Paisana 2» at Jr. Libertad 1412, with no entry in the directory.