New York Just Got a Seafood Bar With Shrimp in Almost Every Form You Can Imagine
New York has no shortage of seafood towers, oysters, and crudo, but a new West Village spot is making the case for shrimp as the real star. El Camarón Peludo, a Mexican seafood wine bar from the team behind Taqueria Ramírez and Carnitas Ramírez, is built around a playful name, a tight bar-focused setting, and a menu expected to explore shrimp in several distinctly different directions.
The name translates to “the hairy shrimp,” and the restaurant is the latest project from Giovanni Cervantes and Tania Apolinar, the couple behind Greenpoint’s Taqueria Ramírez. Their new venture at 20 Cornelia Street is expected to serve Mexican seafood through a broader lens, drawing on influences from Mexico, Spain, Japan, France, and the United States.
Meet the Bar Behind the “Hairy Shrimp”
El Camarón Peludo is not being pitched as a giant, white-tablecloth seafood destination with an encyclopedic menu and a parade of towering platters. Its format is much more intimate: a small West Village seafood-and-wine bar with about 25 seats, mostly at the bar, in the former Silver Apricot space on Cornelia Street. The layout itself helped shape the concept.
“Initially, we envisioned a seafood restaurant, but it evolved into more of a seafood bar,” Cervantes told Eater New York. Apolinar described the space as “long and very narrow,” with a bar running the length of the interior, first-come, first-served seating, and an outdoor backyard that may offer reservations.
That scale is not a compromise; it is part of the point. A compact seafood bar can feel less like a formal dining event and more like the kind of place where you stop in for a glass of wine, order a few plates, then find yourself lingering over one more snack because the table next to you has something sizzling, citrusy, or suspiciously excellent-looking.
Cervantes and Apolinar already have a strong résumé in New York’s food world. They opened Taqueria aRamírez in Greenpoint in 2021, and the taco stand quickly drew citywide attention. The pair followed that success with Carnitas Ramírez in the East Village in 2024, and Cervantes became a James Beard Awards finalist in 2026.
For El Camarón Peludo, the duo is working with Mexico City-born chef Carlos Barrera, a Brooklyn-based chef they previously collaborated with on pop-ups. Cervantes told What Now New York that the project grew out of their shared enthusiasm for Mexico City’s seafood culture. “We both share the same interest in food, particularly food from Mexico City,” he said. “There’s a huge scene of Mexican seafood that we were really, really interested in and wanting to explore.”
Shrimp Aguachile Is Only the Beginning
The clearest shrimp-focused item on the opening menu is shrimp aguachile, a chilled Mexican seafood preparation often built around raw shrimp, lime juice, chile, herbs, and fresh vegetables. It is bright, bracing, and dramatically different from the classic shrimp cocktail format many New Yorkers know best. Rather than leaning on a thick tomato-and-horseradish sauce, aguachile gets its character from tart citrus, chile heat and the freshness of the seafood.
But El Camarón Peludo’s shrimp ambitions go beyond one cold dish. The restaurant’s name alone puts the crustacean front and center, while the broader menu is expected to include tuna tostadas and sardine tacos. The concept is built around seafood as a category, but shrimp appears to be its calling card, partly because it is familiar, versatile, and able to take on radically different flavors and textures.
Cervantes told Eater that the menu would be shaped by Mexican seafood traditions while also incorporating ingredients and ideas from Spain, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. He described the goal as “very accessible and straightforward.” That framing is promising for diners who enjoy inventive food but don’t necessarily want to decode an overly fussy menu before ordering lunch.
The restaurant’s approach is also explicitly ingredient-led. “We want to let the product speak for itself and put that forward as the center of the experience, rather than trying to invest too much in, like, dressing it up,” Cervantes told What Now New York. In practical terms, that suggests dishes designed to show off clean flavors, careful sourcing and the natural appeal of seafood rather than burying everything beneath elaborate garnish or sauce.
That philosophy suits shrimp especially well. It can be sweet, briny and tender when treated simply, but it also happily accepts smoke, chiles, citrus, garlic, herbs, crisp coatings and bold sauces. Shrimp aguachile can feel electric and cooling at the same time. A taco can make it casual. A tostada can make it crunchy. A plate of shrimp with a cold, mineral-driven wine can turn a quick bite into a full afternoon plan.
Wine, Bubbles and a Casual Night Out
Despite the shellfish-friendly concept, El Camarón Peludo is meant to be as much a wine bar as a restaurant. Cervantes characterized its wine direction to Eater as “intriguing, playful, and sophisticated,” adding that the bar will have “a really cool Champagne program.” Carlos Cohetero, a Taqueria Ramírez staff member who helped inspire the couple’s interest in wine, is curating the wine list.
The team is reportedly pursuing a beer and wine license, but wine is expected to be the central beverage focus. Cervantes told What Now New York that the bar will favor light, refreshing bottles, including sparkling and natural wines. “The food is light, and we want our wines to be cold and easy to drink,” he said. “We joke sometimes about having wines that you can give to a kid, and they think it tastes delicious. Because they’re just like, crushable.”
That language is refreshingly direct. “Crushable” isn’t a formal tasting term, but every wine drinker understands the assignment: bottles that don’t need a lecture, food pairings that don’t require a sommelier exam, and a list that feels suited to a seafood bar rather than a solemn special-occasion dining room.
Beer will be a smaller part of the program, with one European and one Mexican option planned, according to Eater. Cervantes also said the bar would “definitely bring the best michelada in.” That is a logical complement to the menu: a spicy, savory beer cocktail has the acidity, salt, and chile-friendly profile that can work beautifully with seafood dishes, especially a lime-forward plate of shrimp aguachile.
The timing is notable because New York’s appetite for seafood bars keeps growing. Williamsburg’s Bar Susanne opened in May with a raw bar and seafood-centered menu that includes a shrimp cocktail with roasted shrimp-shell aioli, while West Village restaurant Capitaine opened in June with East Coast oysters, chilled razor clams, Jonah crab and shrimp cocktail. El Camarón Peludo enters that landscape with a more focused Mexican seafood identity and a smaller, more casual format.
For diners, the appeal is not just that shrimp will appear in more than one form. It is that the team behind one of the city’s most acclaimed taco operations is taking its next swing at a seafood bar where the food is meant to be approachable, the wine is meant to be fun, and the atmosphere is designed for a drop-in meal rather than a highly choreographed evening.
New York certainly does not need another restaurant chasing the next shiny food trend. But a compact West Village bar where shrimp can arrive as aguachile, seafood comes with Mexican influence, and Champagne is treated as an easygoing dinner companion? That is a far more persuasive proposition.
