481

481 Gourmet is the Nikkei-Peruvian-Japanese fusion dining room of chef Matías Gastañaga — a Uruguayan chef trained in Lima at Maido and at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market — opened in 2012 on Avenida Roosevelt and built one of South America's most distinctive Nikkei programmes. The restaurant occupies a converted 1990s villa with a contemporary glass-walled main dining room and a small open-flame robatayaki grill.

The cuisine is Peruvian-Japanese fusion with deep Uruguayan beef-and-seafood sourcing. Signatures include a Uruguayan beef tartare with Peruvian aji amarillo and Japanese ponzu; a hand-cut Uruguayan beef tataki with Peruvian rocoto pepper; a Peruvian aji-amarillo ceviche with Atlantic-Uruguayan fish; a Japanese tempura platter with Atlantic shellfish; the famous '481 maki' — a signature roll with Atlantic-Uruguayan shrimp and Peruvian-aji emulsion.

The wine list runs to 200 references with a Uruguayan Tannat core and a tightly chosen Argentine-Chilean section. The sake programme runs to twenty-plus bottlings — the deepest sake list in Uruguay.

The room runs at moderate volume; service is precision-Nikkei. 481 Gourmet is the village's most distinctive contemporary dining and the room first-time visitors should book before the institutional addresses.

481 Gourmet is the easy-first-date room in Punta del Este — quieter than La Bourgogne, less formal than Garzón, and the Nikkei-fusion register is genuinely distinctive. Book the corner two-top by the open robatayaki grill.