By Karen Hursh Graber, writing from Mexico
Stretched along the Pacific Coast of Peru, the South American city of Lima is a world renowned gastronomic center, with an abundance of fresh, local fish and seafood, as well as exotic fruit from tropical lowlands and ancient grains from the Andes. Multicultural influences, both national and global, have contributed to the city’s diverse restaurant scene.
The pre-Colombian Inca people, the colonial Spaniards, African slaves, and immigrants from Europe and Asia, especially the Japanese, have all had significant impact on Peru’s foodways, and these are readily apparent in the wide variety of offerings on Lima’s menus. As the country’s capital, the city has also drawn a populace from different regions of Peru, bringing their traditional dishes and cooking techniques.
SPOTLIGHT ON SEAFOOD
Peru’s coastline is at the convergence of warm and cold currents, yielding the wide range of culinary riches from the ocean that has made Lima a prime destination for fish and seafood restaurants. The city’s signature dish, ceviche, is featured in many forms on menus in hundreds of establishments.
At Chef Gaston Acurio’s La Mar, the degustacion de cebiche is a tasting of several different ceviches, including fish in the classic citrus-based marinade called leche de tigre, a combination of lime juice, Peruvian ají chile, and red onion. At Restaurant Sonia, the cebiche de la casa, or house ceviche, is a combination of shrimp, octopus, sole and crabmeat, while at Paisa II, 10 different single species ceviches are offered.
At El Mercado, the sole ceviche is prepared at the table, with fresh lime juice and ají chile, and at Chez Wong, the house special ceviche is Dover sole and octopus. In many Lima restaurants, such as Saqra, ceviche is served with sweet potato and corn, bringing together the Andean crops of the highlands with the marine delicacies of the coast.
These ceviches are descendants of the pre-Hispanic fresh fish “cooked” in passion fruit juice until the Spaniards brought the citrus fruits used today. The Japanese brought sashimi, which in Peru became tiradito, or thinly sliced fresh fish. The Japanese-Peruvian fusion, called Nikkei, is presented at Maido, where Japanese seasonings flavor Peruvian fish and seafood dishes, such as the nissei ceviche, with dashi, ginger and soy sauce, and the river prawns misoshiru, with dashi, tofu and wakame, an edible seaweed.
Myriad other fish and seafood dishes appear on Lima’s menus, including La Mar’s langostinos crocantes, deep fried jumbo prawns served on a bed of sweet potato and orange puree. At Costazul, the seco de corvina a la norteña, or northern style sea bass stew, is served over tacu tacu, the beans and rice dish that is a staple in Peruvian cooking. The restaurant also serves a Lima-style take on empanadas, using wonton dough to encase a filling of crab meat and shrimp served with three dipping sauces.
At Chabuca, fish and seafood are combined in pescado a lo macho, a grilled white fish covered in a sauce of shrimp, squid, scallops and white wine, seasoned with ají chile. And Restaurant Mirasol serves three different versions of the classic Peruvian rice with seafood, giving the customer a choice of prawns, scallops, or mixed seafood. Another take on seafood and rice is served at Paisa II, where chaufa de mariscos, a typical Lima dish, is akin to Asian fried rice.
MEAT AND POULTRY OPTIONS
Seafood is not the only star on Lima’s menus, where several meat and poultry choices are available, from the suckling pig with mustard seed sauce at Astrid y Gaston to the cuy, or guinea pig, at Restaurant IK, where this Andean favorite is roasted and its skin deep fried. Another Andean species, alpaca, is served as a carpaccio with rocoto pepper vinaigrette at Huaca Pucllana.
At Panchita, where pork is roasted in a wood oven, several norteño, or northern Peruvian dishes are featured, including stewed leg of baby goat, and arroz con pato, rice and duck cooked in beer broth from the province of Chiclayo.
The traditional favorite chicken dish of Lima, ají de gallina, served in a cream sauce flavored with nuts and spices, is featured at Tanta, where Peru’s signature beef stir fry, lomo saltado, is garnished with the country’s famous potatoes, french fried.
The popular Peruvian street food called anticuchos, or grilled marinated beef heart skewers, is brought in off the street at Grimanesa Vargas Anticuchos, and adapted in several forms in other Lima restaurants. The traditional mari- nade, plus the grilling technique, are used with anticuchos of swordfish at Panchita, with trout at Valens, and with Portobello mushrooms or tenderloin steak at Saqra.
And chicharron, usually made with pork rinds, also gets several different treatments in Lima. Deep fried chicken chicharron is made with thighs in a chile and lime glaze at Panchita, and with an Asian marinade at Saqra. Chicharron de trucha, or trout, at Valens, is served with a sauce of aguaymanta, or Inca berry, an Andean relative of the tomatillo. Restaurant Cameycar, with regional food from the southern Andes, prepares chicharron huamanguino, made with pancetta.
SIDES WITH POTATOES, CORN AND QUINOA
Side dishes frequently include sweet potatoes, corn, and the many varieties of potatoes from the Andes. Causa, a mashed potato timbale, has countless variations, the classic Lima version being made with layers of avocado and either chicken or tuna, such as that served at El Rincon Que Noconoces. Causa is layered with lobster at Tanta, with grouper at Fiesta, and with choices of asparagus, beef or breaded marlin, among others, at Cesar’s.
Papas a la huancaina, such as that served at Tanta, is a characteristic Peruvian potato dish in a creamy cheese and yellow chile sauce, updated at Saqra, where it is served over potato gnocchi. Corn appears frequently as a side dish or garnish, and in pastel de choclo, a fresh corn cake, such as that served at Aurelia, where diners have a choice of cheese or beef filling. At Panchita, a wood oven-roasted version of the dish is served in an earthenware pot. Corn also appears on dessert menus in the form of mazamorra morada, a pudding made with purple corn and fruit.
Quinoa, the traditional indigenous, grain-like subsistence food, is used in everything from soups and salads to desserts. At Huaca Pucllana, quinoa is used as a crispy coating for scallops, and in a chupe, or thick soup, with shrimp and fava beans. Quinoa pesto accompanies grilled chicken at Charlotte, and Bravo Restobar serves quinoa bread and a mango dessert trifle with dulce de leche and popped quinoa. At Sabores Perua- nos, desserts include quinoa cake and quinoa mazamorra, a pudding flavored with brown sugar and cinnamon.
FRUIT-FLAVORED DESSERTS AND DRINKS
Lima chefs are just as versatile with Peru’s tropical fruits, using them in everything from cocktails to desserts. At Restaurant IK, where food of the Amazon region is the specialty, cherimoya, or custard apple, appears on the menu as an ice cream flavor, and with prawns, avocado, and a balsamic reduction. The restaurant also uses the tropical camu camu, a cherry like fruit from the rainforest, in a sorbet.
In terremoto de cherimoya, literally a cherimoya “earthquake,” the fruit is mixed with cream and topped with meringue. At Charlotte, cherimoya flavors a crocante, or molded dessert with a crispy, crumble-like topping. Other crocante flavors at the restaurant are mango and lucuma, a sweet Peruvian native. Lucuma is a popular ice cream flavor and used in desserts such as the lucuma and chocolate terrine at Panchita and the lucuma mousse at Huaca Pucllana.
The dessert most associated with Lima, and named for it, is suspiro limeño, meaning a Lima sigh or whisper, because it is so light. Made from milk caramel, eggs and milk, it is topped with a port wine flavored meringue.
On the city’s cocktail menus, fruit is frequently combined with pisco, Peru’s high-proof brandy, distilled from the country’s abundant yield of grapes. At La Mar, the maracuya pisco sour is made with passion fruit, and the sabor a tí cocktail contains passion fruit, pisco, and cardamom. The lucurrobina at Panchita is a combination of lucuma, pisco, and algarrobina, a syrup made from the black carob tree, also widely used in smoothies.
At Chef Virgilio Martinez’ restaurant Central, the bar menu features the Peruvian cocktail chilcano, made with pisco, lime juice and ginger ale, and gives it a tropical twist with camu camu or hibiscus. The restaurant offers a pisco sour made with coca leaves, and pisco cocktails with grapefruit, mandarin, lime, or tumbo, also known as banana passion fruit.
The best known pisco sour is the classic version, made with pisco, lime juice, sugar, egg white and bitters, as prepared at the Hotel Bolivar, where the bar is known in Lima as the Cathedral of the Pisco Sour.
Click here for Graber’s recipes for Chupe de Camarones: Peruvian Shrimp Chowder; Arroz con Pato Chiclayana: Peruvian Style Rice with Duck; Causa: Peruvian Potato Timbale; and Suspiro Limeño: Lima Style Caramel and Meringue Dessert.
SIDEBAR
Menu Tips
Take a cue from Lima’s creative chefs and pair tropical fruits with other ingredients—something that’s especially easy to do in salads and cocktails. Feature a different fruit each week and promote it with inserts on the cocktail menu, or in the salad section of the lunch or dinner menu. Many tropical fruits are in season in the warmer months, and pair well with seafood in salads.
As it is in Lima, the seafood should be of the best quality possible. If you do not have access to a good fresh fish market, look for flash frozen fish, meaning that it is frozen at sea while still on board the boat. Only freshly caught fish is suitable for ceviche, but flash frozen-at-sea products work in most other dishes.
And don’t forget ancient grains like quinoa on the menu. It takes well to adaptation in Mexican and other Latin recipes, especially soups, salads and side dishes.