When we decided to go to Peru I immediately got excited to eat in a new country/continent. I quickly found the Chef’s Table episode about Central/ Virgilio Martinez. It excited me and we put calendar notifications to make a reservation at midnight when the reservation window opened (somehow we still were not able to get a dinner reservation but the 16 course meal is also offered as a lunch and this actually worked out better since the lighting in the afternoon was perfect for photographing the dishes.
The show gave me a pretty good idea of what to expect, including the ambient background music at the beginning which is the same in the restaurant. I didn’t think the chef would actually be there- a wonderful surprise. We also knew the food was based on Peruvian ingredients gathered at different altitudes but not at all traditional dishes, hyper-creative in its presentation, and many courses.
What I didn’t expect was how fun, long (3 hours), or hard it would be to describe. I like to think I have a pretty good palate as well as a high-level of familiarity with lots of tastes. That being said, this food was VERY difficult for me to explain. Most dishes led to a confusing “I like it, but it doesn’t taste like anything I know!” Some of the dishes were delicious, some were just odd and a few were maybe outside my realm of understanding/appreciating (or they just weren’t good). Lima has soo many great restaurants, Central is currently listed as number 6 in the world and another is number 7. 50 Best Restaurants in the World
The restaurant isn’t really marked, you go to the address and its a lovely building with a garden and a huge fence. A perky employee greeted us and showed us to our table giving us a little briefing. The restaurant is well lit, casual, and bustling with employees (you can see into the kitchen and there are soo many waiters running around). Eric counted 24 visible employees. The high number of waitstaff was an interesting contrast to the casual dress of the clientele. When one dish was cleared another was brought to the table within an appropriately quick time frame. When I got up to go to the restroom a waiter would come over with tweezers and delicately pick up my napkin and drape it over the back of my chair.
The description of the tasting menu was on the table. To be honest, if you asked me to match the names to the dishes I would only get a few correct. Even when there was an ingredient I knew I was looking for I had trouble identifying it. Unlike most restaurants, the waiter had to tell us how to eat each dish and in some cases, tell us what we should eat/what was just garnish/display.
Our waiter asked if we had any dietary restrictions (no pork- which only impacted one dish), but seemed concerned we didn’t have any others. Every dish came with its own set of utensils: such as a tiny spoon, a golden fork, or a marble butter knife.
There were options for a wine pairing, cocktail/beer pairing and also a juice tasting option. We just opted for water, and our glasses were filled promptly after each sip. 
Course 1: Not sure what a lot of it was, the waiter made sure we understood the barnacles were not to be eaten. The yellow fleshy thing on top (that was somehow sweet and fruity and meaty) was great, but in setting an appropriate tone, we had no idea what it was.
“what did the waiter say this was?” “Not sure, it’s good though” “Is this fish or a fruit?”
Course 3: we started with the tuna? fruit served on ice, some sweet potato crisps that had flowers in them and were served on what looked like potpourri and ended with the cup of sea urchin meat in a red sauce and sweet pink mousse that stained our lips for a moment.
This marble cup was surprisingly heavy.
Course 3 was one of our favorites. The “beet” (purple root) flower on top of something that tasted like a somewhat savory stale peep was great an ALL the textures. The thing that looks like hay on a rock was Eric’s favorite part of the meal. It was fried mashwa (?) with a cream of the vegetable inside. Like everything we tried, it was complex. Sweet and savory. Creamy and crispy. The white vessel of duck meat and …something else?… was also great. 
Course 4: I loved this dish. The crab cake with purple and pink fruit was great, the broth was fine and the white fruit with fish in the middle was sushi-like but soo much better. As I chewed it went from savory to sweet to citrusy. The fruity part was from a cotton fruit of a cactus?
When we read about course 5 we were excited because it mentioned a tree tomato. From our Peruvian fruit tasting we did with our cooking class on our first day in the country we learned that we love tree tomatoes. Well, we didn’t see one. This was a bread course with 2 dipping butters. I knew we still had many many dishes to go but I wanted more of this. The breads were potatoey (Peru grows thousands of varieties of potato, a fact we heard MANY times) and the one butter was bitter and the other had the tree tomato in the form of a sweet and bright sugary coating. 
Course 6: scallops in a creamy sauce covered in sweet cucumber seaweed (which tasted like a cucumber-watermelon hybrid). 
Course 7 was vegetarian, I think. To be honest I didn’t understand the waiters description of it but I LOVED IT. It had a sweet potato-like chip, a vegetable cheese (?)and a bunch of other savory components that finished sweet. The menu just described it as “oca tumbo lupinus” (and yes that sounds like lew-penis). The meal ended with the presentation of a “gift” which was a booklet of loose postcards the had illustrations and descriptions of the ingredients. I will break into that info later and see if I can learn about what I ate.
8: Avacado, something like quinoa, some fish eggs (not sure which were which, but I think the yellow were the roe), and some shrimp. This was the dish that would have had pork in it. I didn’t like it at first but as the items mixed into the broth it got progressively better and I ended up really enjoying it. 
Course 9 was Eric’s least favorite. these 2 little potatoes were somehow cooked inside a rock of salt and you dipped it into a sweet chili sauce. The waiter opening the cooked rock was the coolest part of this dish. Also, this dish was called “Plant Dyes of Moray 4050 meters”. It really wasn’t what I was expecting.
My least favorite part. Course 10 was piranha. It was 2 small fried pieces of fish with some sort of sweet sauce dotted on. As you can see below I found the presentation jarring. This seems to be pretty common reaction as a staff member quickly whisked it away knowingly. 
Course 11: I didn’t understand it. It had plantains. It was soft and bubbled. It was somehow sweet and had some sort of shrimp in it. It wasn’t bad but I was more confused by it than anything. 
Course 12 had seaweed chips and foam and small pieces of green bread on top of octopus in a squid ink sauce. I liked the foam a lot and this was a dish really captured the idea of “looking like the ecosystem”. 
Course 13. I really liked this. Also, this was way easier to understand. Marinated goat meat (that reminded me of pulled pork) with some red and yellow vegetables that looked like pasta and dehydrated goats milk that acted like a cheese. I realize how ridiculous it sounds to call this an “easy to understand” dish, but it was a meat with a vessel and you were able to eat the entire dish, and I did. 
We did giggle our way through most of the meal. Also, the other dinners were also taking pictures of every dish. I was pleasantly surprised at how it was a mix of touristx and what seemed to be locals. 
The first of two dessert dishes. Course 14 was some delish chocolate/coffee crackers, with sweet cream in the middle made of a Yacon root (?) and a dehydrated lemon peel. It was tart and sweet and great. We practically licked our plates clean. 
Course 15 was entitled Cacao Chaco clay coca leaves. It was a decedent mousse/ ganache covered in what tasted like pieces of meringue cookies, lemon jello, ice, minty powder, and crushed ice. Coca leaves are a big deal in Peru, they are typically used to treat altitude sickness. I loved this dessert. It was cold and creamy and complicated. It was inspired by the mountain rain at a high altitude where there is lots of moss, exposed rock and ice and it was a rather great translation of that idea.
We finished with a medicinals/digestive course. First was a cracker that tasted like a graham cracker brushed with a lot of sweet things like cocoa and cinnamon and filled with cream cheese. After that, we had a small glass of tea that had these little algae balls. If you watch the Netflix episode you will see Virgilio pulling these out of a mountain stream. At some point in the meal, I said that the little algae spheres must not have made it into the new menu, it was a silly surprise. They are apparently very high in protein and the liquid tasted like sweetened green tea. 
Overall: this was an Experience. Some parts were delicious. All of it was interesting. We didn’t eat dinner that night (or really much breakfast the next day). It was filling and way cheaper than the best restaurants that would be in other countries. Virgilio seems like such a passionate chef, creator, and Peruvian. I had so much fun with this and it really was a meal I’ll remember and talk about for the rest of my life.
Everyone was taking photos.
Some more fun food photos from Peru. We did a fruit tasting. A cooking class of typical Peruvian dishes. A Chocolate making class. A meal overlooking some ruins where we tried alpaca and cuy (guinea pig). On a non-culinary related note, we hiked the Inca trail to Machu Pichu, went on a horse-back tour of the Sacred Valley in Cusco and swam with sea lions (and saw penguins!).
Evan Eats Cleveland 
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