Deep within the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers lies the Gastronomical Capital of the Americas. Known as the capital of Peru (for all you ignoramusses out there), it isn’t a big stretch of the imagination to see why this restaurant takes such a heavy name upon it. The restaurant, however, is not in a valley, nor does it have a view of the ocean. From the outside, it doesn’t really look as if this would be a Michelin Starred restaurant, but then again, we all know that looks can be deceiving.
The crockery was shaped in the way I would imagine Peruvian crockery to be shaped like, warm, pretty colours adorning the dishes. THe inside of the restaurant was very well lighted, warm cozy couches sprinkled with I would imagine to be Peruvian pillows. Cubes of bread were brought forwards, together with two dips – some sort of yoghurt and something that looked like chilli sauce but wasn’t really spicy.
In a rather disappointing move, they didn’t have set lunch menus for December. They also didn’t have any live goats or llamas, which was equally disappointing. Even so, the mains seemed to be rather well priced – at about 20pounds each. Against my express advice, Ioana refused to go for the lamb shoulder dish because “I don’t like lamb”. Surely enough, that is what I believed as well until I went to Kyrgyzstan and ate amazing lamb and mutton. She changed her mind rather quickly – after ordering the suckling pork – the lamb was cooked wonderfully, a slightly crispy exterior with moist fatty insides. The combination was great, the lamb coming with potatoes and some cooked grapes, perhaps losing a bit of its traditional taste to a more modern variant.
The desserts were nice – albeit incredibly similarly looking. The coffee ice cream was delicious, roasted desiccated coconut providing a nice change of texture. The mousse was a bit too sweet and we were unable to eat it all. Then again it’s chocolate so not entirely sure whether it was just a natural state of being or not.
Grade: Sainthood
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