Peru’s diverse and dynamic gastronomic scene has garnered worldwide attention in recent years. Chef-driven restaurants are keen on adapting Peruvian traditions, which incorporate not just the cuisine of diverse regions within Peru, but foreign influences including Chinese, Japanese and Spanish. Although Peruvian cuisine, led by the omnipresent ceviche (raw fish and shellfish marinated rather than cooked in lime or lemon juice and hot chile peppers, served with raw onion, sweet potato, and toasted or fresh corn), has taken off in restaurants across the globe, for plenty of travelers dining in Peru comes as a most welcome surprise. Cevicherías, most of which are simple neighborhood joints open only for lunch (though celebrated chefs are now opening modern, upscale takes on the traditional ceviche haunt) are where one goes to get a ceviche fix. Another fundamental element of Peruvian cuisine is the ubiquitous use of a variety of distinctive ajíes, spicy chili peppers of all colors and degree of fire.

Peruvian cooking is as distinct as the country’s varied regions, and the cuisine is based on three major geographic influences: Limeña (with signature dishes of Afro-Asian influence, such as lomo saltado, tacu tacus, causas and carapulcras, in addition to the coast’s rich seafood); Arequipeña (perhaps the most diverse and important, with dishes based on shrimp, spicy rocoto peppers, cheese and significant Spanish influence); and Norteña (from the region around Chiclayo and Piura, with dishes based on fresh seafood, duck, goat and beans, manioc root and butternut squash). Rice forms a fundamental part of virtually every Peruvian meal, even potatoes (themselves a staple of the Andes diet, inherited from the Incas and other Andean cultures). Highlands’s cuisine tends to be simple but filling, with heavy use of potatoes and corn, and soups and stews are based on local grains and vegetables, such as the splendid local quinoa grain (now becoming better known worldwide). The Amazon Basin diet is less well known, but it presents several unusual delicacies, such as paiche (a large, white river fish) and exotic tropical fruits.

Fusion has long been the buzz word in Peruvian dining; in some sense Peruvian cuisine might be considered the originator of fusion, as it long ago blended indigenous and European (principally Spanish) influences with Asian (Chinese and Japanese) and African elements and ingredients, making Peruvian fusion the product of four continents. Novoandina (nouveau highlands) cuisine is the rage in many chic and adventurous restaurants across the country, marrying modern culinary techniques and embellishments with the rediscovery of traditional native dishes and ingredients.

Visitors to Peru have a wide variety of options for dining in cities, from traditional regional cooking to modern adaptations at the hands of young, innovative chefs bent on reinterpreting classic dishes and inventing new ones; and international cuisine, including sophisticated French and Spanish dining.

Chifas are particular to Peru, restaurants serving Peruvian-inflected Chinese food. Chifas are inexpensive, very popular and usually very high in quality (with many options for vegetarian diners). Chic new restaurants are now fusing the Peruvian fascination with fresh fish to Japanese elements, including sushi. Less-known to visitors, huariques are small, modest and unpretentious spots, often holes-in-the-wall, where excellent, straightforward dishes (usually based on seafood) can be had; these are becoming fashionable as young people rediscover their traditional Peruvian dining roots.

For specific information about regional in each city or region, you can look up our Where to Eat section on each Local Travel Guide.

Drinks
Most visitors fall immediately for pisco, a potent white-grape brandy that comes from vineyards along the southern desert coast. Peru’s national drink is the pisco sour (a frozen cocktail combining pisco, lemon juice, sugar, a touch of egg whites, and bitters). A revived fascination with the classic pisco sour has produced elegant cocktail variations, including the coca sour (made with an infusion of coca leaves) and maracuyá (or passion fruit) sour. Highlanders are fond of their traditional chicha, a home-fermented brew made from maize and imbibed since the times of the Incas and even earlier. Peru produces its own table wines, from the southern coast near Ica, which are improving in quality and appearing on restaurant menus alongside principally Spanish, Chilean and Argentine wines. Chicha morada, is a deep-purple nonalcoholic beverage made from purple corn and served chilled. Inka Cola may just be a soft drink, but it is an indigenous one – not to mention one that’s neon yellow and highly sweetened – that for decades outsold even Coca-Cola and Pepsi in Peru.

No trip to Peru is complete without trying a pisco sour, chicha morada, or Inka Cola, even if one or more is likely to be an acquired taste for many visitors.

Dining hours
In general hours don’t differ much from typical mealtimes in cities in North America or Great Britain, except that dinner (cena) is generally eaten after 8 p.m. in restaurants. Peruvians do not eat as late as Spaniards or Argentines, however. Traditional cevicherías are open only for lunch, a longstanding tradition.