The Place

Osso is Lima’s “temple to meat,” a restaurant, butcher shop, and charcuterie. It was started in the suburb of La Molina, about 30-45 minutes from downtown Lima. There’s also a branch in San Isidro close to the financial district but we wanted to visit the mother church. Most tourists don’t venture much past Miraflores, Barranco, and maybe central Lima so this was a nice adventure and opportunity to see more of Lima.

The place

The place

Cosme is one of the “new, trendy, hip” places on all the Lima food lists. It emphasizes sustainability and is decor is reused, repurposed, and recycled. The ceiling is decorated with disposable soft drink bottles filled with brightly colored water. The walls are decorated with soda bottle caps. The restaurant’s mascot is the local vulture, while not known for its looks it’s an essential part of the ecosystem, scavenging and cleaning up after others.

The restaurant and the cuisine

Osaka has a reputation as one of the best nikkei (Japanese-Peruvian) places in Lima. It may not be as internationally famous as Maido, but it’s well known locally. At first my attitude was “I didn’t come to Lima to eat Japanese food” but that was foolish. There have been Japanese in Peru for centuries, using local ingredients to prepare Japanese dishes. There have been high end nikkei restaurants for at least forty years. It’s a distinct cuisine deserving of attention in its own right.

The place

Costanera 700 is one of the oldest Nikkei (Japanese Peruvian) restaurants in Lima. It was founded by nissei Humberto Sato (who passed away in October at 78) and is now run by his son Yaquir Sato. This place is a Lima institution, beloved for over 30 years by politicians, business people, and the artistic elite. The decor reflects both its age and its eclectic history, it’s kitchy and a bit dated but charming none the less. The clientele? In Yaquir’s words (translated) “Now many entrepreneurs come to close deals, especially at lunch time, the average customer is over 40 years old and most of them are male, while 30% come from another country.”

The place

El Mercado is a fancy fish oriented restaurant by Rafael Osterling (the chef/owner of Rafael.) It has a reputation as the best cevicheria in Lima and it regularly makes the lists of the best restaurants in Peru. Sounded like our kind of place.

The place

Malabar is one of Lima’s “nice” restaurants. Business people, tourists, people with money, in the financial district. Doing creative things with sustainable Amazonian ingredients. We went because we’d heard good things about the food and ingredients but were a little suprised at the setting and ambience. This seems like a place to take clients.

But the menu is all about the ingredients. The owner Pedro Miguel Schiaffino also owns āmaZ, which also focuses on Peruvian Amazonian food, but Malabar uses those ingredients in the service of fine dining. The emphasis is on the ingredients, not flashy technique, but the technique is still there. The menu includes some interesting ferments both in the dishes and in the drinks. Kombucha with local herbs for example.

Manolo is an old fashioned Lima caféteria (coffee shop) and churreria in the heart of Miraflores. It’s an institution, founded in 1968 and is a comforting favorite of families of all ages. You see grandparents who may have met there, and new families bringing their kids. There’s a huge menu of sandwiches, pastas, seafood, and desserts

The portions are big, the crema volteada (“turned over” cream, like a flan) nearly covered the plate. The meals are family sized because this is a family place. While there are tourists here, there are plenty of ordinary people enjoying an old favorite as well.

The restaurant

IK restaurant is one of the fancy “modern Peruvian” restaurants in Lima that is not part of the Gastón Acurio (Astrid & Gastón) and Virgilio Martínez Véliz (Central) axis. When we arrived our immediate impression was of understated and quiet elegance. IK has dimly lit stone and wood with patterned pools of light on each table. IK has windows onto the kitchen, which we like, and it appears that half of the chefs are women including the head chef (Francesca Ferreyros) which was a pleasant surprise.