Central Restaurant (Lima, Peru 2022)

Back when we booked our flights to Peru, one of the first things we researched was the best restaurants in Lima. Many of the various sites we read listed Central, so we thought, OK, if multiple people are recommending it, we should try to make a reservation for it. And luckily for us, they had space for the last night we would be in Peru, so we booked it.

It wasn’t until a couple of months later that we realized that at the time we would be going to Peru, Central was rated the #4 restaurant in the world by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants. However, as I’m writing this blog, the 2022 list was just recently published and Central moved up to #2. And the Executive Chef, Virgilio Martínez, was featured in an episode of Netflix’s Chef’s Table. The current Chef de Cuisine is his wife, Pía León.

We’re completely aware that this ranking is entirely subjective and that lists like this and the Michelin guide should be taken with a grain of salt, but nevertheless, we were excited to experience Central as our last meal in Peru.

We arrived at the entrance to Central, which is located in the Barranco district of Lima. The only thing that indicated that we were at the restaurant was this sign and a fair number of security guards surrounding a steel security gate:

The host stand is right behind the electric wheeled fence, giving us a brief moment to admire the courtyard. At this time it was evening, so the courtyard was dimly lit for ambience, but not great for taking photos. We noticed many garden boxes with herbs, which we assumed would be used in our dinner:

After the host brought us inside, our dinner experience started. First, we were shown a table with various ingredients being displayed:

All of the ingredients on this table signify various regions and altitudes of Peru, which is the theme of Central. When making a reservation, you have to pre-select which experience your party wants to partake in. Each experience offers dishes from various Peruvian ecosystems, such as the ocean or the mountains. We had chosen the Menu Creatividad Mundo experience, which is a culinary journey through 14 different elevations of Peru.

After the brief introduction of Central, we were seated at our rather large table for two people:

As you can see in the photo, the decor is heavy on stone and rockery, but there were many indoor plants and the kitchen is open, providing much life and entertainment for the evening. On the table, they had decoratively placed seeds, which we did our best not to touch because we’d feel bad if we ruined it.

On the table was also the menu for dinner:

We then began our dinner with the first dish on the menu. Each dish was accompanied with a short explanation of its ingredients, where it comes from, and how some of these components are important to Peru. Here’s the gallery of each dish as it came out in order:

We savored each dish during the three hours we were there, and they even surprised Nick with a birthday dessert at the end!

Is Central worth the hype? I believe it is, so if you happen to have travel plans to Peru, definitely try making a reservation at Central if you can. The next time we visit Peru, we’ll try going to Central again to see what new experiences they come up with.

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Welcome to the Jungle (Tambopata Research Center, 2022)