Text: Hugh Thomson / The Daily Telegraph / The Interview People
April, as during winter a grey fog rolls off the Humboldt Current and it’s a far less appealing proposition. Latin Americans flock from all over the continent for what has become a world-class cuisine. The Pacific coast here has some of the finest fishing in the world and Lima chefs have put it to good use. It was nobu in new york and London that first really popularised ceviche, the classic Peruvian dish of raw seafood marinated in lemon juice. And within a few blocks of Lima’s seafront are some great restaurants where from $30 a head you can splurge on delicious seafood: ceviche in passion fruit, shrimp tempura, tuna carpaccio or grilled giant scallops. Lima chefs have managed to combine great food with an attractive, easy-going boho ambience. I talked to rafael Osterling at his eponymous rafael restaurant. It’s where the photographer Mario Testino eats when he’s back in his home town. One of the best chefs in the country, rafael gave me some mouth-watering calamari, filled with homemade blood sausage and onion compote, and said that his food has to be good because Limeños are some of the most demanding clients in the world. That’s also why local menus are so long: “If we can’t provide everything a customer wants, from duck to langoustine, perfectly cooked, we’re out of business,” he says. But there are also more serious matters to attend to than sunsets and food. Peru has become prouder of its preColumbian past (the previous president was inaugurated at Machu Picchu in 2001), with millions of dollars being invested to make the capital’s museums the envy of Latin America. The newly remodelled Museo Larco is spectacular, with galleries of gold and silver Chimú jewellery lighting up as the visitor approaches. There are exquisite weavings of yellow and blue parrot feathers, along with Moche pottery so erotic that it needs a separate, adults-only gallery to contain it. These are treasures you are highly unlikely ever to see in a show or museum elsewhere. Unlike the artefacts of Mexico, Egypt and China, which regularly make their way to Europe, none of Peru’s treasures really travel. So you need to go to Lima to see the best of what the preColumbian world could offer before the Spanish arrived in 1532 and swept away the Inca civilisation. The city also has much of the best of what the Spaniards brought with them. The old historic centre, or La Ciudad de los reyes, “The City of kings”, as they proudly called their new city, has recently been cleaned and restored to show off the cathedral and other colonial gems. yet one telling instance of how Lima has changed came just a few years ago, when the city fathers decided to remove the only remaining public statue of francisco Pizarro, the leader of the conquistadors and the city’s founder, and replace it with the flag of the quechua “Inca nation”. Peruvians now like to define themselves by the pre-Columbian past that makes them the most ancient civilisation on the continent – and, these days, one of the most prosperous.
‘Latin Americans flock from all over the continent for what has become a world–class cuisine.’
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