Peru once again dominates Latin America’s restaurant rankings
Nine Lima locales — including the top two — feature in 2016's Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants list.
No other city has as many eateries in the 2016 rankings, sponsored by San Pellegrino.
Latin America has a culinary capital and it is Lima. That is the unavoidable conclusion to be drawn from San Pellegrino’s 2016 ranking of the region’s top 50 restaurants, the most prestigious such listing. The Peruvian capital has a total of nine eateries in the list, including the top two, Central —which also topped the 2015 listings — and Maido, which has moved up from fifth to second. That’s more than any other city.
Central has been a trailblazer ever since its young chef Virgilio Martínez opened it in 2008, with its menu highlighting Peru’s vastly varied ecosystems and altitude, showcasing ingredients from below sea level, in the Pacific, all the way up to more than 12,000ft in the Andes, and then back down again into the Amazon. Maido’s chef, Mitsuharu Tsumura, meanwhile has earned a stellar reputation for his original take on “Nikkei” or Peruvian-Japanese fusion.
The next two Peruvian restaurants on the list are Astrid y Gastón, at number seven, and the cevichería La Mar, at number 12, both flagship projects of Gastón Acurio, the chef who is widely credited with spearheading Peru’s culinary renaissance of the last two decades, ever since he opened the eponymous first eatery with his German-born chocolatier wife Astrid Gutsche. The next four Peruvian restaurants in the list are Osso Carnicería y Salumería, which specializes in aged beef, at number 27; Rafael at number 30; Fiesta at 34; and Malabar at 38.
But perhaps the biggest Peruvian news in this year’s ranking comes from the lowest placed Lima restaurant, Isolina, as it is a new arrival in the top 50. Opened just two years ago in the bohemian district of Barranco, overlooking the Pacific, Isolina specializes in traditional Peruvian criollo cooking, earning it rave international reviews.
To visit any of these restaurants as part of your unique, individually tailored Peru itinerary, contact the Peru Empire Company at travel@pec.pe or on +51-1-700-5100 or, if you are in the US, 347-713-7030/34.
