My First Taste of Peru

Five meals that convinced me that Peruvian food is the best on the planet

As work on writing up the story of our recent trip to Arequipa, Cusco, and Puno, I thought it would be fun to share stories from my very first trip to Peru, back in 2015.

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

“First taste of Lima at El Mercado. The super fresh fish, chicharron, and choclo presented a tantalizing contrast in textures. The leche de tigre makes the ceviche really pop.”

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.

2) Cafe Tostado

“There was no menu, only a daily special. The chef didn’t speak English so he called his son to come and hang out with me. Paulo, his son, gave me an overview of Peruvian cuisine and told me about importing ingredients from the jungle, huariques— family-run establishments that are the bastions of traditional food, and different types of peppers used here. These are exactly the kinds of stories that brought me to Peru.”

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

At La Capitana, we learned a local drinking tradition called a submarine where a shot of anís is dropped into a beer. It’s interesting how many convergent drinking traditions there are around the world.

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.

Apparently, pickled pig feet were okay for tourist stomaches but not ice cream!?

5) Wedding Porridge

“I got invited to a Peruvian Wedding in a small village. The ceremony was a beautiful mix of Catholic and Incan traditions. For the first course, large bowls of traditional porridge made of corn with bits of meat were passed down each row. The bowls of soup spilled out to the village as everyone joined the celebration.”

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

I wished I knew where my friend was able to find these chocolates at a bus station before our overnight trip to Arequipa.

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.

One of the many kitchens I got to see during my first visit to Peru (this one may have been an open kitchen)

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.

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:

Arroz con Mariscos at El Mercado, Lima

Barranco's Cafe Tostado

The Essence of Arequipa's Picantería Food

1. I wasn’t there to gamble. The casino was the only place that I saw open that early in the morning.

2. One of my frequent travel advice is to not over-romanticize your first meal somewhere. Chances are the first meal in a new place will be both your worst and most overpriced meal. You’ve been traveling for hours and haven’t gotten your bearings yet. Give yourself a break.

3. For the record, if I knew what I know now, my first meal in Peru at 6:30 am would’ve been a chicharrón sandwich in front of a market to be followed by ceviche with a view of the ocean a few hours later.