Me, Peru, with the 4th restaurant in the world!

A few days ago , I was so happy to see Central Restaurant on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list for 2021 again! Central Restaurant ( Central Restaurante) is located in Lima , capital of Peru, and has been a frequent visitor to the list of the world's 50 best restaurants since 2013 . I was fortunate enough to visit this restaurant when I was traveling in Peru in January 2020, and it was the best fine dining experience so far, so let me share my WOW experience!

Central Restaurant

Central Restaurant has taken root in Lima's Barranco district since 2010, and you can see that this area is full of art from the street art, trendy restaurants, and specialty cafes that can be seen everywhere on the road.

Central Restaurant is on a low key corner of Pedro de Osma street, my friend and I walked around this area for 15 minutes and couldn't find the entrance, so share a photo of the restaurant's front door so you won't miss it. It's a little strange that the outer wall of the restaurant is surrounded by barbed wire. Could someone go in and steal the ingredients?

On the glass of the promenade, you can find that the recent main ingredients are listed one by one, and when and where they came from are also marked. One of the features of Central Restaurant is that employees go to the mountains and the sea to collect ingredients from all over the world, from 25 meters below sea level to 4,350 meters above sea level mountains; don't you think it's cool?

Next, I'll share photos of the 12 dishes in the lunch set that impressed me; please bear with me as I'm not a professional food critic.

12-course lunch

First, all 12 dishes are named after their origin. The first course is the appetizer " Red Rocks (Red Rocks) ", all ingredients come from 10 meters below sea level. As I marveled at its intoxicating purple petals, I was busy looking up the dictionary, trying to figure out what these exotic ingredients were. I know there are delicious bamboo clams that I have eaten in Hong Kong, but what the hell are Percebes ( turtle feet ) and jelly-like Piure (sea squirts )? !

The ingredients for the second course, Desertic Coast, come from an altitude of 110 meters. I thought I had learned a little molecular cooking tricks from Chef Jiang Zhencheng 's restaurant RAW , but I was still amazed at this yellow crispy seaweed that day. And who wants to get it? The color of my nails that day happened to be perfect for this recipe!

In Peru, you can see corn and potatoes on almost every table; at Central Restaurant, corn kernels and potato chips from different varieties are molecularly reprocessed and then turned into works of art.

Have you noticed that the third dish below, High Altitude Farmlands (High Altitude Farmlands) , is somewhat similar to the artwork of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama ? I really can't understand how the chef can make the potatoes so thin and a little sticky.

As a corn lover, the 7th dish Extreme Altitude is totally my thing! These corn kernels look a bit like the common sago in desserts, but you can taste the texture of each kernel, like salmon roe on sushi, which is really a treat for the taste buds!

Visual feast

Each dish at Central Restaurant will be served with 3~4 dishes, 1 plate is for viewing, and the rest is edible. For example, the 8th dish is Amazonian Lake (Amazon River ) at an altitude of 190 meters. There are 3 dishes on the table. Guess which one can be eaten?

Did you guess right? Except for the crispy croquettes made from Cocona Fruit and tapioca flour, and the fish floss made from Piranha , the scary piranha heads are not edible. Phew. I don't think anyone would try to bite into them before the waiter took them away!

sustainable restaurant

Central Restaurant was created in 2008 by Chef Virgilio Martínez , who combines traditional Peruvian ingredients with modern cooking methods; the restaurant was first named one of the world's 50 best restaurants by the UK Restaurant magazine in 2013 , the ranking jumped to the 15th place the following year, and since then Central has maintained the 4th to 6th place on the list.

Another chef, Pía León, who joined in 2009, started out in the cold food section, later married Chef Martínez and most recently was awarded the title of The World's Best Female Chef 2021 .

Central Restaurant has made a lot of efforts to give back to the community; for example, the tea cups used in meals are handmade by local residents, and the special ingredients just eaten may be from someone who participated in community activities in the Andes Mountains. The restaurant will also Send employees around Peru to find ingredients that you may not have heard of, and then work with local residents to develop creative recipes.

If you want to learn more about Central's community activities, check out this interview with Malena Martínez, sister of Chef Martínez and Research Director at Central Restaurant's R&D center, Mater Iniciativa .

unexpected ending

First of all, let me state that the episodes mentioned below don't happen every time; however, if you're single and happen to be in Lima, Peru, try booking a single seat at Central Restaurant. Once in the restaurant, the waiter will take you to a single table, you will be seated in the first row with a direct view of the kitchen, and then, you may suddenly find yourself with another guest at the opposite table!

As I was waiting with my friends for the next dish to be served, it happened to two strangers sitting next to a single table! They started exchanging smiles every time they looked up, and when we left the restaurant, the two actually walked ahead of us and seemed to be having a good time chatting. Have we witnessed a beautiful encounter happen? Although I can only follow them for a short distance, so I don't know what happened after that, but I still hope they have good news!

write at the end

I hope you like this unprofessional Central Restaurant dining experience. After reading it, will you want to buy a plane ticket and fly to Peru to try it yourself?

At the end, I will talk about the only two minor shortcomings of Central. First, the waiter who was responsible for explaining the ingredients that day was not so fluent in English, so I had to look up the dictionary to see what the ingredients were. The other point is conceivable, It's just that the price is not very close to the people. A 12-course lunch set cost nearly NT$5,000 that day. But looking at the efforts of the Chef and his family to create a sustainable community, the high bills don't seem so unreasonable (though the wallet was bleeding that month).

Anyway, I must say that Central Restaurant is still my #1 fine dining restaurant. I'm a picky eater, so I was actually a little worried before I set off, fearing that the exotic Peruvian food would not suit my appetite. As a result, I thought too much. In 3 hours, the Central Restaurant took me to the Andes mountains, took a trip to the Amazon River, and dived to the bottom of the sea to meet some slippery marine life!

So, how can you not try this world's #4 Peruvian restaurant for yourself? Highly recommend Central Restaurant to all travelers visiting Peru. Let me conclude with a quote from an interview with Malena Martínez:

"The important thing to be doing is to replicate our method. Mater Iniciativa is a philosophy. It's a philosophy about connecting to nature, connecting to people, being involved, being grounded." (The most important thing is to replicate our method, Mater Iniciativa The R&D center is a philosophy, it is the realization of a philosophy that allows us to connect with nature, connect with people, be included, and then take root )

If you are interested in Central or Peru, please follow my account or leave a comment below. If you have anything to say in private, you can contact me via email ~

I took a lot of pictures at Central Restaurant, you can see the high quality version in my Adobe portfolio . In addition, the full original bilingual version and my other travel experience are on my personal website .