The best restaurant in Latin America not only offers food, it offers experiences.
Ingredients from the mountains and the Peruvian Amazon, many until recently barely exploited in kitchens, are the main attraction of Central, the restaurant in the bohemian district of Barranco, in Lima, which has become a benchmark for world gastronomy.
The father of the creature, chef Virgilio Martínez, receives BBC Mundo and explains: “We offer a tasting menu of more than 16 dishes with which you can make a journey through the different ecosystems and regions of Peru“.
His business looks like both a restaurant and a museum of contemporary art, a place where eating is an activity that involves and requires all five senses, in which, in addition to swallowing, one must know how to look and see, as shown by the small plates with different samples. of the products used distributed throughout its spacious rooms.
Born in Lima in 1977, Martínez is today one of the most prestigious chefs in the world. Although he has given many turns in life.
He tried to study Law, because it was “the most normal thing”, but that, according to his account, never interested him. He also took his first steps on a skateboard.
Until, bored with the laws and falling off the table, he ended up leaning towards the same thing as others before him in his family, cooking, and he launched into investigating the products used by the ancestral communities of Peru to contribute so much to their commercial exploitation. as to its sustainable use.
Back to Lima
He has been savoring success for some time now threatened by the political crisis in his country, which has scared away practically all international tourism, which brought in many of his restaurant’s customers.
He studied Gastronomy at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu culinary academy and, after cooking in Spain and other countries, he returned to his native Lima to start the project that has made him one of the most famous chefs in the world.
After years of training in some of the most prominent international kitchens, he decided to create his own creature.
With the intention of creating a gastronomic space based on the products and flavors of the less-explored Amazon and the Peruvian highlands, he founded Central, which took shape and took flight over time.
“He was a very ambitious young man, with a team that was also young, so the most difficult thing was managing emotions,” he explains.
“I wasn’t very clear about what I wanted to do because I had been through many places, but I knew that I wanted to work for ours, for our identity“.
Driven by his passion and his desire to discover and publicize the unknown flavors, colors and textures of his country, he launched his Mater Iniciativa in 2016, which works with local producers from Amazonian and Andean Peru to preserve Peruvian products.
It also connects them with the diners at your restaurant. What some produce, others eat.
The idea is that whoever pays the 470 soles (about US$118) that the cheapest menu costs, experiences a delicious journey through the diverse Peruvian landscapes, from the coast to the jungle, passing through the desert and the Andes mountain range.
The menu varies depending on the season. Some of the dishes that it usually includes are a fish broth soup with corn, cassava, quinoa and coca leaf; a fish roll with hearts of palm, plantains and chili peppers; and an olluco from the Andes prepared with prawns and chalaca.
Quite a journey for the senses that seems to have been a success, judging by the awards and recognitions received by Central in recent years.
The last list of The World’s 50 Best (“The 50 best in the world”) has once again placed it as the best in Latin America, as it has been doing since 2015.
“The awards are always a responsibility, but also a joy, because they represent a recognition of work and dedication,” says Martínez.
Now Central is one of the most famous restaurants in the world and Virgilio Martínez has been able to open a “sister restaurant” in Cusco. In the same building as Central, on the top floor, there is also Kjolle, the one directed by Pía León, Martínez’s wife.
a golden age
Both Martínez and León are examples of the golden age of Peruvian cuisine that has turned typical dishes such as ceviche or papa a la huancaína into popular recipes in much of the world and that began under the influence of the great chef Gastón Acurio, from who Virgil was an outstanding disciple.
“Working with Gastón was a good school because he taught me to realize that what we do has an important social impact in our communities, it was he who taught me to get out of the kitchen and also understand other areas,” he says.
From this teaching comes his conviction that “the restaurant world is much bigger than the restaurant itself”. For him, his business must be connected to the surrounding social reality. In fact, it cannot not be.
Although that in today’s Peru, immersed in a serious political crisis which has largely paralyzed the activity of many businesses, is also a problem.
Virgilio avoids positioning himself on the political dispute in his country. “I can only say that it is very sad,” he says. He admits that he does not have a recipe for Peru to get out of the quagmire he is in.
And back to the subject in which he feels most comfortable, food: “For me, the best thing is the cleanliness and simplicity of a ceviche,” he concludes, hurried because it is time for food service.
Although it was not always so.
As a child he was enthusiastic about Lima’s carapulcra, a stew made from potatoes, lard and pork belly that was prepared for him in childhood and that surely aroused the curiosity of who is today one of the best cooks in the world.
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