Mariscos San Pedro, the Mexican seafood restaurant at the historic Thalia Hall in the Pilsen neighborhood, defies expectations with seriously whimsical techniques from a trio of acclaimed chefs.
Their stunning shrimp gobernador, has become one of their signature dishes with good reason. But I’m declaring it Chicago-style, with a defining crispy cheese wrap, around velvety crustaceans. It looks nothing like the legendary governor’s taco. The original, essentially a shrimp quesadilla, has a story that’s often mistold. It was created for a campaigning Mexican governor in 1987 at Los Arcos restaurant in Mazatlán, where it’s trademarked. The lore behind the Chicago-style shrimp gobernador began in just the last few years, and may be a case of multiple discovery or simultaneous invention.
But it’s far from the only creative dish from the deep sea of culinary talent at Mariscos San Pedro, owned by chefs Marcos Ascencio and Oliver Poilevey with pastry chef Antonio Incandela. Poilevey also co-owns Le Bouchon, the French restaurant founded by his parents in 1993, and its sibling Obélix. He and Ascencio, a veteran chef of Mexican descent and 2025 James Beard Award semifinalist, just closed their beloved Taqueria Chingón after four years last fall. They opened Mariscos San Pedro last June with Incandela, who’s Italian and previously executive pastry chef at Spiaggia.
“What we’re trying to do here is showcase really good seafood techniques using Mexican ingredients,” Ascencio said.
Their style follows a formula, he added, and first, they focus on a protein.
“If we’re getting really good scallops or really nice shrimp, then it’s just a really nice salsa,” Ascencio said. “And then some kind of crispy for texture, and acid to balance it out.”
That’s the formula for their Chicago-style shrimp gobernador taco, which they made as a special at Chignón.
“We use our chipotle chimi,” Ascencio said about the electrifying chimichurri sauce. “Then some really nice Monterey Jack that we put on the griddle.”
While the cheese cooks down to its defining veiled skirt, they add shrimp marinated in the chipotle chimi infused with herbs and smoke.
“We’ll roll it up, and then make this little flauta, kind of like cannoli,” Ascencio said about the cheese-wrapped shrimp, borrowing an Italian reference. The sculptural shrimp and cheese, perched on a soft and warm house-made corn tortilla, is then garnished with cooling chunks of avocado, delicately acidic pickled onions and a drizzle of their salsa negra rich with umami.
The brandade tacos dorados borrows from the French. Deliciously deep-fried golden to a perfect crunch, they are the must-order dish for Ascencio and me. That’s even before they’re covered in a cloud of crema, bejeweled with heirloom tomato pico de gallo.
And the fluffy filling, with salt cod and potato, is from Le Bouchon.
“It comes with Oliver doing brandade forever,” Ascencio said. “You get the nice potatoey soft texture inside.”
They serve the dish, with two tacos to an order, with queso fresco and a striking avocado salsa, made with raw tomatillo, serrano chile peppers and onion salsa.
The octopus Sonoran dog, is not an octopus sausage (nor a hot dog sliced to look like octopus!), but a seafood take on the Sonoran hot dog that’s become a bestseller. The bacon-wrapped octopus tentacle began as an employee barbecue dish by Poilevey at Chingón. Now they start by slowly braising the octopus, Ascencio said, until the tentacles are tender. They’re wrapped to order in bacon that’s pounded thin, and all finished on a shichirin, or Japanese charcoal grill, until charred and crisp.
But wait, there’s more! A buttery toasted lobster roll brioche bun gets schmeared with flavorful black beans (cooked with epazote, chipotle and spices) then it all gets finished with bright pico, creamy avocado salsa, nutty salsa matcha (what’s been called the Mexican chile crisp) and a refreshing herb salad.
“I just like eating the bread sometimes with a schmear of beans,” Ascencio said. “It’s the perfect bite.”
When I took a bite of the octo dog, I thought about the ethics of eating these intelligent creatures as I always do.
Meanwhile, the Mexican Caesar salad at Mariscos San Pedro has ruined me for all other Caesars, with loaded Little Gem lettuce topped by tangy boquerones en vinagre, or white anchovies, and a tortilla crunch, made by frying broken tostada shells in nutty brown butter and toasted morita chile.
A steak tartare tostada special comes so laden with pristine meat over silky guacamole, studded with cured egg and more of that superb salsa macha, that I highly recommend ordering extra shells.
The lobster crawfish quesabirria and its accompanying lobster consommé do not skimp on the seafood, but they’re surprisingly floppy and impossible to dip.
A pair of pretty breakfast tacos has house-made chorizo verde, soufflé eggs, cheese and a single hash brown sliced in two.
Curiously they’re composed on flour tortillas from El Milagro. They made their own flour tortillas when brunch began in November, Ascencio said, but that changed because of how many breakfast tacos they sell, which they tried on corn tortillas.
“The flour just hits different,” he added. “It’s kind of more breakfasty.”
I wondered why each breakfast taco only has half a hash brown. Was it the cost of ingredients, especially the soaring price of eggs? The tacos are lovely, but higher priced at two for $16. Comparatively, the brandade tacos are two for $14. They tried a whole hash brown in each taco, Ascencio said, but it was just too much, resulting in burrito-sized tacos.
The breakfast tacos are clearly labor-intensive and carefully composed to order. But the brandade has a hidden labor cost with the “masa ladies,” as Ascencio respectfully refers to the women who make not only the dough, but the tortillas and brandade tacos ready to fry too.
A blue corn tlacoyo, filled with those terrific black beans and topped by a precious fried egg, is a deal at $14, especially with avocado and nopalitos, or prickly pear cactus salad. The empanada, stuffed with ham and cheese, may be one of the best around town with the flakiest pastry.
The guava cream cheese doughnut is the fan-favorite sweet at brunch and is generously filled, but the pastry was a bit bready. All the weekend pastries are enormous and could be easily shared, including an apple fritter, cinnamon roll and coffee crumb cake served with chantilly, or lightly sweetened whipped cream, which might be for the best, because they had dense crumbs, which was disappointing. Corn pancakes, with an outstanding side of spicy piloncillo syrup, were unfortunately dry.
The pan de elote was my server’s favorite at brunch, and the favorite of two young women who were so disappointed to learn that the dish was unavailable at dinner.
“People really, really, really rave on that,” Ascencio said about the cornbread by Incandela. Those people include me.
It’s baked and presented in a shallow Mexican ceramic dish, a scoop of honey butter melted lavishly over the luminous crust crackling with piloncillo, or raw brown cane sugar, finished with sparkling flakes of Maldon salt. You probably won’t want to share this dish.
It’s made with masa flour, as is the masa’ron, the pastry chef’s take on a macaron, which is nice with a satisfying bite, available only at dinner. You can get the popular flan anytime, but I chose the impressive mole lava cake, a hilariously huge serving baked in the shape of a cacao pod.
“The filling is our actual mole that we make here in-house for our tamales,” Ascencio said.
Incandela uses Dulcey, a newer kind of chocolate by Valrhona that’s blond, or caramelized white chocolate. He makes a lustrous banana ice cream, and a whisper-thin banana tuile, and a sweet corn crunch with a roasted corn white chocolate from Ecuador by Republica del Cacao. The dessert is a dizzying display of skills and knowledge of global ingredients by the pastry chef.
The Palabritas, a beautifully balanced slushy cocktail that’s actually a shot by general manager Cynthia Salazar, blends mezcal, green Chartreuse and maraschino liqueur as a nod to the trio of head chefs and their respective Mexican, French and Italian cultures.
“We wanted to make this place more neighborhoody,” Ascencio said about Mariscos San Pedro. Ascencio grew up in the Little Village neighborhood, but previously taught culinary arts in the Pilsen neighborhood at Chicago Public Schools’ Benito Juarez Community Academy.
The staff at the restaurant were such pros, friendly with fast service or carefully coursing out items if preferred. The space is colorful and airy with two dining rooms, both with bar seating. The return of a seasonal outdoor patio will be the most coveted seats when the weather warms.
“We’re also fortunate to have our staff who are awesome,” he added, which makes it easier for them to collaborate, because they’re big on that. “Everybody has come from such different experiences with different palates.”
And that’s what makes them great.
Mariscos San Pedro
1227 W. 18th St.
312-508-4700
Open: Winter hours. Dinner daily from 5 p.m., Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday to 10 p.m. Brunch weekends from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Closed Wednesday.
Prices: $8 (shrimp gobernador taco), $26 (octopus Sonoran dog), $14 (brandade dorados tacos), $16 (Mexican Caesar salad), $14 (mole lava cake), $16 (breakfast tacos), $8 (Palabritas shot)
Noise: OK (65 to 70 dB)
Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible with restrooms on single level
Tribune rating: Excellent, 3 of 4 stars
Ratings key: Four stars, outstanding; three stars, excellent; two stars, very good; one star, good; no stars, unsatisfactory. Meals are paid for by the Tribune.
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