World Class Cuisine…and Fabulous Drinks

A trip to Peru is a culinary adventure, from award-winning fusion cuisine to a vast array of delicious local dishes sourced from the Andes and Pacific Ocean.

Peru is rightly recognised for it’s award-winning fusion cuisine, inspired by Peruvian and Japanese origins and developed by famous chefs, available in wonderful restaurants, particularly in Lima.

Award-winning restaurants in Lima 

Over the last few centuries, people from all over the world have made Peru their home. Chefs blend Peruvian ingredients and recipes and adapt them in their own style. The result is delicious and unique fusion cuisine including Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, African and Italian influences. It is not only fusion cuisine; Peru is endowed with many top chefs who have perfected and developed a unique Peruvian style.

Some of Lima’s restaurants are recognised (by the 2024 World’s Best Restaurant Award) as the world’s best restaurants. In 2024, Lima had 3 entries in the top 50 best restaurants:

Miado - fifth best restaurant. Opened in 2009 in Lima’s elegant Miraflores district by the well-respected chef Mitsuharu ‘Micha’ Tsumura who was born in Lima and combines Japanese techniques and Peruvian ingredients into Nikkei cuisine. Enjoy delicacies such as The Triple, a combination of avocado, eggs, tomato and chashu (braised pork belly); and caracoles al sillao (soy sauce), sea snails, with yellow chilli foam and Nikkei sauce. Micha was also voted by his peers as the winner of the Estrella Damm Chefs’ Choice Award at The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2024.

Kjolle - sixteenth best restaurant. The chef, Pía León, is famous for perfecting local ingredients. Her most recognisable dish is Many Tubers - toasted yellow and red slices of olluco, an Andean potato-like root, held together by a creamy oca paste served on a tart made from cañihua dough, a cereal similar to quinoa.

Mayta - forty first best restaurant. Chef Jaime Pesaque’s refined Peruvian cuisine offers a nine-course tasting menu, including corn with tarwi (Andean beans) and quinoa flower, and ribs with fava beans. Colourful and delicious.

Special Dishes 

Ceviche - the national dish of Peru, raw fish marinated in citric juices and salt and typically eaten as a light and refreshing lunchtime snack, particularly in coastal regions. Anticuchos are skewered beef hearts, marinated in vinegar and spices before being grilled, whilst salchipapas is a typical street food offering of pan-fried sausages and fries, served in various neighbouring countries, but who's origin was Lima.

Conchitas a la Parmesana - after the Spanish, the Italians were the largest group of European immigrants. There are many Italian bistros and restaurants. One classic dish is Conchitas a la Parmesana - parmesan cheese on fresh scallops with a splash of lime. Delicious!

Quinoa - Peru is the world's biggest producer of quinoa, grown predominantly in the Andes, and offers hundreds of different varieties. The region is also noted for its colourful cobs of corn, eaten as snacks or to accompany dishes such as ceviche, as well as its rich chocolate.

Suspiro a la Limeña - a popular dessert named after the wife of a Peruvian poet in Lima. Ingredients include cream, sugar and smooth meringue. 

Tiradito - a Peruvian/Japanese fusion dish with seafood and chilli.

Tacu Tacu - invented by Afro-Peruvians, combining rice and a beans dumpling. Served with a fried egg and beef steak, and other variations.

Aji de Gallina - a chicken and chilli dish served with rice and potatoes.

Prawn Chowder - the Peruvian version that originated in Arequipa.

Anticuchos - a spicy dish created by slaves from Africa in the 18th and 19th century, now a popular street food. 

Causa - mash potatoes, salad and other ingredients whose origin comes from a war between Chile and Peru when the dish was a staple for the soldiers. 

Lomo Saltado - the most popular meat dish blending Peruvian and Chinese influences with beef, cooked in the wok mixing Peruvian native ingredients including amarillo chillies, tomatoes and red onions

Drinks

If ceviche is Peru's national dish, then its most famous beverage is undoubtedly a pisco sour. A cocktail invented by an American bartender in Lima, it is made from whipped egg white, sugar, lime or lemon juice and pisco - a grape brandy. Perhaps surprisingly, Peru also has an emerging wine industry, with the regions of Ica, Lunahuaná and coastal Pisco ones to look out for.

The wine industry in Peru dates back to the Spanish colonisation in the 16th century - they realised the climate on the Pacific coast is very favourable for producing wine. Until recently most grapes are used for making pisco, but now there is a growing industry of quality reds and wines from vineyards on the coast in Lima, Ica, Arequipa, Moquegua and Tacna. Although restaurants and bistros might serve Chilean or Argentinean wine, trying the local Peruvian wine will not disappoint. 

There are many different beer brands to enjoy, with several taking their name from the region they are brewed in, such as Arequipeña or Pilsen Trujillo. More recently, craft beer has become very popular; the quality is exceptional. Local Peruvians drink beer from one big glass (rather than an individual glass), passing the glass around. It is all very sociable.

When you book with Veloso Tours, we provide a special restaurant guide to help you get the best from your stay in Peru.