Peruvian food is here to stay, with ceviche hitting supermarkets and restaurants serving new Andean dishes. G2's food editor goes on a tasting tour to the mountainous heart of the cuisine
Recipe: how to make quinoa croquettes
Recipe: how to make aji de gallina
Recipe: how to make pumpkin and sweet potato doughnuts
Outside a converted garage in a residential street in Lima, I'm feeling queasy from a combination of travel sickness and pure greed – I've eaten non-stop since arriving in Peru. Said garage is now a makeshift restaurant run by Javier Wong, the city's legendary master of ceviche, and one of the best places in Peru to have the dish. He stands tall and intimidating – a Don Ceviche, if you will – in flat cap and shades, knife brandished over the flounder that will become our lunch. The ceviche – the freshest fish "cooked" in a "tiger's milk" of citrus, chilli, black pepper and onions – helps with the nausea. Luckily I emerge, not healed, but back from the brink: it wouldn't do to be sick in one of the world's culinary capitals.
The march of Peruvian food has been unstoppable since 2011, when uber-chef Ferran Adrià decided that the country held the key to the future of gastronomy. At the end of last year, there was another boost with superchef Alain Ducasse declaring: "Peru will become one of the leading actors on the global culinary scene." Around the same time, the Culinary Institute of America named 2014 the year of Peruvian cuisine, and analysts predicted a Latin American food revolution – (bolstered by sporting events in Brazil), with Peru at the forefront. The World's 50 Best Restaurants launched a Latin American section late last year in Lima (Peruvian chef Gastón Acurio won top place with Astrid-y-Gastón).
Nobu Matsuhisa made waves with Japanese-Peruvian cooking in London in the 90s, but the past couple of years have seen that crush develop into a full-blown affair. A smattering of London restaurants – Lima, Coya, Ceviche – opened to real acclaim in 2012. The latter went on a national pop-up restaurant tour last year: sashimi-like tiraditos, comforting causas (potato cakes) and anticuchos (marinated meat skewers) sold out from Padstow to Loch Fyne. Ceviche has become so popular, it is set to land on British supermarket shelves this year, with Waitrose predicting it will be the next sushi.
And, as Ceviche's founder Martin Morales tells me, there is more to come. The Lima-born entrepreneur is something of a Peruvian ambassador: earlier this year he opened a second restaurant, Andina, in east London. He is the reason I was standing outside Wong's place feeling faint. He had taken me on a mammoth eating tour of picanterias (humble, family-run restaurants) in the Andean city of Arequipa.
"Andean food is the source of all Peruvian cuisine," he says, listing the abundant healthy ingredients at its heart: amaranth (the nutrient-packed grain); maca (a root commonly sold in powdered form as a health supplement); corn and maize; beans; sacha inchi (mountain nuts) … He hasn't even mentioned quinoa: known to the Incas as "mothergrain", it was once valued as much as gold (and still is in parts of Islington).
This is another reason Peruvian food will keep gaining traction: its wholefood credentials couldn't come at a better time. Food lovers are more health-conscious than ever (witness the sprouting of restaurants such as Bruno Loubet's Grain Store in London and chains such as Leon), although never at the cost of flavour. And does Peru have flavours – with ingredients sourced from the Pacific coast, the Andes and the Amazon, even the familiar come in mindboggling forms: thousands of potatoes, hundreds of chillies, a huge variety of corn. There is lucuma, an Andean valley fruit with distinctive notes of caramel (variously compared to cashew, maple and sweet potato). Or huacatay, a Peruvian black mint that tastes a bit like aniseed and features in pungent salsa alongside crisp chicharrones (it's reassuring how many cuisines feature pork crackling). Typically, this is all washed down with jugs of vibrant purple chicha de jora, a refreshing corn beer.
At Andina, Morales has created new interpretations of traditional dishes, using local and Peruvian ingredients. The butter-fried cow's udder we ate in Arequipa hasn't made his London menu – yet, but his take on chupe de camarones (a chowder-like soup crammed with shrimp, Andean yellow potatoes and chilli) has (his from an ancient recipe using black quinoa). Likewise the creamy, nutty aji de gallina– think Peruvian korma with punch; picarones (pumpkin doughnuts, served at Andina with purple corn syrup); and ridiculously moreish quinoa croquettes.
Back in Arequipa, we are on our final picanteria of the day, a special little place named after its La Lucila. Sadly, we have arrived on the first anniversary of her death. There is a timelessness to the kitchen, unchanged in a century – the cooks work over open fires, lit by shafts of light from above; fast-breeding guinea pigs (cuy) squeak below the floorboards, awaiting their turn for the hot oil. We tried some: deep-fried, crisp skin; rabbit-like texture and flavour.
It is easy to understand the picanteria's inspiring appeal. Still, it seems, cuy won't be on the menu at Andina any time soon. People are happy to queue for quinoa burgers and avocado smoothies in Shoreditch, but guinea pig might be a step too far.
• Journey Latin America arranged flights, transfers and accommodation on the Peru trip.