Mariela and I found ourselves with a free day in Cusco when the rest of my family were visiting Machu Picchu. We could’ve squeezed in Rainbow Mountain, but just the thought of traveling three hours each way in the middle of an already packed trip was exhausting. Whenever we are traveling and have some free time, we head to the nearest market. (At a cruise stop in Corfu, we found ourselves with a couple of hours to spare so we headed to the seafood market to browse even though we didn’t have access to a kitchen).

Tale of Two Soups

Mariela had also been craving caldo de gallina. We asked around about where to find the best caldo de gallina in Cusco, but no strong answer emerged. We figured the market, especially on Sunday would be a good bet.

The caldo de gallina featured a generous portion of chicken. The name, “caldo de gallina” translates to “soup of hen,” but nowadays it usually is made with chicken. The soup is served with noodles and then garnished with a potato (as I’ve said previously, Peruvians like their double carbs). In a Cusco twist, the soup also had chuño (dehydrated potato that is then rehydrated in the soup). The soup also had a hard-boiled egg. I have to admit, I’m still a little hesitant to eat chicken and egg in the same meal.

The stock was light which was a good respite from the salty broth of most of the caldo de gallina that I’ve had in Lima. Even so, I prefer a little more taste which comes from simmering the chicken.

One of the pleasures of eating in the market is looking around. We couldn’t help to notice that most of the people around us were also eating soup, but they were eating a different soup—caldo de cabeza.

Caldo de cabeza is made with the head of an animal, usually lamb. I was familiar only with the soup because it is often offered to tourists as a sort of dare. But here, we were surrounded by locals enjoying this soup as a Sunday morning treat. After some deliberation, I decided to give it a try-I don’t usually eat breakfast anymore so I thought I’d make this one count.

We didn’t have to travel far to try caldo de cabeza—we simply scooched one stall over. The cooks clearly approved of our order and prepared it with great deliberation.

To be honest, it wasn’t clear what part of the animal was being served. But the idea of eating the head preoccupied my mind. I have to admit that it took me a few minutes to gather the courage for the first bite. I’m not as adventurous of an eater as it may seem.

The initial taste was strong, but either I acquired the taste over the course of finishing the bowl or it mellowed out over time. The taste is difficult to describe, but was like eating super-concentrated lamb stock. The meat was very tender, nothing too slimy. I liked it more than Mariela did. Overall, I’m glad we tried it and found it more palatable than other soups that we’ve tried at markets. However, having said that, I’ll probably go back to eating caldo de gallina or adobo next time I’m having soup at a market.

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An Improved San Pedro Market?

After eating, we wandered around San Pedro market. Mariela looked for food to take back to Lima while I searched for photos.

In a past post about markets, I shared how I wasn’t a big fan of San Pedro Market, one of Peru’s most famous markets. It’s been a few years since I’ve visited San Pedro and it seems to be a bit cleaner and perhaps a little safer too. Of course, it’s very difficult to tell from one visit. The same market can feel like an entirely different place, depending on the time of year or time of day you visit. Also, I’ve found that the pandemic had lasting effects on the character of various markets throughout Peru.

The infamous butchery section seems to be more contained. You can find stalls specializing in chicken, pork, beef, and much more. You can also see all parts of the animal displayed; that is an essential part of Peruvian markets and shouldn’t ever go away. However, it felt more hygienic. The smell of the meat section was, ahem, less strong.

There were also more souvenir stands catering to tourists. As an aside, Mariela pointed out that the maras salt was a bit cheaper at San Pedro than at Maras. Finally, as a big bonus for me, people seemed more open to photos than in my past attempts.

Markets around the world are in a difficult spot. There exists a difficult balance between introducing tourists to local food traditions while continuing to provide for locals-not just food but also an essential part of the social fabric.

When we were looking for ingredients for cooking in Madrid and Florence, we sometimes found that what used to be food markets had been completely transformed into fancy food courts. Landlords eventually learn that they can make more money per square meter with a fancy food court than a fresh market. Governments have also been behind some of the push, seeing street food vendors and markets as the relics of the past standing in the way of “modernization” projects.

I apologize for ending on a negative note, but it is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. The good news is that for now, San Pedro market seems to be in a good place, balancing being accessible to tourists while also providing food for locals.

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My first meal in Peru was a droopy plate of scrambled eggs at a casino at 6:30 am1. This was later followed by a bite of super greasy chaufa (Peruvian fried rice) on a styrofoam plate in an alleyway. “You just need to eat,” my friend told me.2

This story is about how I went from these two abysmal initial meals to my current opinion that Peruvian food is the best food on the planet.

I present the story of how I discovered my passion for Peruvian food, as told through five meals. The photos are the photos I shared with my friends eight years ago. When available, I included the original captions I posted on Instagram in quotes.

1) Ceviche at El Mercado

Sometimes, you just get it right the first time. It’s hard to believe now, but back then, I wasn’t one to do much food research before a trip. Travel to me was about the landscapes. I came across an article about El Mercado in an airline magazine and decided to check out Peruvian ceviche. I chose the exact right place to try Peruvian ceviche for the first time. This would be the same ceviche I would order the day I met Mariela. The surprising acidity and bright flavors of the ceviche woke my senses and set me on a journey that continues to this day.

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2) Cafe Tostado

Cafe Tostado was where I decided to learn Spanish to unlock the rich tapestry of stories embedded in Peruvian cuisine. Pepe Giuffra, owner and chef at this humble restaurant without a menu, could tell that I was paying keen attention to how he prepared his special rabbit and orange dish and invited me over for a closer look.

I knew only a couple of words of Spanish but luckily his son was nearby and helped translate. They told me about the different types of peppers, the wonders of the jungle, and more. It made me realize the wealth of knowledge I was missing out on by not knowing any Spanish.

Once I arrived in Cusco, I immediately started taking lessons, starting with food words and then building up to learning to ask questions so that I could interview chefs I would meet on my travels throughout Peru.

3) Astrid Y Gaston

You never forget the first time you’re served dirt on a plate. During our first week in Peru, my friend generously treated us to a tasting menu dinner at Astrid y Gaston. I still have the printed menu.

The menu featured over 20 courses including a modern take on huatia, the Incan method of cooking potatoes underground. In this course, they brought the ground to us. We had to dig out the quail egg-sized potatoes from the dirt with our hands. Then, the potatoes were spritzed with flavored oil and served with Huancaina sauce made tableside.

The tasting menu at Astrid y Gaston was a true tour de force. We were introduced to so many ideas and new ingredients that it would take me years to learn about the details that all came together in that beautifully orchestrated meal.

I’m the type of person who food knowledge develops through direct experience. I only know about the food of places I’ve visited. In contrast, my trivia-loving friends back in the Bay Area would do a lot better than me at a “Food around the world” category in jeopardy. They seem to know about dishes around the world including many that they hadn’t tried before.

I didn’t know what Lomo Saltado was and didn’t know who this Gaston Acurio fellow was before I came to Peru. Our meal at Astrid y Gaston certainly made sure I wouldn’t forget Gaston Acurio or Peruvian food.

4) Lunch at La Capitana

My first travel through Peru was organized as a custom tour. The tour operator didn’t allow us to try Queso Helado because it was “street food” and therefore, in their minds, unsafe. However, I’m glad they took us to La Capitana, a favorite among locals and a picantería that would become one of my favorites.

As much as I enjoyed our experience at Astrid y Gaston, one of the things I love most about travel is seeing how locals eat. We were mostly on the tourist circuit during our tour of Peru. Lunch at Capitana was the best view we had of local cuisine. We ordered so many plates to share that it was a bit overwhelming.

I had a couple of my favorite picantería dishes for the first time include chupe de camarones (soup with the famed river prawns from Arequipa) and costillar (lamb ribs). We also had sarza de patitas (pickled pig feet) which we tried out of politeness.

5) Wedding Porridge

I was invited to three weddings during my first weeks in Cusco. Weddings bring together the people from the town and more rural countryside, unique music, dancing, and drinks (the people from the town mostly drank Cusqueña beer while the villagers drank chicha, a fermented corn beer).

The standard wedding fare came in two courses, porridge followed by lechon served with two tamales, one salty and one sweet. Both courses are typically served and eaten on the lap which takes some getting used to.

Everyone in the village is invited to partake in the festivities. At the wedding, the bowls of porridge, followed by the pork, are passed from person to person, spilling out to the villagers in the streets.

Even with a simple dish such as porridge, you can feel the generosity of the Peruvian spirit which is frequently expressed through food.

Concluding Thoughts

At this point, I’ve mostly edited out the initial meals of the scrambled eggs and greasy fried rice from my memory3, but thinking about these false starts brings out my philosophical side, prompting me to think about all of the great meals (and more importantly, life experiences) I would’ve not had if I didn’t already have plans to stay in Peru for a while—after my two weeks as a tourist, I went on to work in two Peruvian kitchens before traveling around Peru to interview chefs while learning Peruvian home cooking from families I stayed with.

One of the common themes of these early meals is how often I would be invited to see the kitchen. The tasting menu at Astrid y Gaston concluded with a tour of the two kitchens that worked to produce that signature experience. But even at humble establishments, the waiter would see my interest and invite me to meet the cook and see how a dish we enjoyed was made.

It’s telling that the initial experiences that drew me to Peruvian food were incredibly different, everything from a simple porridge to a tasting menu at one of Lima’s premiere restaurants.

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In my trip to Peru, I was introduced to many themes that I would continue following for years to come. Here is some further reading about some of the places and ideas I mentioned above:

What is Chiriuchu?

Chiriuchu is a dish with special significance in Cusco and also one of Peru’s most epic dishes. Its name translates to “cold chili,” but there are a number of other components in addition to slices of rocoto pepper. In a single dish, you can find these delicacies:

• Cuy (guinea pig)

• Chorizo

• Gallina (hen)

• Cecina or Charqui (salted and dried meat)

• Cochayuyo (seaweed)

• Canchita (toasted corn)

• Torreja (corn cake with corn flour, potatoes, squash, green onions, and spices)

• Huevera de pescado (fish roe sacs)

• Queso Andino (Andean cheese)

• Cancha (toasted corn)

• Rocoto pepper

At first glance, Chiriuchu may look like a pile of meat. However, the ingredients are arranged according to a careful pattern to symbolize abundance and order in the universe.

NOTE: The description for chiriuchu were taken from my guidebook which you can buy here:

The book is your ultimate guide to Peruvian food—chiriuchu is just one of 200 dishes that I describe in detail. The book also includes restaurant recommendations and practical tips on how to make the most of your time in Peru.

Chiriuchu, the Incan Empire on a Plate

Chiriuchu originated in Cusco when it was considered by the Incans to be the center of the universe. The dish celebrates the reach of the Incan empire by bringing together ingredients from all over Peru—fish eggs and seaweed from the coast, guinea pig and cheese from the Andes, and cecina from the Amazon.

The existence of this dish is a testament to the span of the Incan empire at its peak. The ingenuity of the Incan transportation network allowed the transport of ingredients from the far reaches of the empire to be united in one festive dish.

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Our Experience at Corpus Christi

I forgot to check the festivity calendar so it was a lucky coincidence that we arrived in the morning, just before one of Cusco’s biggest celebrations began. The Corpus Christ celebration takes place in Cusco in two parts. There’s a procession where fifteen saints through Plaza Mayor, the main square in Cusco. The other part of the celebration is eating Chiriuchu. This festive dish is served throughout the city on Corpus Christi and the week leading up to it, but as I would see, the bulk of the celebratory eating takes place in Plaza San Francisco.

There were already people gathered in the morning when we arrived at around 9:30 am, but this crowd was nothing compared to the crowd that would form leading up to the procession at 1 pm.

The crowd around the Saints was friendly. I quickly realized that it would be futile to try to take photos of the saints. Instead, I made use of the tight quarters to take portraits of the people around me.

After a couple of hours in Plaza Mayor in the midday sun, I met up with my family and convinced them to check out Plaza San Francisco. With all of the traffic surrounding the plazas, walking looked faster than trying to catch a taxi.

We quickly learned that Google Maps’s shortest path directions do not take into account foot traffic. We ended up stuck in a jam of two crowds going in opposite directions along Portal de Panes flanking the main square. Luckily, tensions did not boil over and with some patience, we were able to free ourselves from the crowd and continue on our way.

Finally, Chiriuchu Time

The scene at Plaza San Francisco was not quite like anything I’d seen before. Ferías or street fairs are quite common in Peru, but this was on another level. There were more than fifty vendors selling variations of chiriuchu and hundreds of people partaking. Everyone was selling either chiriuchu or a beverage to accompany it (beer or emoliente).

People were enjoying Chiriuchu in many different ways. Near the entryway, there were big, long tables arranged like in a Biergarten for large groups. Indeed, chiriuchu was often accompanied by large glasses of Cusqueña. Further inside, many couples and families shared portions of Chiriuchu on benches, small tables, … wherever they could find room. I even saw a family eat chiriuchu out of a plastic bag as they walked around and admired the spectacle of it being served at other stands.

I had to wonder how one chooses where to have Chiriuchu from all of the similar options. I asked, Kevin, a native Cusqueñean, who was waiting for a friend while carrying around a cuy head, presumably a souvenir from his meal. He told me that he had Chiriuchu twice, once at 11 am and another time at 1 pm, and that he was probably done eating for the day. He said that in his opinion the best Chiriuchu were the ones that had good Torrejas and generous portions.

He offered me a pour of his beer and parted ways.

Chiriuchu looks deceptively simple, but it takes more than eight hours to prepare. A lot of the prep work starts the day before the festival. The cuy has to be baked in the oven, the gallina boiled whole, and the torreja is made from scratch. Even though the day was waning by the time I arrived at the plaza, I saw vendors constantly replenishing their offerings by chopping the hens, arranging the seaweed and other components, and calling for new customers.

After walking around and taking photos of all of the Chiriuchu, I was finally starting to get hungry. I ordered a Chiriuchu to go, met up with Mariela, and shared the Chiriuchu on a curb.

So, what does Chiriuchu taste like?

The chiricuhu was a little on the greasy side but not too salty. Traditionally, you’re supposed to eat one component at a time and not mix flavors. We alternated between tasting different ingredients.

Chiriuchu is an offering to the sun and is served cold, presumably because the sun is already hot enough. I’m not a huge fan of cold meat, but I liked how you taste the essential flavor of each ingredient. I especially liked the chorizo and torreja (Kevin was right to prioritize the torreja in choosing a good chiriuchu). Also, for the record, I prefer other preparations of guinea pig.

How to Try Chiriuchu

The best time to try Chiriuchu is during Corpus Christi at San Francisco Plaza. You can’t beat the experience of eating a dish alongside hundreds of locals.

The date for Corpus Christi varies from year to year, but it’s four weeks after Easter week. You can also find it the week leading up to Corpus Christi. We also saw it being served in street stands the days following Corpus Christi.

If you can’t make it to Cusco for Corpus Christi, you can find Chiriuchu year-round at La Cusqueñita (Centenario 800, Cusco). It’s a tourist restaurant (comes with a dance show), but the food is solid.

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Maras Salineras is one of my favorite sights in Sacred Valley and Peru as a whole. As I researched tours of the Sacred Valley for my family’s visit to Peru, I was surprised to see that many two-day tours of the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu now leave out Maras Salineras, the salt mine of Maras. It’s a spectacular sight that I always look forward to seeing on my way through the Sacred Valley.

Maras Salineras on the way to the train station for Machu Picchu and should not be missed.

Maras Salineras, a Spectacular Sight

One of the things that captivated me during my first visit to the Maras salt mines was that it was a complete surprise. I had seen countless photos of Machu Picchu but didn’t know about this stunning pattern of many different squares of various hues carved out in the mountainside. The more I learn about the salt mine, the more impressed I am with its existence.

The salt mine of Maras is located 46 kilometers northwest of Cusco and 17 kilometers of Ollantaytambo where visitors take the train to Machu Picchu. It has been in operation since before Incan times and consists of over 6000 salt pans carved into the mountainside.

Salt Mining as a Family Business

When you think about miners, you likely have a particular mental image in mind. The salt miners at Maras span all generations from children working alongside their parents to older men and women who stay actively involved in the physically demanding process. The salt mines of Maras are entirely family-run; companies are not allowed to be involved in the process until the salt is placed in the storehouses.

Plots in the salt mines have been passed from generation to generation since Incan times. The Wari empire carved the initial mines, but the Incans recognized the economic value of the mines and expanded them. Nowadays, families in the community are responsible for mining different plots.

When you visit the Maras salt mine, you can observe the miners in action. All of the salt in Maras is mined by hand. When we went, the salt harvest season was just starting. Families throughout the community gathered near the church at the top of the mines to celebrate. As with crops, the miners believe that the salt is a blessing and tied to the complex cosmic interplay between the sun, moon, and earth.

Where does the salt come from?

The salt mines are fed by an underground spring that formed 110 million years ago when the Andes mountains were formed. The spring draws water from the salt water of the Andean lake. The miners harvest the salt which is then replenished by the spring.

The minerals in the water reflected by the sun are what give the Maras salt mines their varied colors. The colors vary depending on the season (the dry season running from May to October offers better weather and better photos) and the time of day (late afternoon is better for photography but you may not have a choice if it’s part of a tour).

Trying Maras Salt

The easiest way to visit the Maras Salt Mine is with a tour on the way to Machu Picchu. With admission, you get a bag of salt as a souvenir. In addition, on the way out you can find a variety of salt for cooking as well as bath salt and chocolate made with Maras salt. You can also find Maras salt at grocery stores and shops throughout Peru. Maras salt is renowned worldwide for its culinary properties and thus don’t be surprised if you find it at a specialty spice store in your country.

Of course, you can also find Maras salt as an ingredient on menus throughout Peru, especially at higher-end restaurants. Now that you know the story behind Maras salt, you will better appreciate it when you try it.

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Today’s story is from this morning. This is the fastest I’ve ever published a story. Please forgive the typos and check back in a few weeks for more information and tips for adobo.

I was super excited when I realized our trip Arequipa included a Sunday because in the town of Arequipa, Sunday is the day to eat adobo.

Adobo arequipeño is Arequipa’s emblematic pork soup. The exact recipe varies from place to place, and the exact proportions and techniques used are a closely guarded secret, but the ingredients include chicha de jora (fermented corn drink), rocoto (fresh Peruvian pepper), ají panca (dried Peruvian pepper), garlic, onions, oregano, cumin, and other herbs. The other key ingredient is time—the ingredients are simmered together for hours.

Adobo plays an important cultural role as a hangover remedy that starts being served in the wee hours of the morning. There’s an expression, “hasta el adobo” that is exclaimed when going out, meaning that the night is young and we’ll be out until time for adobo to be served. Adobo is also eaten later in the morning as a family affair.

It’s been a while since I’d been in Arequipa on Adobo Sunday. In anticipation, I was trying to what time we should be there to avoid a line. Adobo is mostly eaten for breakfast. I asked a local if there would be a line at 8:30 am. He replied that it wouldn’t be a problem since the line would be at 5 am, as people are returning from a night out.

Adobo is generally served in two sizes, medio (“half”) and completo (full-sized). Be warned that the completo can be quite large, especially if you’re not accustomed to eating savory pork early in the morning.

Adobo is traditionally served with crusty triangular “tres puntas” bread. The bread is such an essential part of the adobo experience that some locals will stop by a bakery on their way to their restaurant and buy a large bag of “tres puntas” bread.

On Sunday, you’ll see chalkboard signs all over the city advertising adobo. However, one of the best to try adobo is Plaza de Cayma. From the middle of the square, you can see at least four places serving adobo.

Today, I took my family to Sabor de Caymeño for adobo and to meet the family that hosted me during my second visit to Arequipa, the visit that opened my eyes (and tastebuds) to the richness of Arequipean cuisine.

Needless to say, the adobo was delicious—richly flavored from the pork broth with complexity from the chicha de jora and pepper. There was a cut of pork with the bone-in each portion. You have to alternate between cutting the pork with a fork and knife and using a spoon to eat the soup. The pork was tender and perfectly cooked.

We noticed that chicharrón and lechon (suckling pig) sandwiches were on the menu. Because chicharrón is a classic breakfast food in Lima but not as popular in Arequipa, we didn’t expect too much. We were pleasantly surprised. Both sandwiches were delicious. Peruvians really know how to do pork for breakfast.

Mariela and I shared a medio and were satisfied. However, I admit that I wanted to go across the street for another medio to compare. Maté is the traditional drink to accompany adobo, but a variety of juices are also available.

Finally, there are starting to be more and more places that serve adobo every day of the week, in case you’re visiting Arequipa on another day of the week.

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Meet up in Peru

We’ll be in Peru for three months. Please let me know if you happen to be visiting Peru during that time! Mariela and I would love to share a ceviche or pisco cocktail with readers like you.

I realized what I want from this newsletter, even more than subscribers, is real connection with like-minded people. Substack keeps telling me that the way to grow your audience is to spend more time on notes. However, for me, Substack notes feel like being at an awkward party where you constantly have to think about what to say. I would rather use my newsletter to make connections in the real world.

Ask me questions (about Peruvian Food)

I'm also trying a new experiment to connect to readers directly. I’ve opened a chat thread where you can post questions about Peruvian food.

For a limited time, I’m opening it up to all subscribers. Please note that it’ll usually take a couple of days to get a reply.

Where We’ve Been the Last Few Months

Here’s a recap of where we’ve been in the last few months:

• We started in Uruguay where I joined a Photo workshop. Then I experienced a slice of carnival in Montevideo. Finally, Mariela and I spent a week in Punta Del Este and José Ignacio.

• We spent a weekend in Colonia and then took the hydrofoil to Buenos Aires. The ferry plus two nights in Colonia was less expensive than the one-hour flight between Montevideo and Buenos Aires.

• Buenos Aires was the most social we’ve been since the pandemic. It was a blast with good food and live music. Highlights include spending time at an estancia, seeing Phoenix live, and meeting up with new and old friends.

• Cartagena, Colombia gave us a chance to move at a slower pace, alternating time between the pool and the beach. I didn’t get as much writing done as I had hoped.

• After a whirlwind trip for work (Seattle, Boston, and Atlanta in two weeks), Mariela and I spent another whirlwind trip in Panama City, Panama before heading back to Lima.

You can read about the trip here:

Where We’re Going

Next week, we’ll be headed on a family trip with 7(!) people to Lima, Cusco, Arequipa, and Puno. It’s the most complex trip I’ve planned so please wish me luck.

I spent several months in Cusco but haven’t been back in five years. We will be showing my family some of our favorite places, but we hope to try a couple of new things as well.

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Before we get to this week’s story, I wanted to tell you about a new newsletter that I launched on my birthday. A Fully Remote Life is about getting the most out of travel and life.

I’ve been traveling since I was a baby and have traveled to over 70 countries in many different ways. I’m looking forward to sharing tips that will allow you to minimize the boring parts of travel so that you have more time for the good stuff.

Please check it out and share with the people in your life that travel the most:

A Fully Remote LIfe

For my 41st birthday, we had dinner at Mai Mai in Panama City, Panama. With its eclectic amalgamation of Panamanian, Peruvian, and Nikkei flavors, Mai Mai felt like the perfect place to celebrate my birthday1.

First Impressions

From the moment you step off the elevator, you can see that Mai Mai exudes style.

The restaurant was a beautiful mix of modern textures punctuated by plants, perfectly capturing Panama City, a metropolis surrounded by lush rainforest.

Against the hustle and bustle of the waiters and Afrobeat tracks, Mai Mai was intricately arranged for intimate conversations and celebrations. I also appreciated that everyone was dressed up which I hadn’t seen in a while, even at upscale restaurants.

A Cross-Cultural Collaboration

Mai Mai is a collaboration between Chefs Mario Castrellon, chef at Maito here in Panama City, and Mitsuharu Tsumura, chef at Maido in Lima. I’ve been to both of their restaurants, years apart. Both restaurants draw influences from diverse sources in a playful way. Thus, I was eager to see how the two chefs who are at the top of their game in their respective countries would combine ingredients and inspiration from Panama and Peru.

The name “Mai Mai” is a combination of Maido and Maito. The shared letters in their names were coincidental. Some of the best collaborations have their seeds in serendipity.

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The Menu at Mai Mai

Mai Mai is not big on big dishes on the menu which makes sense because Mai Mai was inspired by Japanese Izakayas and Latin American cantinas where patrons eat little bites over a night of drinking.

What We Ordered

The spiced duck dumplings and toasted bao de panzo (pork belly) leapt out so we ordered those first. We considered doing a whole meal of just dumplings.

The bao was perfectly toasted and the pork belly was delicious. The texture was a bit different than we’re accustomed to. The pork belly was cut into small pieces, almost minced. That and the kimchi mayo made it much more interesting than your ordinary bao.

The duck was served in the style of an open-face siu mai. The spicing (similar to five spice) was a tad bit strong, but otherwise, it was a great bite.

Nigiri is my favorite thing to order at a Nikkei restaurant. We ordered a trio consisting of Conchas con carne (scallops with ponzu), Atún con Yemas (tuna with quail egg), and Unagi (river eel with quinoa).

The Atún con Yemas was the best bite of the night, closely followed by the Conchas con carne. As expected, the unagi was the most traditional, but I appreciated that the unagi sauce wasn’t overpowering.

For the main, we were undecided between the Udon con Camarones y Pulpo (Noodles with Shrimp and Octopus) and the Chinatown (with Tom Yum sauce which is bit strange for a dish called “Chinatown”). Our waiter strongly recommended the Udon con Pulpo so we went with that.

The Udon had Batayai sauce and a generous amount of Parmesan Cheese which was tasty but too rich to finish so we took most of it home. After all of these years of eating, I’ve learned when to quit while ahead.

We skipped dessert since we had cake at home, but I was in the mood for one more bite so we ordered the succulent Toro, capping off a delicious meal.

Inspired Cocktails at Mai Mai

Mai Mai is known for its cocktail menu. In fact, the food menu was specifically designed to complement the cocktail menu.

Mariela ordered the La Mamonita (mezcal, lychee, hibiscus, lime), and I ordered the Ave del Paraiso (7 year-old rum, campari, palo santo, pineapple, coconut, and lime).

Mariela felt that the mezcal was a bit strong in the La Mamonita (the tasting notes described it more as tropical and fruity) and liked the Ave del Paraiso even though she generally does not like cocktails with campari. We have a deal where she can always opt out of a cocktail and give it to me which usually works out for both of us except the time I ended up with three cocktails and her none.

Mai Mai also has a wide selection of pisco and Japanese whiskey. I wish they had a spirits menu in addition to the cocktail menu. I was thinking about a nightcap but rarely order shots at a restaurant and wasn’t confident enough to know what I wanted off the top of my head. I like seeing all of the options together on one page.

Concluding Thoughts

Mai Mai would easily go on my list of favorite Nikkei spots. That’s to say it felt like a Nikkei place with some twists.

We felt like the Panamanian influence was strongest in the cocktail menu (rum, coffee, coconut, banana). In other parts of the menu, the influence was a bit subleter. For example, the ceviche is served with patacones (fried plantains) instead of camotes (sweet potato) as is traditional in Peru. The dishes use ají amarillo and ají chomba, the peppers commonly used in Peru and Panama, respectively2.

All in all, the menu has plenty of surprises and provides plenty of choices while not being overwhelming. The ambiance was one of the best we’ve experienced in any restaurant- perfect for a birthday dinner.

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So, why were we in Panama? In short, we’re on the way back to Peru. I won’t bore you too much with the jigsaw nature of our life, but I had to fit in a work trip and Panama City ended up being what made sense. We felt that a week was the right amount of time for a second visit to Panama City. It also has special significance to us because it was our first trip abroad together.

Mariela’s birthday is eight days after mine. A few months ago, I asked Mariela where she wanted to celebrate her birthday. She resoundingly replied, “Lima.” Next stop—Lima!

What are Anticuchos?

Anticuchos are pieces of cow heart that are skewered, marinated, and then grilled over charcoal. The exact marinade recipe used by each anticuchero (person who cooks anticuchos) is often a closely guarded secret, but the marinade usually involves cumin, vinegar, garlic, and ají.

The way anticuchos are cooked is as important as the ingredients. Working with heart meat and preparing it so that it doesn't end up super tough is an art. There’s an annoying trend in restaurants catering to tourists where anything that is put on a stick is called an “anticucho.” Anticuchos de Corazon is the proper name for the classic anticuchos.

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Tips for Finding the Best Anticuchos

Anticuchos can be found in almost any town or city in Peru, especially at night. Here are some tips on how to find good anticuchos wherever you are in Peru.

Anticuchos require specialization for perfection. When you find anticuchos tucked somewhere in the appetizer section of a menu, between causa and ceviche, they are often just included for completeness. The technique for grilling anticuchos is completely different than the techniques for cooking other dishes.

Anticuchos are also best prepared in smoky kitchens which don’t fit well with a nice, sit-down restaurant. I’ve seen places where the anticuchos are cooked outside and the “restaurant” is just for seating.

In summary, anticuchos are typically best at places where:

1. Anticuchos are their focus.

2. The menu is short, sometimes with only one option (anticuchos de corazon)

3. Most of the cooking is done outside.

Of course, there are exceptions. Anticuchos Grimanesa for example has a special grill so that the cooking can be done inside.

How to Order Anticuchos

For anticuchos, one of two skewers is typically enough for dinner. Anticuchos typically come with potatoes and a house ají­ sauce (anticuchera sauce or aderezo de anticucho). Some places are stingy about the amount of sauce they give you; don’t be afraid to ask for more. The sauce is so good that it is the basis for other anticuchera dishes where ingredients like octopus are marinated in the sauce and grilled.

Anticuchos are now made with a variety of meats ranging from beef to chicken. When made right, anticuchos de corazón have a divine texture that cannot be matched.

If organ meat makes you squeamish, try to put aside your fear. The heart is a muscle and doesn’t have the same lingering aftertaste that liver or other organ meat typically has.

I rarely drink Inka Kola, but it pairs nicely with anticuchos. I can’t quite explain it. You just gotta try it yourself.

Finally, if you have any room left, picarones are the classic dessert after a meal of anticuchos.

Where to Try Anticuchos

• The story behind Anticuchos Grimanesa is one of the most cherished in Peruvian food lore. Grimanesa Vargas Araujo, also known as Tia Grimanesa, started with a street cart selling anticuchos and eventually built a large following that catapulted her to fame and a restaurant in Miraflores. I generally recommend Anticuchos Grimanesa to those who are new to anticuchos because it caters to locals and tourists alike.

• Our favorite place for anticuchos after a night out is Anticuchos Juancito in Barranco.

• Anticuchos Bran in Surquillo features the anticuchos of Brandon Altamirano who won a competition against 300 other anticucheros.

• Our current overall favorite anticuchos place in Lima is Doña Anto in Magdalena. It’s the real deal—everything there has a certain street food logic. You sit on plastic stools and then are served food on slightly larger plastic stools which are just large enough to fit the skewers, a tub of sauce, and Inka Kola.

• In Cusco, my favorite anticuchos stand is on Avenida del Sol. I’ll provide more specific coordinates during my next trip about a month from now.

• Doña Pochita is where Anthony Bourdain tried anticuchos. It’s walking distance from our place in Lince, but when we went it didn’t have the smoky flavor that we go for. We definitely need to try it again.

Finally, I would recommend writing these down. If I ever put things behind a paywall, this will be amongst the first bits of info that will be for paid subscribers only!

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In a couple of weeks, I’ll be back in Peru and will have many new stories to share including stories set in parts of Peru that I haven’t visited in a while. Meanwhile, please enjoy stories about our travels outside of Peru.

I was pleasantly surprised at the ceviche in Cartagena. I firmly believe that ceviche is a dish that is worth knowing from many different perspectives. During our month-long stay in Cartagena, we were able to try ceviche at a local spot, a restaurant in the center catering to tourists, and an upscale restaurant. Plus, on a trip out to the nearby islands, we had what vendors market as “ceviche” but is more like a shrimp cocktail.

Since I have sky-high expectations, I usually try to hold off from ordering ceviche until we’re back in Peru. However, my curiosity usually gets the best of me. If we stay a month somewhere, we usually end up trying the local ceviche at least once. To tell you the truth, we usually stop after one time. We have very defined opinions on what should go in ceviche. Peanut butter, oil, and water are not ingredients I enjoy in ceviche (though popcorn is okay). With the ceviche in Cartagena, we kept going.

Here are my thoughts on the three-and-a-half ceviches we had in Cartagena plus a few notes about the overall meal:

Ceviche in the Center

The first ceviche we had was at Mare Restaurante, located in the center of Cartagena. We usually avoid wandering into restaurants in the center because they tend to be pricier. In fact, we did initially walk past this restaurant because there was a guy in a costume dancing around. We reasoned that if a restaurant needs a dancing mascot, what does that say about the food? However, it was Sunday and not many restaurants were open so we decided to take a chance.

Many travelers feel that they are taking a chance when they eat something “local” like at a market. Conversely, we generally feel that we’re risking mediocrity by eating too close to the center.

We tried ordering the ceviche mixto, but we were informed they didn’t have the ingredients. However, they did have the ingredients for cazuela which seemed strange to us because it was the same ingredients. We decided not to ask too many questions and ordered the fish ceviche and cazuela, both of which turned out to be pretty good.

The ceviche was beautifully presented with a crown of ribbons from bell peppers. The portion was fairly light, but the avocado and sweet potatoes helped fill out the sweet potatoes. The fish was fresh, and the ceviche was tasty.

Ceviche at a Local Spot

Next, we had ceviche at La Pescadería, a small local spot near a fish store only a few blocks from the airport. The ceviche was excellent with fresh seafood and a kick of flavor from the peppers.

It’s also worth noting that while fried fish (and cazuela) is served practically everywhere in Cartagena, this fried fish was the best we had. It was perfectly fried and not oily. It had the perfect ratio of crispy and tender bits.

We've now been to restaurants named “La Pescadería” (fish store in Spanish) in Buenos Aires, Tulum, and now Colombia. They’ve all been incredibly different from each other. The one in Tulum was a shack while the one in Buenos Aires was more like an upscale bisto. This one felt like a small spot for locals, though the prices were about the same as some tourist spots even though it was a bit out of the way.

Carmen, a Cartagena Classic

On our next-to-last night, we had dinner at Carmen. The ceviche was unlike anything we ever had. It was pungent and packed with umami. It was a good appetizer in that it woke up our palette. However, it seemed that the fish lent more texture than taste to the dish.

Carmen is a classic in Cartagena’s food scene, but our experience was a bit mixed. The ambiance was amazing with the courtyard in the middle and the mix of plants, columns, and tasteful art. The cocktails and the appetizers including the ceviche were good. However, the flavor of the main dishes fell a bit flat (we ordered the Pez Palma and the brisket).

Ceviche, Cartagena Style

Most of the ceviche we tried thus far were described on the menu as Peruvian-style, with lime and ají. However, there’s in Cartagena, “ceviche” can also refer to shrimp, fish, and mussels in a pink mixture of ketchup, mayo, and lime juice. It’s generally served in styrofoam cups.

We had seen this ceviche sold at the beach. However, we were a bit hesitant to try it because we wondered about how well the seafood was protected against the sweltering heat. We also didn’t see that many other people eat it which made us question the freshness even more.

After a snorkeling trip off the Rosario islands, we had the chance to finally try this version of ceviche. It was better than I expected. The mayo was not as overwhelming as I had feared, and the shrimp was very fresh. It was a bit like a relaxed version of a shrimp cocktail.

If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend Kenji Lopez-Alt’s humorous and educational take on Cartagena-style Ceviche where he compares it to deep dish pizza (“Everyone knows that it's not really ceviche, but darned if it ain't delicious anyway”).

Overall, the ceviche in Cartagena seemed to be creamier and less acidic than Peruvian ceviche. I enjoyed this change of pace though Mariela prefers the acidity of Mexican ceviche. We both look forward to being back in Lima where we can eat ceviche to our heart’s content.

A few other Cartagena thoughts and recommendations:

• Empanadas, fried fish, and cazuela are the classic dishes that you see everywhere. Sometimes, it seems like that’s all there is.

• The limonada de coco is very good but can be very filling. Every restaurant seems to make it a little differently.

• The crab nachos at Restaurante Nami are delicious.

• Celele and Rabo de Pez were our favorite restaurants featuring creative cuisine.

• Mercado de Bazurto was a bit shocking. We’ve been to markets all over the world, but Mercado de Bazurto felt overwhelming.

• The best deal we got was buying freshly caught fish from a group of young boys as we were walking back from the beach. We paid the equivalent of about three dollars (without negotiating), and the fish lasted us three meals.

• As for beaches, we preferred Playa Marbella over the more popular beaches at Barú and Bocagrande. The beaches in Cartagena are known for the hawkers who are constantly trying to sell you something (usually something you don’t need like a heavy paperweight). There were some at Playa Marbella but it’s one person every five minutes versus a never-ending parade.

• I highly recommend visiting the bird sanctuary (Aviario Nacional de Colombia). It was our favorite weekend activity.

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Of the restaurants I tried during my most recent visit to Lima, Sapiens stood out the most for me.

Sapiens defies easy categorization. Its approach to food captures the Peruvian spirit but aspects of the menu feel more Spanish or Argentinian. In reality, it’s a totally unique offering built on traditions around the world.

Head chef, Gerson Moncada, generously offered to tell me more about the creative process that he and founder, Jaime Pesaque, employed in conceptualizing this unique offering. I will tell Sapiens’s story in two parts. This post will introduce the restaurant and the menu while the second part will delve into the creative process.

Cuisine of Fire

“Cocina de fuegos” (kitchen of fires) is probably the simplest description of what Sapiens is. Of course, virtually all kitchens feature fire in some form or other, but Sapiens eschews the modern convenience of gas stoves for a more primal source of fire.

Sometimes, Sapiens is lumped into the category of “meat restaurants” which is mainly comprised of steakhouses. While many dishes on the menu at Sapiens feature meat, other dishes also highlight a variety of fruits and vegetables in a way that no steak restaurant would. The best way to think about the menu is to consider fire as the main ingredient. Sapiens’s menu employs multiple methods of cooking with fire and also uses all parts of the fire including the ashes and embers.

At Sapiens, Chef Moncada and Chef Pesaque custom-designed the kitchen to use various methods of cooking with fire. Meat, fish, vegetables, rice, and desserts all use a different grill that allows the fire to be applied differently. Having recently visited Uruguay, I see parallels between Sapiens’s use of multiple types of grill and Francis Mallmann’s concept of seven fires.

The kitchen is designed to be versatile yet efficient. For example, even the vegetables hanging above the grills have a purpose. Over time, they are dried by the heat and capture the smoky flavors from the grills. Every few days, the vegetables are used to make stock.

The Menu

The menu at Sapiens is relatively compact but covers a lot of ground. It features beef including Argentinian and American steak, fish, pork, duck, scallops, octopus, and vegetables. The menu is crafted so that it allows all of its ingredients to really shine.

This is one menu that rewards those who choose to read the menu carefully. There are a lot of interesting clever twists that set menu items apart. If you just want to order a random sampling or rely on the waiter’s recommendations, I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful experience as well.

This post will focus on Sapien’s creative use of fire, but there’s a whole charcuterie section of the menu. They prepare all of the charcuterie all in-house and you can look through the glass of the charcuterie room to see how they do it.

I recommend ordering a few items from the entreé and special courses section of the menu.

Many Influences

The story of fire stretches back all of the way back to the dawn of humanity. Heat remains the essence of cooking, but nowadays, a lot of the fire is hidden away. Even in open kitchens, a lot of what you see is the final assembly of the dishes while the fire is tucked safely in the back. Sapiens brings fire to the forefront of its cuisine.

The idea of fire as the main ingredient is simple yet it feels revolutionary. When I think back on my experiences with Peruvian cuisine, my mind fills with images of fire—not fire in a destructive way but rather as a creative force. I think about the breath of the wok in a Lomo Saltado, the quiet fire of Huatia in which potatoes are cooked in the earth, and the finishing flourish of the blowtorch in Nikkei cuisine.

Sapiens bring together ideas from the Argentinian parilla as well as Spanish techniques of cooking rice and noodles on an open fire. In addition, Chef Moncada draws on ideas collected from his own travels. Part two will go into more detail.

Our Experience at Sapiens

The innovative menu and techniques at Sapiens deliver an experience unlike any other meal that I’ve had in Peru. Because of the diverse influences, there were familiar dishes like empanadas and paella, but the way they were incorporated was unique.

Let’s start with the empanada. The empanada is definitely one of the best empanadas I’ve had, and we’ve had many. The texture was multi-faceted and the taste was intensely meaty. I didn’t have time to ask about the empanadas during my interview with Chef Moncada, but one day I’d like to better understand what made their empanada so good.

The char on the Caesar salad took it to a completely different place than the ordinary salad. It whet our appetitive for what was to follow. It takes a lot of finesse to cook an ingredient as delicate as romaine.

On our first visit, we split a Lomo Saltado and a Hamburger (pictured above), typifying the Peruvian and American ways of preparing beef. I consider both good tests of a restaurant. Sapiens more than delivered on both fronts.

On our most recent visit, we decided on the Fideuà as the main course since we had just had a lot of paella recently in Valencia. Fideuà is similar to paella but uses noodles in place of rice.

We ordered the chocolate ganache dessert which we thoroughly enjoyed. On a future visit, I’d like to try grilled fruit desserts featuring grilled chirimoya and another featuring grilled orange which I’ve never seen on another menu.

Finally, I would like to come one day with enough people (at least 4) to try the Lomo al trapo—beef tenderloin seasoned, wrapped in cloth, and then cooked on coals. That’s an attribute of a great meal—you’re already thinking about the possibilities of the next visit.

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Stay Tuned for Part Two

In the next part, I go behind the scenes and interview Head Chef Gerson Moncada about the creative process behind Sapien’s menu and how his travels influence his craft. I even get a chance to see what it’s like inside the kitchen of many fires.

Sapiens is located at Av. Pardo y Aliaga 689 in San Isidro, Lima.

I started getting to know Surquillo market on my second day in Peru, but it was years before it became my favorite neighborhood to eat in. Surquillo is a great example of how I discover many of my favorite places in Peru—a combination of wanting to make every meal count, rolling with the situation we’re presented with, and old-fashioned obsession.

I wonder if we would’ve been able to discover all of the great places in Surquillo if we hadn’t stayed there for two weeks which allowed us to try a new cevichería every day. We would’ve tried the cevicherías in the market and the ones that trend on Instagram. However, we would have missed gems like Bahaía Fish.

On the other hand, in a lot of ways, Surquillo feels like a neighborhood I was destined to know. My friends and I visited the market on our second morning in Lima where tried tuna juice for the first time—it turns out that they call prickly pear tuna in Peru. We didn’t step a foot into the market that day, but the role of Surquillo market evolved as I got to know Lima better.

On my subsequent trips to Lima, I would always make it a point to visit Surquillo market. For my first several visits, my impressions of Lima were completely different each time. Surquillo market was the one thing that served as an anchoring point that linked all of these disparate impressions to a physical place. After a few visits, I found myself playing tour guide and encouraging fellow travelers who were staying at the same place I was to visit the market. You can find another small story about Surquillo Market here.

Over time, Surquillo from a place of tourist interest to the place where we did our routine weekly shopping. Shopping at markets is rewarding but can be exhausting. Thus, I negotiated with Mariela that we begin each shopping expedition with lunch, a ceviche lunch. Only then, did we start to slowly branch out from the market to the surrounding neighborhood. I didn’t realize how much more of Surquillo there was to discover until we stayed there.

We didn’t intentionally stay in Surquillo. Two and a half years ago, we hadn’t yet settled in an apartment in Lima and were staying in Airbnbs around Lima. We would stay in a different neighborhood each month. However, at some point, we just ended up alternating the obvious neighborhoods of Miraflores and Barranco. Even though we went to the market in Surquillo often, it’s common knowledge that Surquillo is not the safest area to stay in. Many taxi drivers didn’t even want to take us there at night.

We searched for a place in Miraflores and saw a place that looked like it was on the edge of Miraflores, conveniently located near the Surquillo market. However, once we arrived at the Airbnb, we realized it was on the other side of the expressway dividing Miraflores and Surquillo. Even the map pin was inaccurate and showed the apartment as being on the Miraflores side of the expressway. One block does make a difference in Lima, especially at night.

Initially, we were disappointed with the blatant false advertising of our Airbnb which had prominently featured Miraflores in the title. We were able to make the location work for us and discovered an amazing eating neighborhood as a result. However, it doesn’t change the fact that people should be able to make choices of where to stay based on accurate information. Surquillo simply isn’t an ideal neighborhood to stay in for most first-time visitors. If the host wanted to be accurate, they could have easily just advertised it as “one block from Miraflores.”

At each Airbnb we stayed in, we would have lunch everywhere within a fifteen-minute walk which is just enough time for me to be back for my afternoon Zoom calls. Continuing this tradition of visiting every lunch restaurant in the vicinity, we quickly realized that given our love for ceviche, Surquillo was the perfect place to be, at least during the day.

Many visitors consider visiting Surquillo Market the off-the-beaten-path portion of their itinerary, relative to the standard itinerary which revolves around Parque Kennedy, Costa Verde, and Bohemian Barranco. However, they visit the market and stop there. The market is only the beginning. Staying in Surquillo allowed us to see Surquillo beyond the market.

Why is Surquillo such a gastronomic hotspot? First, there’s the fact that it has great access to fresh ingredients. I’ve asked a couple of chefs and I think a lot of it has to do with the relatively low cost of rent and the ease of opening a restaurant there.

For me, a lot of the appeal of Surquillo is how unflashy it is. Many cevicherías in Surquillo don’t advertise their name. You essentially just walk by a building and see people eating. It took months before Cumpa, now one of Surquillo’s most popular restaurant, made it onto Google Maps. The interiors are generally sparsely decorated, and the kitchens tend to look more like the set-up for a catering service than a full restaurant kitchen.

We have since settled into an apartment in Lima, and Surquillo is only a ten-minute drive to our apartment without traffic. However, we’ve found that there’s a huge difference between already being somewhere versus having to plan each visit deliberately. For us, it was the difference between being able to visit a dozen or two cevicherías a neighborhood over a couple of weeks versus visiting a couple of places over several months.

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Looking back at our travels, we now realize that we prefer to be away from destination neighborhoods as long as the area is walkable and safe. By the definition, you’ll naturally gravitate toward the destination neighborhoods. If you only have three or four days, by all means, stay in the center. For longer-term stays, I recommend trying a lesser-known neighborhood which allows you discover other things you probably won’t otherwise.

We’ve discovered some of our favorite spots around the world by staying in less popular neighborhoods. Just a few examples … in a suburb of Florence, I discovered a charming wine shop run by a couple who introduced me to natural wines without the pretense. We’ve been to Cancun twice now for weeklong stays but have yet to set foot in the hotel zone. Last time, we essentially had a private beach and were next to a restaurant where you could feel the sand under your feet while feasting on exquisite whole fish. In Panama City, we woke up to a view of boats heading to the canal. A lot of times when we’d tell other visitors where we were staying, the response would be, “I didn’t know you could stay there!”

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For the last two years, Surquillo has been our favorite neighborhood in Lima to eat in. Surquillo is one of the first neighborhoods in Lima that people visit yet at the same time it’s one of Lima’s most overlooked neighborhoods.

Many first-time visitors head to Surquillo market to get a glimpse of a traditional Peruvian market. I did too on my first visit to Peru. I made it a point to walk through Surquillo market every trip to Lima, and now we do a lot of our everyday grocery shopping there. However, it took me many visits over many years to fully appreciate everything Surquillo has to offer.

I’m excited to share with you some of my favorite cevicherías in Surquillo. This list is a true mix and includes renowned cevicherías, everyday spots, and up-and-coming cevicherías.

Surquillo Market, No 1

Eating at the market is a logical beginning for a gastronomic journey through Surquillo. Look for the cevicherías including Don Cevichero at the center of the market. Sit at the counter which provides you with a wide view of the market and its happenings. You’ll know that everything that is coming is fresh because you’ll be at eye level with the seafood.

On certain days, outside the market, there are vendors selling ceviche and other classic dishes to visitors. They go out of their way to make the dishes accessible with example plates and signs in English. However, I would recommend saving your appetite and instead heading to one of the restaurants on this list.

Bam Bam

Jr. Luís Varela y Orbegoso 224

Bam Bam was one of the very first cevicherias that I discovered. Just one block from Surquillo market, it is known for its leche de tigre which comes in several varieties as well as its conchas negras.

Huáscar Combate Peruano

Jr. Luís Varela y Orbegoso 275

We can always rely on Huáscar for its hearty and flavorful portions. Their combos (combates) including the featuring Ceviche, Chicharrón de Pescado, and Arroz Mariscos are utterly satisfying. Their menu is perfectly sized and also includes good versions of criollo dishes such ají de gallina.

S'Concha

Jirón Leoncio Prado 645

The food at S’Concha felt satisfyingly unpretentious. Upon entering, you walk past what looks like a makeshift open kitchen while the staff greets you. The food is simply plated and served on chipped plates. The ceviche was one of the best we’ve had during our month in Surquillo, and the seafood pasta felt like Sunday home cooking.

Los Delfines

San Diego N°299

Los Delfines is a solid weekday ceviche option with a variety of combos including this one featuring the classics—ceviche, arroz con mariscos, and causa. It’s one of the more inexpensive cevichería on this list.

Bahia Fish

Jirón Leoncio Prado 435

Bahia Fish was one of the cevicherías we probably would’ve not found if we hadn’t tried so many cevicherías in Surquillo. We sure are glad we found this gem. It may be the best conchas negras we’ve had anywhere—definitely top three.

The conchas are of extremely high quality, and the ceviche is expertly prepared. Even the red onions are perfectly diced so that they balance but do not overshadow the conchas. Just don’t expect too much in terms of ambiance. We were seated next to a sack of potatoes and the owner’s bike.

Fish Factory

Jirón Dante 325

Despite its generic name, The Fish Factory is quite opinionated. For its size, it offers a fairly wide selection of fish to choose from. There are several preparations available from the classic ceviche and sudado to Thai-style stir-fry and Salchipota which is their take on the salchipapa but with fried fish. The restaurant feels a bit like an enigma that requires repeat visits to get to know. Our ceviche came with small flowers while our sudado came in a Pyrex knockoff. The flavors alone would bring us back in a heartbeat.

Al Toke Pez

Av. Angamos Este 886

The Netflix Street Food fame has not changed much about this small, no-frills cevichería. The line outside is just a bit longer. Tomás “Toshi” Matsufuji, has no time to regale in celebrity status. He’s always in the kitchen, preparing ceviche and stir-frying. The combinado (arroz con mariscos, chicharrón, and ceviche) is the place to start. Last time, we ordered larger portions of the chicharrón which really helped us appreciate how perfectly fried it was.

Cumpa Taberna Criolla

Jirón Leoncio Prado 498

We stumbled upon Cumpa on its second day. After a couple of bites, we immediately knew it was a keeper. Now, the secret’s out and people regularly line up for their beautifully prepared Northern-style ceviche (with beans and tortitas de choclo), Arroz con Pato, and Lomo Saltado. This is one of the places where I want to try everything on the menu.

Pimentel

Ca. Narciso de la Colina 700

It’s good to know that even after many ceviches, there are still surprises to be had. The house ceviche at Pimentel featuring fish, smoked octopus, and avocado was a unique ceviche that stood out from the hundreds that I’ve tried and featured one of the best leche de tigre I’ve ever had.

La Capitana

Sta. Rosa 545

La Capitana, an upscale cevichería, has enjoyed quite a bit of buzz in the last year. Locals rave about the house ceviche, but for us, it was the Parihuela Chorrillana that dazzled us.

La Picantería

Sta. Rosa 388

You can’t write a guide to Surquillo cevicherías without a proper mention of Hector Solis’s La Picantería. This mansion is home to one of the best fish experiences in Lima. Pick out a fish and choose a couple of preparations from the list that has both classics as well as lesser-known, regional preparations. Come with friends so that can order whole fish. Ordering a filet or a la carte dish just isn’t the same.

Read more about La Picantería here:

Visiting Surquillo and Other Recommendations

Another great thing about Surquillo—it’s conveniently located. You can easily walk to Surquillo from Miraflores. Just be careful as you’re crossing the busy road that separates Surquillo and Miraflores.

All of the recommendations above are lunch recommendations. I recommend practicing extra vigilance in Surquillo after dark and taking a taxi directly to your destination at night.

In addition to cevicherías, Surquillo has other restaurants worth checking out. Anticuchos at Anticuchos Bran (San Pedro 308), the daily soup at Siete Sopas (Av. Angamos Este 609), and picarones at Picarones Valeri (Jr. Domingo Elías 609) are some of our favorites. On a future visit, we plan to check out the chicarronerías that we started noticing crop up.

Finally, if you’re looking for something different, head to lunch at Piedra, a hidden restaurant where Chef Sebastian Vega prepares a seafood-forward tasting menu that changes daily (reservation required).

By the way, if you’re looking for other neighborhoods around the world to eat in, check out Culinary Backstreets’s list.

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Eat as the Incas Did

Believe it or not, the origin of many Peruvian dishes dates back to Incan times. If you’re lucky enough to see pachamanca (“earth pot” in Quechua) in action, you can see how the Incans built an oven from the ground up, using rocks, banana leaves, and dirt.

Another way to get a taste of Incan cooking is to order Chiriuchu, an epic dish that features diverse ingredients from all parts of Peru. With many types of meat and ingredients from the ocean, this dish was conceived to capture the vastness of the Incan empire. The preparation of Chiricuchu is typically reserved for Corpus Christi in June, but there are a couple of restaurants in Cusco that serve it year-round.

Try Your Hand at Cooking Peruvian Food

A cooking class is a fun, interactive experience that will bring you closer to Peruvian food. There are several to choose from in Cusco and Lima. Some even include a market tour. I recommend classes where you learn the secret to making good ceviche and get to try making Lomo Saltado with big flames.

Digger Deeper: You can continue building on what you learned from a class and work your way through the recipes of a Peruvian cookbook (I recommend several here). If you are in Peru and want full immersion, you can pick up a Spanish cookbook and source your ingredients from your neighborhood market.

Watch Reed Boat Fishermen in Action

Many visitors to Trujillo photograph the caballitos de totora, the iconic reed boats lined up along the beach. However, these boats are more than just decoration. The boats are still used daily by local fishermen who fish the traditional way. You can even buy fish and crab directly from them.

Digging Deeper: For a small fee, you can take a short ride in a caballito. However, you may smell like fish afterward!

Further Reading

Discover the Bounty of the Jungle

The Peruvian Amazon is one of the best places to sample exotic fruit. Aguaje, cocona, camu camu, noni, … the list goes on. The fruit from the jungle is not only tasty but also highly nutritious, packed with vitamins. In the jungle, you can find fresh fruit at any market or in fresh juices and desserts in restaurants.

Sample Your Way Through the Classic Pisco Cocktails

The Pisco sour is legendary and rightfully so, but it isn’t the only Pisco cocktail you should try. Pisco, the grape brandy originating in Peru (don’t let people tell you otherwise), comes in a multitude of varieties and is featured in several classic cocktails.

Each Pisco cocktail has its own personality and unique origin story. The shortlist of Pisco cocktails to try includes Pisco Sour (classic and refreshing), Chilcano (divine in its simplicity), Pisco Punch (fruity, goes well with a ceviche lunch), and El Capitan (when you are in the mood for something stronger).

Digging Deeper: Cocktails are not the only way to enjoy Pisco. There are eight types of grapes used to make pisco. One way to appreciate these varietals is to look for mosto verde, a more aromatic type of Pisco that is best appreciated pure.

Talk to Locals About Food

Peruvians love to talk about food. Talking about food is one of the best icebreakers. Just ask just about anyone in Peru what they ate for lunch or where their favorite cevichería is. Just make sure you don’t have anywhere that you have to be!

You’ll find that a little bit of Spanish goes a long way. A lot of my early Spanish conversations about food involved a lot of pointing and hand motions.

Digging Deeper-You never know where these conversations will take you. Next thing you know you may be invited over for a family dinner or even a wedding. One of the best ways to get restaurant recommendations is to talk to someone local sitting next to you at a restaurant that you’re currently enjoying.

To Be Continued …

I will finish this short series of posts about great food experiences in Peru with Experiences that I haven’t yet done but look forward to.

Also, some readers may notice that many of these experiences don’t have links to other stories. That’s because these stories haven’t been written yet! Many more stories about my past and future travel through Peru are to come. Please subscribe so that you don’t miss anything.

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I’ve hand-selected experiences that are not only delicious but ones that also shed light on an essential aspect of Peruvian cuisine. The central theme of this newsletter and website is how many ways there are to enjoy Peruvian food, from street food to home-cooking to tasting menus. I wanted this list to reflect this diversity. Many of these experiences are regional, but taken as a whole, they capture the diversity of Peruvian food. Enjoy!

Enjoy Sunday Ceviche

I try to eat ceviche every day when I’m in Peru, but Sunday ceviche is always special since Sunday is family day, and many families eat ceviche together on Sunday. It feels relaxed yet there’s a bustling undercurrent of energy as waiters take orders and bring mouthwatering seafood dishes. Consider making a reservation or be open to chitchatting while waiting for a spot.

Where to go: El Mercado, La Mar, Punto Azul, … the list is truly endless.

Digger deeper: Try different types of ceviche including regional variations. Also, try ceviche in the market and at some of the trendy cevicherías making their rounds on social media. Fancy ceviche and market ceviche each have their own unique appeal.

Further reading

Celebrate the Picantería Tradition

It’s no secret that the citizens of Arequipa, also known for its colonial buildings made of white volcanic stone, are proud of their food tradition. To understand why, drop by a Picantería for lunch and sample hearty meat and potato dishes such as Rocoto Relleno (stuffed pepper) or Costillar Arequipeño (pepper-spiced lamb ribs). Or order an Americano which means you’ll get a little of everything being served that day on one plate.

Digging deeper: Picanterías throughout Arequipa feature a different soup every day of the week. Plus the repertoire of classic picantería is quite extensive. It’ll take you at least a couple of weeks to work your way through the most popular dishes. Try a few different picanterías, choose your favorite, and then become a regular.

Where to go: El Mercado, La Mar, Punto Azul, … the list is truly endless.

Further Reading:

Try Peru’s Most Infamous Dish for Yourself

Does guinea pig taste like chicken? Try you for yourself. If you don’t want to grapple with the sight of a whole guinea pig staring at you on a plate, there are many other preparations to choose from. Just do yourself a favor and walk a few blocks away from touts on the main square and find a restaurant that prepares guinea pig with respect and care. Remember that guinea pig is not just a dish made for tourists. Many Andean families raise cuy and save their consumption for special occasions.

Where to go: Pachapapa (Cusco), Kusikuy (Cusco), Panchita (Lima)

Digging deeper: The Sierra (Highland) region of Peru runs the length of Peru. Each town in the region including Cusco, Cajamarca, and Arequipa has its own regional preparations of cuy that you can try.

Further Reading

Immerse Yourself in a Market

Visiting a traditional market is one of the best ways to learn about Peruvian food. The market tradition is still very alive in Peru and forms an essential part of daily life for most Peruvians. At a market, you can see a dazzling variety of potatoes, peppers, and corn. The butcher section famously shows how Peruvians are able to make every cut of meat into a culinary delicacy. Along the coast, the seafood stalls sell only the freshest of fresh. Just about everything you see was caught that day.

You don’t need to go to the most famous market in a place. Simply find the closest market to you. There’s generally a market in every neighborhood; sometimes, they aren’t listed on Google Maps and are best found by asking locals. We usually like doing a walkthrough of a market after a ceviche lunch.

Digging deeper: Don’t just visit the market for photos. If you learn your way around the Peruvian market along with some basic haggling and language skills, you’ll be able to prepare nutritious and economical meals.

Further Reading

Splurge on a Tasting Menu

Tasting menus in Peru offer a one-of-a-kind way to experience Peruvian gastronomy. There are many tasting menus to choose from, with the ones at Central, Maido, and Astrid y Gaston being the most famous.

Each tasting menu represents a unique journey through Peruvian food. The tasting menus in Peru are generally organized around a specific theme within Peruvian cuisine since Peruvian food is so broad that it is difficult to encapsulate everything even with a dozen or more courses.

If you don’t have the budget or appetite for a full tasting menu, consider the a la carte menu at these restaurants. Also, there are an increasing number of options including smaller tasting menus that are lighter on the budget.

Digger Deeper: The more you learn about Peruvian cuisine before a tasting menu, the more you’ll appreciate the nuances of a tasting menu. For this reason, I would recommend saving a tasting menu for the end of a trip. That way you will have enough time to try various ingredients in other contexts and then see how Peruvian master chefs are able to tie everything together.

Further Reading

To Be Continued …

The first part of the list focuses on experiences that I enjoy on a regular basis and have previously written about. The next installment will include a couple of experiences I haven’t tried yet that are on my bucket list.

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If you need a break from meat, milanesa, and malbec in Buenos Aires, consider sampling Buenos Aires’s Peruvian food options.

If you are a carnivore at heart, you may be thinking … “‘meat, milanesa, and malbec’ … that sounds like paradise, why would I need a break?” We thought the same during our first month-long stay in Buenos Aires. We worked our way through parilla after parilla, culminating in a visit to the esteemed Don Julio. However, arriving in Buenos Aires this time for another month stay, we had already eaten a fair amount of meat in Uruguay and were looking to sample Buenos Aires’s international options. Plus, we were craving fish and vegetables.

Buenos Aires has a strong offering of Peruvian restaurants including La Mar, El Tigre Morado, and Barra Chalaca. Here are my thoughts of the Peruvian food in Buenos Aires, as someone who has eaten more than 900 meals in Peru.

La Mar, the Cevichería that Introduced Peruvian Food to Buenos Aires

If you want to try Peruvian food in Buenos Aires, you can’t go wrong with La Mar, an outpost of Chef Gaston Acurio’s quintessential La Mar in Lima. Every La Mar I’ve been to has lived up to its name, though each provides a unique experience. The La Mar in Buenos Aires is innovative in its own right which has earned itself a spot on 50Best’s increasingly competitive list of top 100 restaurants in Latin America.

When it first opened in Buenos Aires in 2015, opening a seafood amid a city of devout meat-eaters seemed like a strange choice. However, Gaston Acurio always could see potential where others miss it, and he saw potential in Argentina’s long coastline and the power of Argentina’s local producers. Under the direction of Gustavo Montestruque, La Mar Buenos Aires recently revamped its post-pandemic menu to be tighter and to feature more Atlantic seafood and products from local purveyors.

La Mar Buenos Aires is set in a stately historic mansion in the vibrant Palermo Hollywood. We made a last-minute reservation for a Friday lunch but it wasn’t needed. The mansion that housed La Mar was massive and featured ample outdoor seating.

Like the La Mar in Lima, the menu offers many possible different experiences that warrant multiple visits. We knew we had to try the ceviche. To round out the meal, we decided to focus on dishes inspired by Argentinean cuisine, with the Seafood Choripan and Seafood Empanada.

Choosing between several options, we chose the ceviche chalaco which was in the “style of street food”. The leche de tigre, the flavorful liquid in the ceviche, was spot-on. I wonder if they imported limes from Peru or found producers that could grow the límon criolla in Argentina.

The ceviche was a mix of pota and lenguado, with more pota than lenguado, which probably explains why it was one of the lower-priced ceviches. The ceviche was “market style” or carretillero but did not feature fried pota. I just wished the descriptions were a bit more clear.

The appetizers were stellar. The Seafood Empanada and Seafood Choripan represented some of the best bites that we had in Buenos Aires.

Honestly, sometimes I get bored of the idea of an empanada, but then I have a truly good empanada and that’s all I want to eat for a while. The seafood filling was creamy while not masking the flavor of the seafood medley.

You could tell that the seafood chorizo in the choripan was made with great care. The Argentinian salsa criolla (different than the salsa criolla in Peru) and chimichurri took it to the top. The choripan was small but full of flavor. You could see something like the choripan be part of a tasting menu.

Tigre Morado, Modern Peruvian Dishes

On the following week, we went to Tigre Morado (“Purple Tiger”), a restaurant serving stylized Peruvian dishes which caught my attention. The menu here is quite broad and takes a while to download (menus with prices are usually digital since the prices in Argentina change so often).

Daníel, our waiter recommended the Ají Ají (made with creamy yellow pepper) and the Apaltado Ceviche (with Avocado). We chose the Ají Ají ceviche, partially because it’s fun to say.

The ceviche was tasty but a little different than the ceviche that I’m accustomed to eating. The leche de tigre was thick and rich, more like the sauce in a tiradito than in a classic ceviche.

The Duo Vapor which featured two bao sandwiches, one with fried fish with white bread and the other with fried mixed seafood with bread made from purple corn. The fried fish and seafood were well-prepared, but the bao was a tad bit gummy.

Then, we noticed the makis that another table ordered and decided to order the Roll Ebi, featuring shrimp, crab, avocado, chili cream sauce, and parmesan, all flambeéd together. Each piece of maki was a delightful burst of flavor. The sauces played off of each other, coming together to pack a punch of umami. The smokiness from the flambeé came through without overwhelming.

Finally, the house cocktails were probably the best cocktails that we had in Buenos Aires. We ordered the La Serena which was similar to a maracuya (passionfruit) chilcano with the addition of ginger beer and a Hucatay Pisco sour (black mint). When it comes to cocktails, we tend not to stray too far from the classics. The cocktails were both perfectly balanced.

I recommend sitting outside if the weather is good. However, if you do, you should also make sure to check out the interior.

Trying Peruvian Food in Buenos Aires

Parrillas tend to be famously late dinner spots while for Peruvians lunch is king which means you don’t actually have to choose between the two. Have Peruvian ceviche for lunch and then hit up a parilla for dinner (which usually starts after 8 pm in Argentina).

La Mar is only a few blocks from Tigre Morado which is just a few blocks from Barra Chalaca. If you were ambitious, you could spend an afternoon sampling the food from all three.

Here are a parting few tips for ordering Peruvian food in Buenos Aires

• Surf ‘n Turf may be the way to go. Argentinean beef is famous for a reason. Consider ordering anticuchos or lomo saltado to enjoy Argentinean grass-fed beef as part of your meal. Note that Argentineans don’t tend to eat much beef heart so anticuchos may be made with other cuts of meat instead.

• Get to know river fish. Trying river fish such as trout (trucha) provides a more inexpensive and possibly fresher alternative to ocean-caught fish.

• Pay attention to the prices. Within the same menu, the prices will vary a lot. The ceviche is a bit more expensive than we’re used to because ocean seafood is harder to come by in Argentina. However, you can trust that Peruvian restaurants here pay a lot of attention to the quality of their seafood so you’ll get good quality. Also, octopus (pulpo) tends to be extremely expensive, but they may give you the whole octopus.

• Enjoy a cocktail or two. Cocktails, even with imported Pisco, are surprisingly inexpensive (around 5-6 dollars a cocktail).

• Bring cash to tip. Usually, there is not the option to tip with your credit card.

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It only took a few days in Peru to realize that most meals in Peru come with double carbs—rice and potatoes, rice and beans, noodles and rice, bread and rice, and so on. At house parties, if there was another friend and we only saw one carb on the table, I’d conspiratorially whisper to them, “Just wait for it … there’s another carb coming …”

The record was at a local restaurant in Puerto Maldonado where we were served a complimentary basket containing five different kinds of carbs. We couldn’t complain much since it was free, but I didn’t know how people finished a full meal after that basket. In addition to the basket, there was the camote that came with the ceviche and tostones with the grilled fish we ordered.

For most Peruvians, carbs are not an accessory; they are an essential part of the meal and have emotional resonance. Meals don’t feel complete without the carb. Common carbs in Peruvian food include potatoes, rice, beans, corn, yucca, plantains, quinoa, lentils, bread, and noodles.

Many classic dishes prominently declare their carbs in their name, Arroz con Pato (Duck Rice), Papa Rellena (Stuffed Potato), etc.

Other dishes traditionally come with specific carbohydrates. In Arequipa, Rocoto Relleno comes with a Pastel de Papa. The duo are inseparable. You order one and you get the other. Camote, chifles, or yucca accompany ceviche, Aji de Gallina is served with potatoes, Pollo a la Brasa comes with french fries, Anticuchos are served over potatoes, and the list goes on.

Lomo saltado comes with rice and french fries. I once asked a Peruvian friend if I could make Lomo Saltado without the french fries (simply because I wanted to be lazy and not peel potatoes and fry them up). He simply answered, “It’s not Lomo Saltado without the french fries.” I didn’t ask again.

In Peru, carbohydrates are not just relegated to being a side dish. Peru is famously the home to thousands of varieties of potatoes. Thus, it makes sense that there are many dishes where the papa (potato in Quechua) is king—Papa Rellena, Causa Limeña, Papa a la Huancaína, and many more.

It’s not just potatoes. More and more types of carbs are getting their time to shine. Artisan pasta has become almost ubiquitous in buzzworthy restaurants in Lima. One of the restaurants that I’m most excited about trying next time we’re in Lima is Julia Arrocería which prepares exquisite preparations of rice in classic Peruvian and Mediterranean styles.

If you want to fill out a meal, make the dish “a lo pobre” which adds eggs, rice, and plantains. “Tacu Tacu,” a half-moon patty of fried beans and rice” is also another common option1.

When I first came to Peru, I eagerly accepted the heaping plates. I wanted to try everything once so I ended up confronting a lot of carbs. Nowadays, since I spend much less time walking and more time in front of a computer, I am more resolute about eating less especially in the carb department.

It’s nearly impossible to eat widely in Peru as we do and completely skip carbs. Firstly, waiters don’t understand if you ask them to leave out yucca or potatoes. They think you’re trying to get more meat for free. This then presents the issue of food waste which I admittedly don’t have a perfect answer.

It’s difficult to be strict about not eating carbs in Peru, but it’s very possible to keep it under control. If I’m at someone’s house, I will eat whatever is served, double carb and all. However, when we’re at home, I usually skip the carbs and instead double down on the veggies or the fish.

Higher-end dining will interweave small amounts of carbs in their menu, for example, showcasing regional grains and tubers—just a taste. You can order sashimi at Nikkei restaurants (however I think nigiris are where’s it at). As soon as you start eating in markets or street food, the carbs start piling up. And anyone who has been to a pollería knows that the fries can be hard to resist.

For me, cevicherías are the sweet spot where you have a lot of lower-carb options. We used to order Arroz con Mariscos to go along with our ceviche. I did it because I thought Mariela loved Arroz con Mariscos while she thought I was the one who always wanted it which was probably true. Now, we’ve switched to Parihuela (without the rice) or Sudado (avoiding some of the yucca at the bottom).

I now try to save carbs (especially bread, rice, and pasta) for special occasions or something to enjoy on Sundays rather than making it the default. If I’m going to eat carbs, I’m going to fully enjoy it—Arroz con Mariscos at El Mercado or the crusty tres puntas bread with Sunday Adobo in Arequipa.

Please let me know what you think of this post. I’m trying different things as I work on some more research-intensive stories. You can also try the new Substack direct message feature!

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I became a digital nomad by accident. A move usually consists of moving from point A to point B. I concentrated so much on moving away from San Francisco that just bought a one-way ticket to Lima and didn’t think much about subsequent steps. For the last three years, my life followed the general pattern of three months in Peru and three months out. It certainly hasn’t been boring …

In this post, I wanted to share a glimpse of what it’s like to be a digital nomad and how food and more time in a place enriches the experience. This post is just to whet your appetite. More detailed posts to come!

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Digital Nomad Visas Coming to Peru and Many Other Places Worldwide

In November of last year, Peru announced a digital nomad visa. They passed a law, Decreto Legislativo 1582, that introduced a visa for workers employed independently or for employers outside of Peru to work for up to a year while physically in Peru. However, there’s currently no way for you to apply for these digital nomad visas in Peru.

The announcement that Peru will be instating a digital nomad visa caught me by surprise. Everything to do with immigration seems so entrenched in old-school bureaucracy that I didn’t think things would change so quickly.

I often hoped that a better-defined visa for digital nomads would help with planning our lives beyond three months at a time. I thought that such a thing was at least five years off. However, it seems that despite mixed results in countries like Portugal, digital nomad visas have quickly become popular, almost fashionable, among governments.

Since the initial announcements, the Peruvian government has not released many details, and for digital nomads, the devil is always in the details. The ability to stay for a year is just the beginning—you have to consider the employment requirements, how to transfer money back and forth, healthcare, and tax consequences.

I’ve looked at many resources to navigate Peru’s immigration policies, and LimaEasy is the best I’ve seen. They update frequently and also generously answer user-specfic questions in their comments. The vast majority of other web pages are cookie-cutter (sometimes just replacing the country name) and are often just advertisements for dubious consulting services.

Why Peru?

Here’s a short list of reasons why Peru might be your digital nomad haven:

• Time zone: For digital nomads that have ties with the US, the time zone is favorable. Half of the year, it’s lined up with NYC, and the other half of the year it’s one hour different.

• Frequent Flights: The flights to Lima still are as frequent as pre-pandemic, but it’s still fairly convenient. There are direct flights from Lima to Houston, Atlanta, and Miami.

• High-speed internet: The internet has vastly improved since I started visiting Peru, especially in Lima. You can have fiber internet set up in 24 hours in Lima.

• Rainforest, Mountains, and Beaches: If you based yourself in Lima, you’ll have an amazing selection of destinations for a long weekend or vacation. With an hour-and-half flight, you can visit the Andes (Cusco as the hub), the Amazon (Tarapoto, Iquitos, or Puerto Maldonado), and the beaches of the North (Piura, Trujillo).

• Amazing food for all budgets: One key aspect of the food scene that is an especially good fit for digital nomads is the availability of good Peru at a variety of price ranges. If you’re on a budget, you can enjoy street food, daily menú at local restaurants, and food at market stalls. At the other end of the continuum, many of the world’s top restaurants including the current #1 restaurant in the world are found in Lima. Staying for a while, you have ample opportunity to score a reservation at these top restaurants.

Here are a few ideas that have shaped my digital nomad experience:

Food as a Central Thread

Food is a central thread through just about any culture. Tug on it and you’ll learn about culture, geography, history, and how people live and what they value.

Food pulls you into a culture and immerses you as it involves all of the senses. Food is also a great connector and is a great way to meet people. Digging deeper and reading about the history of regional dishes will teach you a lot about the place.

You don’t have to be as food-obsessed as I am to use food as a way to connect the dots. You can use food as an opener to friendships. Or you can find your own thread. I have friends who have connected with people in new places over unicycling, surfing, photography, and much more.

I think food is especially great because you have to eat every day and meals are opportunities to learn something new about where you are already built into life.

Time as a Teacher

One of the most fascinating things about traveling is how your perspective of a place changes depending on how long you stay. I’ve stayed in some places for a layover, many places for a week, and several for a month. Staying as a digital nomad offers a unique perspective. I think digital nomadism is still relatively new and it will take time to fully appreciate the unique perspective that comes with staying places in chunks for six months to a year.

As a digital nomad, you’ll learn more and have the opportunity to experience seeing more than most tourists. However, as a digital nomad, you are free to leave after your stint is done. This makes the experience something different from that of a tourist but also different from that of an expat. Also, interleaving places that you return to further make the digital nomad experience even more unique.

Consider Being a Tourist First

Many of the cookie-cutter web pages about the Peruvian digital nomad visa prominently list Machu Picchu as one of the top reasons to be a digital nomad in Peru (while leaving off the high-speed internet that is widely available in Lima). It’s almost like people forget that you can visit a place as a tourist first. It’s a good idea to visit a place as a tourist before committing to a year-long digital nomad stint.

More to Come

This is the first in a series of posts to share information about the Peruvian digital nomad. In this post, my goal was to provide my perspective on how staying longer and being curious about the food aided my understanding of Peru. In future posts, I will drill into the details and the specific quality of life factors of staying in Peru for a while.

Tips for Your Digital Nomad Journey

If you’re a digital nomad or are thinking about becoming one, sign up for my upcoming newsletter here:

Sign-up for Digital Nomad Tips

It turns out that way more people ask me about how to get good internet at an Airbnb than about where to find a good sudado so I decided to start a newsletter covering tips I learned while working remotely around the world.

Please share with a digital nomad friend or someone who is considering Peru as a destination.

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Where else in Lima can you order Ceviche, Korean chicken, Schnitzel, Curry, and Spaghetti & Meatballs from the same menu? Whether or not it’s a good idea to pack all of this in one menu is up for debate. I’ll provide my take at the end.

Whenever I leave Lima, choosing where to have our final-for-now lunch is usually tough. This time it was a no-brainer. Picnic had just opened days ago, and we leaped at the opportunity to get our first taste of Chefs Rafael Osterling and Rodrigo Alzamora’s new offering.

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I don’t generally follow chefs that closely, but Chef Osterling’s food has been interlaced with pivotal moments in my life. Chef Osterling is the chef behind El Mercado, the restaurant where Mariela and I met. It was also the place where I first tried Peruvian ceviche. Rafael, his namesake restaurant, was another one of Mariela and my first dates. His Felix Pizza pandemic popup delivered us pizzas that delighted the senses at the time we needed it.

The Ambiance

The restaurant is a bit hidden. We knew what we were looking for, but it still took us a little circling to find the stairs leading down to the restaurant.

I especially love the patio which lets in just enough natural light, making it feel like you’re enjoying a picnic in the shade at a park. The large dining area adjacent to the patio was a bit dark, and the structure felt a bit different, more like a mountain lodge.

With a theme like Picnic, it’s easy to be too on the nose. You could imagine the restaurant serving food out of Picnic baskets or even having guests sit on blankets draped on the floor. Luckily, Picnic steers clear of that and provides just the right amount of reference to its namesake. Check out the tableware, for example:

There are many beautiful touches throughout the restaurant. Even the coasters pop.

The Menu

There was no menu posted on the website or Instagram. The only thing I knew going in was that there was going to be ceviche and pasta which is a bit obvious if you’ve been to Chef Osterling’s other restaurants. However, I did not expect to find Korean Fried Chicken or Schnitzel.

Chef Rafael Osterling is known for elevated Peruvian cuisine with international touches. As alluded to above, the initial menu at Picnic is a bit eclectic. It takes the international touches that I associate with Chef Osterling’s style and amps them up.

The menu packs a lot of diverse dishes in a relatively compact menu. The menu is neatly organized into Pequeos (starters), Sanguches (sandwiches), Entradas (Appetizers), and Fondos (Mains). Ceviche, the first thing I look for in a Peruvian menu is included as an Entrada.

It’s difficult to summarize the menu without listing all of the dishes. For example, the Pequeos has just three dishes, but it features Middle Eastern flavors (hummus), Asian flavors (Korean fried chicken), and Italian flavors (Stracciatella).

Jumping to the mains, where we ended up in decision paralysis, there’s ravioli in buttermilk and spaghetti and meatballs, their version of Sudado, Thai curry, and … Schnitzel.

With six dishes, the dessert menu was disproportionately large (not that we’re complaining). The most classic dessert was the Crema Volteada. The dessert menu had a strong American presence with French Toast, NY Cheesecake, and an Ice Cream Sandwich.

The cocktail menu was decidedly summery with a whole section for spritzes and into verano. There was a good mix of cocktails with Pisco and other spirits. There’s also a section for negronis if you want something a tad bit bolder.

What We Ordered

We had to start with the Korean Fried Chicken. As an aside, Korean food is starting to emerge on the Lima food scene with restaurants like La Mar experimenting with Kimchi and a couple of Korean restaurants gaining popularity.

The chicken was tangy and well-prepared. A very solid start.

The Ceviche featured lenguado (sole) and a tortita (corn cake), an homage to the Northern-style of ceviche that is very popular in Lima nowadays. The leche de tigre was very liquidy which is a style that has been waxing and waning in popularity over the last few years. Personally, we think that this style of ceviche works better with a little more acidity.

Next, we had the Bun Chorrilanos, a sandwich inspired by the fish sandwiches you get from small shacks in Chorrilos or Callao. This version substitutes the traditional pejerrey (silverside, a fish that has traditionally been inexpensive) for lenguado, a luxurious fish.

The sandwich featured the same fish as the ceviche. I always enjoy trying an ingredient multiple ways in the same meal, and I never had lenguado fried so it was an interesting experience. After giving Mariela a bite (she doesn’t enjoy fish sandwiches nearly as much as I do), I quickly devoured the rest.

We got stuck on the main. I wanted to try the Spaghetti & Meatballs since Chef Osterling is a master at pasta, but we didn’t end up ordering it. Why not? With all of the commotion of packing and preparing for a red eye the next day, I just didn’t feel that I could handle the switch from cevichería fare to Spaghetti & Meatballs.

After going through the list of mains one by one, we decided that we were simply not feeling any of the mains so we decided to skip to the dessert which was a much easier choice. We went with the ice cream sandwich which features roasted apple, vanilla ice cream, and salted caramel in between two layers of Kouign Amann.

Finally, we ordered two cocktails—the chic sour and mi vida colada, the house versions of a Pisco sour and Piña Colada, respectively. They were refreshing and went well with the meal.

This Happened

I was sitting facing the wall, but Mariela could see everything. She spotted Chef Osterling and whispered to me, “he’s here.” I was surprised but not surprised. It made sense that he’d be there in person to oversee the first week. But at the same time, with his packed schedule, he’s been one more of the elusive chefs. Regardless, kudos to Mariela for making this photo happen.

Parting Thoughts

Overall, we enjoyed our lunch at Picnic and will be back. It takes time for new restaurants to find their groove, and Picnic is already most of the way there.

The hangups we had in choosing a main were very specific to us and how we were feeling in the moment so it’s not a critique of the menu. Having said that, I hope they fill out the menu a little to provide more natural groupings within the menu.

Now that I’ve had more time to look at the menu, I see that there are multiple paths through the menu:

• You can have a wonderful Italian-inspired meal (Stracciatella, Tonnato, and pasta), a cevichería lunch (Ceviche Altamar, Fried Fish Sandwich, and the Corvinilla Costa Brava), or an Asian fusion meal (Korean Fried Chicken and Pesca Curry Thai).

• Or you can enjoy a couple of cocktails with some small plates for snacks which seems to be what the other tables around us were doing.

• You can just go for it and have your ceviche with schnitzel.

A lot of my favorite restaurants are the ones that challenge me. I look forward to seeing how Picnic evolves and how our perspective on it changes. Maybe, I will have my ceviche with spaghetti and meatballs next time.

Picnic is located at Tudela & Varela 191, San Isidro, Lima. You can follow them at @picnicclubpe.

Check out my thoughts on other restaurants in Peru in the restaurant notes section (I will start posting new notes in May but there are already several to check out).

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I was supposed to fly to Lima on New Year’s Eve but there was a transportation strike, and my flight was moved to the next day. Heck, I was originally going to go to Lima months earlier, but a wave of protests that was running its course throughout Peru convinced me to delay my plans.

I celebrated New Year’s on a hill in San Franciso, took an Uber to the airport, and arrived in Lima at 5 am the next day. Somehow, I managed to take the wrong suitcase from the airport which I didn’t realize until I checked into my Airbnb and opened my suitcase to see a Minion stuffed animal instead of the gear I had meticulously packed. I backtracked to the airport, went through customs again, and swapped suitcases. I feel back that I inadvertently delayed the other suitcase owner's day by a few hours.

Then, it was time to meet Mariela who I had met online and talked to on video for about three months. Looking back at our messages, it was unclear when the sparks began. The initial messages were very formal, something out of Spanish textbook. Then, she said “I know English too” and that began the fairly abrupt abandonment of my resolve to learn Spanish for everyday life (ie be able to talk about non-food topics).

Mariela and I had made plans to meet at 2 pm at El Mercado which I visited every time I was in Lima. They weren’t taking reservations at the time. I arrived a little early and they told me we could be seated in three hours. Mariela arrived and asked in Spanish and we were then told twenty minutes.

Mariela was much more beautiful in person so much so that I was now nervous. In all of the details including the way she pressed each piece of ceviche into the lime to maximize the flavor, I could instantly see that she liked to do things her own way.

We ordered ceviche carretillero, conchas a la parmesana, and arroz con mariscos which would continue to continue to be three of our favorite dishes which we would order over and over again. El Mercado was already my favorite restaurant, and it was now our favorite restaurant.

After lunch, we took a walk in no direction in particular. My memories of that walk are so vivid. There were so many little things to point out to each other like we were catching up on little observations that we had bottled up for a lifetime.

We ended up at the beach as the sunset was setting. We chuckled as parents encouraged their kids to chuck stones overhead into the ocean1. Amidst the stone-throwing, we shared our first kiss.

I wanted to show Mariela the little bits of Lima I knew. Our first dates included Callao, Cala, and Cafe Tostado. I quickly exhausted my limited list of places I knew at the time.

Soon we were spending lockdown together. Mariela would tell her friends and family how strange it was that I would spend a month in a neighborhood and then change to another neighborhood the following month.

In each place, we would quickly adopt a routine of ordering ceviche every day for lunch (each place would have a different list of restaurants in the delivery radius) and then taking a walk after work. In all of my earlier 2-3 day visits, I had never slowed down enough to appreciate how beautiful the sunsets were in Lima.

We quickly realized how similar our tastes were even though we grew up on different continents with different family food heritages. Her dad is from Callao and loved eating fish. Her mom grew up on a farm and was responsible for cooking beans, rice, stews, and vegetables for her siblings. I grew up eating Thai Chinese food in Southern Georgia. Yet we share strikingly similar thoughts and opinions about the food we share, even when they are unpopular opinions.

Mariela often tells me that she is the one who showed me Lima. She’s definitely the one who convinced me to call it home, but I like to think we learned Lima together. I love how the early moments of our relationship are intertwined with the geography of Lima. We can’t drive too far around Lima without passing a place that holds some significance for us.

We’ve I sometimes wonder if I should’ve gone earlier despite the political situation and had met Mariela a few months earlier2. Of course, if I knew what I know now, it would be a no-brainer. But in truth, we more than made up for lost time.

The first few months of the relationship, we shared every hour of the day together. In the last three years, we’ve shared many meals, sunsets, and ordinary moments made memorable over two continents (soon to be three).

We’re fortunate to have seen some of the world’s wonders together (Galapagos was a true one-in-a-lifetime trip). We’ve also gone to some of the world’s best restaurants together, but many of our most memorable moments exist in the space between. We still laugh and laugh about a tiny confusion that happened when ordering empanadas at a gas station. Sorry, you had to be there.

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In my opinion, my photos of other places better capture the sense of place than my photos of Peru. For example, when I think of Mexico, I can conjure up memories of my photos such as the overhead shots of tortillas being made at a market, luchadors wrestling for a local audience including jubilant five-year-olds, and an Easter week procession meandering against the backdrop of colorful streets of a small town. In Peru, I have taken photos of hundreds of dishes, but how they are connected?

It turns out I just needed to step away and photograph another place to rebuild my framework for telling stories through photography. That place was Garzón, Uruguay.

William Hereford taught the workshop which was beautifully structured to span three days. Each day focused on a different theme: portraits, landscapes, and then food. The mornings featured photo shoots followed by editing sessions in the afternoon. Many meals and memories were shared along the way. The workshop included food from the best restaurants in the area including Francis Mallmann’s Restaurante Garzon, Marismo, and catering by Mesa.

I shot from the moment I woke up until late into the night. One day began with photos of horses right outside the old train wagon that was my accommodation for the workshop. The day ended with a fleeting shot taken as we concluded another wonderful meal as friends. Even though I haven’t used my camera much for the last couple of years, I was excited that my photos were landing. It was nice to know that knowledge from past photo workshops was still ingrained in me.

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Each photo workshop is completely different. Here are some of the things I learned during this workshop:

It’s absolutely amazing how photographers shoot the same subject in completely different ways. Anyone who has compared photos with a friend who was on the same trip knows how surprisingly different the photos can be. With the immersive photo shoots in the workshop and editing sessions where we shared our daily captures, I could see how people take in scenes differently. I enjoyed how this workshop included ample time to share photos and discuss them. This led to everyone getting to know each other.

Conversations help develop your photographic vision. In the workshop, I was able to see how people perceive my photos. Several participants commented on how I was able to disappear from a scene, making the viewers feel that they were there. I never thought about it exactly that way, but I enjoy taking environmental portraits that lead with a strong subject but also pack in a lot of details of the surroundings. Taking close-up shots of details tends to be something I often miss and worked on during the workshop.

I should spend more time editing. I shoot a lot. Before I switched to mirrorless, I shot a lot to make sure the focus was right. Now, I shoot a lot, especially to catch the right expression on someone’s face and also to have photos ready for when I decide years later to write about a specific topic like a certain type of Peruvian pepper. With this workshop, I realized the power of editing to add a “punch” to photos. With the right editing, you can say more with fewer photos.

Photography doesn’t have to be solitary. A camera can isolate you from your surroundings or draw you in. I associate photography with the many trips where I traveled solo. With this workshop, I got to experience photography as a collaborative effort. One of my favorite moments was when we were shooting beautiful plates of food laid out on a table. We had the camera tethered so we could all see photos as they were taken and then it was time to “mess up” the food and photograph the food with our hands cutting and eating.

This workshop was far more than a class. William invited us into his home and into his life. He’s an incredibly kind soul. You can see this not only in how he encourages his students but also in his daily interactions with the core people in his life and all of the people in town.

The six participants (including myself) had experience living in Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, and in my case, Peru. I am fortunate to have spent so many meals with such a wonderful group of people. We talked about everything from the right music for a particular moment to how new food scenes form.

The central assignment for the workshop was to select 12 photos that capture Garzón. Here are 9 of those images:

I started wondering if I could do that with Peru. The goal is not to provide lots of photos about one thing but instead to interweave photos that are broad with ones that zoom into poignant details. Since it could be overwhelming, I would start with a single region or city like Lima. Thinking about Lima, if I were to guess, I could pull 4 photos from my current collection. That means that I have my work cut out for me, with 8 more photos to go.

Finally, this workshop made me think about telling stories via writing versus photography.

As you’ve probably noticed, I tend to hedge and tell a story with half photos and half pictures. I’d like to change it up occasionally with some stories that feature just one header photo and longer text, and other ones featuring a small collection of photos and just a tiny bit of text to set the context1.

On the first day, I asked William about the role of the photographer and the writer in food stories. Not because I have an interest in professionalizing, but rather to understand how stories that you read in magazines are put together. I wondered, “Why isn’t the photographer and the writer the same person”?

One answer is that each is a long process. Shooting the way we did required setting up the shoot, the shoot itself, culling photos, and editing. The writing process involves a lot of interviews, sifting through pages of notes, and a lot of re-writing. Plus, if you’re doing it for a living you have to add all of the business aspects of establishing your niche, pricing offerings, keeping the client happy, and more.

Throughout the course, with William’s help, I was able to come to a satisfying answer to the question for myself. People see stories differently. Not everyone wants to spend time through the viewfinder. Others don’t like combing through hours of interview notes.2 I happen to like both, but as a result, I sometimes am overextended and as a result, a lot of my work is riddled with typos and my photos often lack flair. In the end, what’s important is to strive to continuously improve and to go wherever your interests take you.

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Follow William at @williamhereford to hear about future workshops.