Food Tours · Tour

From Virgilio Martinez's Market to Parque Kennedy at Dusk

The premise is that Peruvian food is a question with an answer, and the tour is the answer laid out in order. It starts in Mercado Numero 1 in Surquillo, in the aisles where the chefs who put Lima on the map buy their ingredients, Virgilio Martinez among them, with a tasting of exotic fruit and the raw material: the biodiversity of the Andes and the Amazon, which is the reason any of this exists. Then the walk into Miraflores, which is the point rather than the transit. Surquillo is loud, working, cheap; Miraflores is polished and expensive; and the distance between them is the distance Peruvian cooking travelled in forty years, from home kitchens and market stalls to restaurants on the world's lists. Along the way: market-style ceviche and pisco, the criollo dishes that carry the African and Spanish inheritance, street food staples, and a longer sit-down at a good local restaurant. Ten or more tastings in total, with the guide explaining how migration produced each one. It ends in Parque Kennedy at dusk, which is where Lima goes in the evening. Three and a half hours on foot. Ten people at most, in English or Spanish, with all the food and drink including alcohol. Vegetarian, lactose-free and gluten-free menus if you say so when you book. Transport is not included, and neither are tips.