Whenever I travel, I love to dive into the culture of any place I am visiting. One of my favorite ways to accomplish this is by tasting the regional dishes I find. I was thrilled to have gotten to do just that on my recent trip to Peru. From the moment I landed in the Lima International Airport, I was immediately seeking local flavors and ready for a culinary adventure on my first experience to South America. My stop in Lima was just a quick layover before boarding a flight to my destination in Cusco, Peru where the real adventure would begin. I did not know much about the cuisine in Peru before I had arrived aside from general knowledge of a few of their dishes such as ceviche and arepas. Once I had settled into my hotel and dropped off my baggage, I immediately began exploring. Luckily, my hotel was in the heart of Cusco, right next to the town’s central plaza known as the Plaza de Carma. This plaza has an abundance of restaurants and cafes that I was excited to explore. On my first night in Cusco, I had an incredible dinner at a Peruvian fusion restaurant with impeccable service called: Ofrenda Peruvian Healthy Food. They offered original interpretations on classic local dishes while using locally sourced ingredients. I started off the meal with Alpaca Tartin, tender alpaca meat served with avocado, goat cheese, and assorted local vegetables. The main course was quinotto ofrenda, a quinoi pure in chili and pumpkin mixed with vegetables from the nearby sacred valley. The drinks here were also amazing with tea, cappuccino, and unique fruit smoothies. My favorite was the chicha morada, made from purple corn, apples, pineapple, and cinnamon. I highly recommend this restaurant to anyone traveling through Cusco! This was my first taste of the incredible variety of home-grown fruits and vegetables that Peru offers. This is a result of the nearby Sacred Valley being used as an agricultural laboratory for generations dating back to the Incan empire. Terraces were employed at different elevation to simulate a variety of environments, allowing for the development of a plethora of fruits and vegetables such as 1000’s of species of both corn and potato.
The next day, I was ready to begin exploring the many archeological remains around Cusco that dated back to the Spanish colonial period as well as the Incan empire prior to that. In between exploring these incredible sites, I made sure take a break to enjoy more local eateries. One restaurant in Cusco that I had found, was a local Peruvian fusion restaurant that offered a “tastes of the Andes” platter that let me have a sampling of amazing local dishes. Traditional corn with cheese, seasonal tubers with uchucuta, a corn souffle with huancaina sauce, vegan anticucho, and homemade hummus. This proved to be an incredible and filling meal that provided me for all the energy I needed for the next day where I would head to the Sacred Valley and see first-hand where all these incredible treats were harvested. On top of the high-quality food, this restaurant also offered an incredible view of the Plaza de Carma, the city center filled with flowers and historic buildings making it a great addition to any travel itinerary to this region.
I explored two additional restaurants while I was in Cusco. One was located a short walk from Playa de Carma and was called Chai Vegan. Due to the variety and abundance of fruits and vegetables within the area, Cusco offered many vegan restaurants, and this was one of those. While at Chai Vegan, I enjoyed a great dinner of some ceviche mini causa, a ceviche platter made up of local fruits, vegetables, and mushrooms served over top of regional potatoes. The second restaurant would be my last meal within Peru before it was time for me to depart to the airport. This was a restaurant near Playa del Carma that was called, Rucula Cusco - Restaurante peruano. This was a great dining experience but was a well-hidden gem, since it was located down an unmarked alley that opened into a small courtyard that had several art shops and this restaurant. A Rucula Cusco, I enjoyed my last lunch in Peru at a local restaurant. I started off with their pumpkin cream soup before enjoying a main course of local seafood rice that had prawns, squid, and fan shell topped with parmesian cheese. Another great meal in Peru that came with incredible service and hospitality. The food within Cusco has easily been one of the standouts to my experience within Peru.
In addition to the restaurants, San Pedro also offers foodies a different adventure that needs to experience, the San Pedro market. I adore trying new food wherever I travel, and this local market provided an amazing location to do that in. During my one afternoon within this market, it had become among my favorite locations within Cusco. This market has stall after stall of cheeses, fruits, meats, juices, and so much more. The variety was unlike anything I've seen in too many other locations. It offered fresh cut meats from livestock that was harvested that morning. In fact, cuts of meat could be seen being sliced by the stall proprietors as I was walking by their stalls. There were other stalls that were filled to bursting with a larger variety of fruits than I had seen before. Many of these fruits were also being turned into fruit shakes by other vendors at nearby stalls providing refreshing smoothies. San Pedro market also offered readymade meals for its visitors with other stalls offering local dishes ranging from soups and sandwiches to local specialties.
A lot of my time within Peru was spent in smaller towns within the Sacred Valley. One such town was Ollantaytambo where I ate at a local restaurant called Amanto. Here, I was able to fuel up with some ceviche and a passion fruit drink that gave me the energy I needed to embark the next morning onto the Inca Trail towards Machu Picchu. This town was a former Incan city that features its own set of ruins known as the Sun Temple which are worth the time to explore. This town is also a halfway point between Cusco and the next town I was going to visit, Aquas Calientes which acts as the gateway to Machu Picchu. These two towns are connected to Cusco by a regional train service making them very accessible to visitors to the region who want to see the abundance of history that can be found within Peru. I was able to check out 2 great restaurants while I was in Aguas Calientes: Full House and Mapacho. Here, I tasted some local cuisine with trout ceviche, breaded trout, grilled alpaca, and some passion fruit juice. The culinary scene in Peru has been among the highlights of my Peruvian Adventure and added as much to my experience in the country as Machu Pichu and the other sites I had come to Peru to explore. It has made me very excited to begin having culinary adventures during my other upcoming travels as I begin to embark towards other corners of the world. But that is a story for another day…
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