Mancora Ceviche Bar Fort Lauderdale — Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale

Mancora Ceviche is a very good purveyor of Peruvian-style ceviche. We stopped by for lunch while overnighting in Fort Lauderdale en route home. Stefano was our bartender, waiter, server, etc., and he did a great job. He explained the in and outs of Peruvian-style ceviche, as well as the Peruvian-style cocktails offered.

We started with a same bowl of delicious roasted Peruvian corn nuts, very crunchy, tasty, more of a woody taste than corn. We also ordered a couple of Peruvian (pisco sour) cocktails, one original and one passion fruit. Both were good... but, for round two, we shared a loco coco, a coconut cocktail, featuring creme of coconut, lime, amaretto, blue curacao, vodka, and pineapple juice. Sweet, but good and refreshing!

At Stefano's suggestion, we ordered the 305 Sampler, which included three ceviches (original, yellow spice, red spice), three causas (a potato based dish), and three choritos a la chalacas (mussels with pico de gallo). Check out the pic! All the food was good, but our favorites were the red and yellow spicy cheviches.

All the ceviches were FULL of seafood, shrimp, mussels, calamari, fish, etc., very ample portions of everything. The potato dishes were good, with toppings of tuna, chicken and salmon, we liked the salmon the best. The "spoonfull" of mussels were good, all the veggies were super fresh. All the seafood was super fresh as well.

We did not order it, but I got a good pic of the Trilogy of Ceviche, which was three martini glasses full of the ceviches and a plate full of fried seafood (called jalea). It looked great. Cannot personally vouch for the dish, but I'd order it if I am ever back that way again!

Recommend you stop by Mancora Ceviche for a Peruvian spin on a classic...

Terrible ceviche and 18% service charge added without any heads up. Seeing how empty the place was when we arrived should’ve been a red flag but reviews were good, so we went ahead.

I asked if limeade had sugar included or if there was option of no sugar and the waiter said that it was already sweetened but that lemonade was not sweet, so I opted for it and it was super sweet. Ceviche sampler and leche de tigre were both super salty. When you add an extremely high amount of lime to something, you have to be careful with salt. We ended up eating 1/3 of the dishes because we were really hungry but it was not pleasant. The aji amarillo and the reddish one were mixed and tasted like rubber. Spicy level was good. The classic fish ceviche has potential if it wasn’t because it was still super salty. We always tip well as we know servers don’t prepare food and I have worked as a server myself. However, we don’t appreciate being charged 18% without any heads up for a party of 2.

Overall I wish I had something else such as cabrito (which is listed as lamb in the menu but really means goat). I know living in NYC we are really spoiled with food but I can make a much better ceviche than this. I was so excited when I initially found this place but ended up so...

Reasonable prices, amazing flavors, great staff. Def worth checking it out. Been living in Lauderdale for 12 years and it's my fave place on the beach.

Edit: I had to take away a couple stars until this is addressed. So I moved out of town and came back for a visit a couple months ago. I was so excited to get some ceviche and rice from here so I raced to the restaurant so grateful that I had made it with about 15 mins to spare. I walked in and asked the server for something and she stated they were closed. Note..servers were sitting at a table and chatting away. There was still 15 mins before closing. As someone who has worked as a server before, i completely understand the desire to stop taking orders at the end of the night but its very unprofessional and you never know why someone has come in at that time. I left extremely disappointed and now that I have returned to live in the area full time again, I would like to be a regular again but I am hesistant.

Edit: I am a regular again and service has been consistently fantastic. I'm glad that night seemed to...