The number one restaurant in the world (currently) is Maido, and if you are here just to read about that, then feel free to jump ahead!
Barranco – April 15
Lima’s cliff-top seaside walk extends a long way, and we walked along a portion of it to the Barranco district, another lovely area just south of Miraflores.
We found a very large mural of someone who turned out to be María Isabel Granda Larco, better known as Chabuca Granda, a famous Peruvian singer and composer (thank you Google). Surprisingly, we also came across a mosaic wall designed in the style of Gaudi, the Barcelona architect we were introduced to on our last big vacation. Not entirely sure why this exists in Lima …
We stopped for a late lunch at Ancestral, a lovely colonial-style restaurant with views of the city, but I was feeling crappy (ha ha, pun intended) so I could only manage a yoghurt bowl with blueberries and granola. However the “yoghurt” turned out to be more like frozen blueberry sorbet. Maybe it actually was yoghurt … as I eventually figured out at various breakfast buffets, the yoghurt in Peru is more liquidy than at home, you have to pour it out of a carafe rather than spoon it if you are making a morning breakfast bowl.
Back at the condo, Vanessa’s mother was visiting and we had orders from her to find her some “chifa” for dinner – basically Peruvian chinese food – so we ordered enough for all of us, but I ended up just going straight to bed so never got to try it. After dinner, Paul and Jeff did what any normal person does on vacation, and watched a terrible 1980’s Bruce Willis movie called Striking Distance.
Lima City Tour – April 16
We had a very rare morning where we could sleep in as long as we wanted, with nothing planned until an afternoon guided city tour. Hilariously, the first stop on our city tour was the park that is literally a 3 minute walk from the condo. No joke – we piled into the tour van, drove half a block, and got back out again to look at the park. We did then head further inland, to the Museo de Sitio Huaca Pucllana, which is the remains of an ancient pyramid made from hand-formed clay bricks. We only toured the exterior, but apparently there is a tour of the inside as well that I think would be worth taking. We had places to be, however, and continued our tour of the city centre, the business district (very colonial, i.e. spanish conquerors), a Fransiscan monastery and its catacombs.
We wrapped the tour up with a fun little Pisco tasting. Pisco, BTW, is grape brandy, and Peru is VERY proud of their Pisco. We tasted pisco sour, maracuya sour (a pisco sour made with passionfruit), pure pisco, and a cocoanut pisco colada. We toasted in Inca, and if we got it wrong we had to have another drink.
We had dinner reservations at Casa Tambo, a very lovely restaurant that puts on a local dance show during dinner. The various dances seemed to depict happy Inca couples who have no idea that the Spanish are on their way (note: the Spanish did in fact soon arrive).
Jen & Cameron – April 17
To welcome the new arrivals to Peru we showed them around the neighbourhood and then decided to pop into a nearby restaurant to indoctrinate them to Pisco Sours. Vanessa was busy, and so it was just the 5 of us, all the English speakers. In the first of many miscommunications, after we had ordered our Piscos, a nice young waiter started setting out plates. Paul jumped in right away and tried to remind him “no food, drinks only”, so he took the plates away. Then he delivered a plate of appies to our table – 5 little clam shells of ceviche made of red onion, octopus, and lime. We tried to explain “no food” again, only to eventually figure out that the appies were complimentary. Light bulb re the earlier plates! We had to ask the waiter to please redistribute them.
Dinner was yet another fancy affair at a local golf club which we drove to in an extended cab. Jennifer and I sat in the extremely cramped back seat, and we couldn’t figure out how to raise the headrests so we had to endure the big lumps in the middle of our backs for the whole ride. For this particular fancy dinner, I got dolled up in my nylon black hiking pants. This would become a regular pattern.
Maido!!! April 18
There was only one thing on the agenda today that mattered and that was our 8pm seating for dinner at Maido, the number one restaurant in the world. Since many people have asked, here is some insight on how such an honour is bestowed:
- The ranking is decided as part of a “World’s 50 Best Restaurants” consortium. A panel of 1,120 from 28 regions around the world decide on the final ranking – with a few rules: voting is strictly confidential and anonymous, judges can’t vote for a restaurant in which they have any financial investment, and they must have visited the restaurant within the previous 18 months. I believe, but am unable to confirm, that a restaurant cannot win #1 more than once. Here’s the wiki page if you want to learn more, or plan your next dinner out.
- Maido is not a Michelin-star restaurant, because Peru is not a country in which the Michelin Guide operates.
Making reservations was, not surprisingly, very tricky and Paul was able to book a table for the six of us but he had to a) book “the experience” for all 6 of us, which is the full 11-course meal b) with the wine pairing and c) prepay a 100% downpayment. Yes, 100%. The upside is that the cost of the meal was rolled up into our full trip payment that we transferred to Vanessa which included all of our tours and hotels and entry tickets, so I don’t really know what we paid. Probably just as well.
Leading up to the meal, there was some trepidation. It’s an 11 course meal tonight with a wine pairing, starting at 8 and likely finishing at around midnight. Usually no biggie but we leave tomorrow morning at 3:45 (still with the early mornings!!) to head to the airport for our flight to Arequipa. In preparation, Paul is fasting for the entire day, Vanessa is plotting how she can get out of it having to partake of the full “experience”, Cameron is recovering after arriving less than a day ago, Jen hasn’t even left the bedroom yet, and Jeff and I are, well, packing.
Maido is literally a 10-min walk from Paul and Vanessa’s. Put a pin in this, because it will come up again later.
While waiting for our table, Vanessa and Jennifer appealed to the manager about how they might switch their prepaid experience + pairing for an a la carte option, and were able to get approval to do so. This will also come up again later.
For The Experience itself, I’m just going to let the menu do the talking.
Course 1: Peje Rey
Delicious! It would end up being one of my favourites. We were instructed to eat it in two bites, holding the bare end of the cracker for bite one, and eating the bare end of the cracker for bite two.
Course 2: Tartaleta Amazonica
Also delicious! And also one of my favourites. The instructions were simply to eat it all in one bite, to ensure a proper blend of the flavours.
Course 3: Tequeno
Very good! Kind of like a fried cheese stick, although I’m sure Maido would prefer flowery language. In the photo, only the fried Tequeno is for eating, along with the sauce, the rest is just aesthetic.
Course 4: Cebiche
Delicious! I know it looks like eggs and bacon, but it’s actually presentation mastery: a ceviche dish, the bacon is made from paiche, and honestly I can’t remember what the egg is made from, except that it’s not an egg.
Course 5: Cangrejo Moro
Excellent. Vongole, glass noodles hiding under the dried blue berries (not blueberries, but berries that grow on cactus plants and are blue)
Course 6: Temaki de Cochinillo
Not for me. A nice presentation of a mini taco made from suckling pig (no) with pickled onions (no). I tried it, and gave the rest to Jeff.
Course 7: Sushi
Sushi! For this experience, the sushi chef came in and sliced the toro sushi right off the slab of fish and prepared the dish in front of us. For this one, and for almost all dishes to follow, we were instructed to mix everything together before eating.
Course 8: Costa Sur
A very nice taster of seabass which they dressed for us with a white sauce and crispy tubers. Another “mix before eating” dish. FYI it was at this point I started to feel full.
Course 9: Chazuta
Chazuta is a place, so not sure why the name. For this excellent dish, I lifted my personal ban on eating veal. The dish was served with an edible topper that was its own artwork. We had to break the top into bits and once again, “mix before eating”.
Course 10: Mangos
A delicious dish, somewhat spicy mango pudding-style dessert. Very nice.
Course 11: Maduro A La Brasa
Another dish that’s hiding under a fancy wafer. A dessert of plantain ice cream mixed with a collection of fruits, seeds, and edible flowers. Cream was added and the “mix together” instructions followed.
Surprise! Course 12! Okashi
Three little post-dinner treats to really fill you up (they’re only wafer thin!). The Alfajor was delicious and is my new favourite cookie.
To finish up our Maido experience, remember when I mentioned the switch to a la carte for Vanessa and Jennifer? Well, as a result of this, we found out we had a credit of about 3000 soles (about $1,200). The only way to claim this credit was to buy stuff to take away, that is several bottles of extremely expensive wine. Several things then happened at once. We tried to pick several wines, only to have the wait staff tell us that some were not in stock, and we’d pick a few different ones with the same result. We also realized a tip wasn’t included in the prepaid amount and tried to use some of the credit for this, and were told no. In the midst of this confusion, Vanessa decided this was all crazy and had some words with the manager, at the end of which we were, in fact, allowed to use the credit for the tip. But now we didn’t know how much wine we had versus the remaining credit, and instead of trying to figure it out, we just asked the manager to pick whatever wines made up the correct amount, and he told us to “just take it all”. Well, don’t mind if we do! But Vanessa was not done! She told the manager he had to pay for us to take a cab home (10 minute walk, remember!) because she “wasn’t going to walk at midnight with several hundred soles worth of wine”. Cab ride home it was!
Tomorrow: We head to the mountains and the crack of pre-dawn.