by Jack Danylchuk
Photo Jack Danylchuk
Maybe it’s the gloomy skies forever threatening rain that almost never falls, or the vistas of somber, dun-brown hills on a desert coast beside a cold, restless sea, but tourists who land in Lima are inclined to move on to Peru’s star attractions: Machu Pichu, the Nazca Lines or the beaches at Mancora.
Popular anthropologist Ronald Wright hated Lima, couldn’t wait to get out of the city conquistador Francisco Pizzaro founded in 1535. Everything about the teeming metropolis offended Wright’s sensibilities.
“Lima, as usual, is depressing me,” he complained in his widely acclaimed travelogue Cut Stones and Crossroads. “There is little Peruvian about the place. It began as the beachhead of a foreign power and never learned to change.”
That cranky assessment was rendered 30 years ago, just as Peru descended into 20 years of bloody civil war. The country is still coming to terms with the bitter conflict, but foreign consulates no longer warn travelers to keep clear. Lima has changed greatly, and for the better.
Pizaro’s Lima is all but lost amid the 30 independent municipalities that have grown up around it. After losing my way on a casual walk, I bought a city map. Spread out on the floor, it measured almost 15 square feet. I could not easily step across it and a magnifying glass was necessary to read the street names.
The city would take a lifetime to digest. But the downtown neighbourhoods that verge the Pacific are easy to explore on foot. Following the malecon along the oceanfront cliffs, it takes about an hour to walk from downtown Miraflores to suburban Barranco, where I found, at the end of a quiet, shaded lane, Second Home Peru, a stylish bed and breakfast run by Lillian Delfin.
Second Home Peru is a rambling three-storey Tudor-style cottage that shares a dramatic cliff-edge property with a studio and atelier constructed over a lifetime by Ms. Delfin’s father Victor, one of Peru’s best known and most influential artists of the last 50 years.
They enjoy a view that is becoming unique in Lima. From working-class Chorrillos to prosperous Miraflores and San Isidro, sleek high-rise condominiums crowd the coastal cliffs. New towers are rising as quickly as the homes of earlier architectural eras can be razed.
Over breakfast shared with regular guests — a Canadian mining executive from Vancouver and a marketing consultant from Milan, Ms. Delfin related a brief anecdote that summed up the changes that have transformed her native city.
On her way to see a play, she found herself alone on a dark street in Barranco. “I suddenly realized my situation: there I was, a woman, alone. It was only eight o’clock, but when I was growing up in Lima, such a thing would have been unthinkable. Then I laughed at myself for being afraid. People used to race through Lima. They would say, ‘oh, I really should spend more time here.’ Now they do.”
What holds tourists is the new spirit of pride Limeneos take in their city and Peru’s growing international reputation for food that fuses the flavours of every continent. After simmering quietly on the backburner, Peruvian cuisine is winning international recognition. Lima’s bookstores are filled with weighty tomes devoted to Peruvian food. There are cooking schools and a magazine that every month sniffs out the hottest new restaurants in the country. It is almost impossible to get a mediocre meal, even in sketchy joints where some contend the most authentic food is found.
“To understand Peru’s mélange of flavors, you need a history lesson,” says Tony Custer, author of the weighty The Art of Peruvian Cuisine. “As different groups arrived in Peru, they brought things from around the world. Peru’s fusion was historical and it developed over time.”
Africans brought limon, a semi-sweet citrus; indentured Chinese rail builders introduced stir-frying, soy sauce and ginger. Japanese shared their techniques with seafood, and Italians added pasta to the mix. The cuisine underwent a revolution 20 years ago with Novoandina, as chefs applied modern techniques and presentation to pre-Incan dishes and ingredients.
Raul Modensi remembers when it was otherwise, when Lima’s top restaurants served European food and the wealthy looked to Miami for style. Modensi took the food served in the chifa joints and cevicherias like Sonia’s in Chorrillos and Canta Rana in Barranco and in 1972 put it on the tables in Costa Verde, his elegant beachfront restaurant in Miraflores.
“When I opened this place and featured the seafood of the city, everybody said I was crazy, but I knew instinctively that I was right,” he said. “I was the first, the pioneer.”
If Modensi is the godfather, then Gaston Acurio and his partner Astrid Gutsche are the undisputed stars, even if Tony Custer’s weighty and expensive paen to Peruvian cuisine has elbowed Acurio’s 500 years of Fusion from prime space on bookstore shelves. Their company, La Macha, has 30 restaurants in 12 countries and is opening more.
Acurio learned his craft at the Cordon Bleu school in Paris, but aspiring chefs no longer have to leave Peru. There is a Cordon Bleu School in Lima and Acurio runs his own culinary training centre in a shantytown suburb 40 kilometres north of Lima.
Peru’s three distinct regions, the Pacific coast, Andes and Amazon, and a hundred different ecosystems bring diverse flavours to the banquet, but in Peruvian cooking, chiles, especially the bright yellow and slightly piquante aji, often take the lead. It adds a spicy note to ceviche, and brightens the mellow yellow of papa huayro in causa, Peru’s salute to its most prized potato.
Causa started life as a humble casserole of mashed potato, canned tuna, and mayo, but chefs have transformed it into something ethereal. The first time causa appeared on my plate at Canta Rana as a golden mound studded with shrimp, I assumed it was polenta. A taste revealed nutty potato, sweet limon, and spicy aji. On the next occasion, layers of potato, tuna tartare and avocado sat on a vivid yellow aji glaze.
Photo Jack Danylchuk
Limon and fresh seafood, especially linguado, or flounder as it’s known in North America and Europe, are the basis of ceviche, Peru’s signature dish. It is seasoned with aji and onion and served chilled with sides of sweet potato and corn, offering sour, sweet and savoury on one plate.
My favourite comfort food is aroz con mariscos — seafood with rice. Every plate is an adventure and a sampling of the catch of the day: squid, scallops, clams, octopus, shrimp in whatever measure pleases the chef. In the best versions, the seafood is steamed separately and dropped on a bed of savoury rice.
And then there is Peru’s signature drink. No, not the beloved Inca Cola, a bright yellow pop that smells like paint thinner and tastes of sweet cherry, but Pisco, a grappa-like brandy distilled from white grapes. Chile also lays claim to Pisco, but their version of a Pisco Sour is a pale imitation of the Peruvian classic: pisco and limon topped with a froth of egg white and a drop of bitters. The first Sunday of February is National Pisco Sour Day.
The Ica region south of Lima is home to the oldest vineyards in South America. Tabernero, Tacama and Ocucaje wineries are winning international recognition for their robust reds, but they face stiff competition from more plentiful Chilean and Argentinian vintners.
Excellent beers are brewed in Peru and there is endless debate over which is best, Pilsen Callao or Cusquenea, a lager. Either is better than Cristal, a weak, watery brew, and both go well with a plate of ceviche.
Love it or hate it, there is no avoiding Lima. Peru’s capital and largest city has the country’s only international airport. Unless you’re arriving by bus or boat from a neighbouring country, your first port of call will be Lima.
Whether you stay a day, a week or a month, the first rule of getting the most from the city is where you set up camp. Choose Miraflores where there are numerous options in every price range, or Barranco, and avoid the old city of Lima.
Jack Danylchuk’s pathological dislike of cold weather takes him on an annual migration from Yellowknife and Edmonton to Mexico and South America where he has developed a taste for most southern cooking, except cuy, in any form.
Planning to visit Lima?
Dining
Astrid and Gaston, Calle Cantuarias 175, Miraflores
LA 73, Avenue El Sol Oeste 175. Barranco
Canta Rana, Genova 101, a block-long behind the Mega store on Avenida Grau, Barranco’s main street
El Muelle, Alfonso Urgarte 225
Costa Verde, Playa Barranquito
Hanging out
Shehadi — sport bar, live jazz, some of the best aroz con mariscos in Lima. Avenida Diagonal 220, Miraflores, across from Park Kennedy.
Café Zeta, Avenida Diagonal 560, Miraflores
Shopping
Larcomar, Avenida Malecon de la Reserva 610, right in front of the Marriot Hotel.
Dedalo, Paseo Saenez Pena 295, Barranco, art and artisans, exhbition and sale of ceramics, jewelry, fabrics, clothing, hand bags, furniture and objets d’arte.
Galleries
Across the street from Dedalo is Lucia de la Puente, a private art gallery with free public shows of some of Lima’s most inventive young artists.
Corriente Alterna can also be counted for an interesting exhibition. Atahualapa 390, Miraflores.