Peruvian Food: The Best Culinary Experiences in Lima and Cusco

If you haven’t already heard, Peruvian food is kind of a big deal. The cuisine is as diverse as the landscapes that likely drew you to Peru for an adventure holiday in the first place. From the country’s breadth of produce and ingredients to the cuisine’s fusion of multi-cultural influences that stretch centuries, Peruvian food is far more than practical fuel for your next mountain trek or your long-awaited Machu Picchu tour. It’s an experience worth exploring in all of its forms and with some of Peru’s top culinary experts by your side to show you how. Here are four culinary experiences that do just that:

1. Gastronomy Tour with Lima Gourmet

This culinary experience in Lima takes you to the Peruvian capital’s traditional markets, best restaurants, and most representative culinary districts. It’s about tasting the food as much as it is about discovering Lima’s best culinary corners. The multi-stop gastronomy tour takes you to foodie locales that run the gamut from a traditional coffee roastery to a gourmet restaurant set amidst the ruins of a pre-Inca site. You’ll be falling in love with Lima, as much as its food and drink gems by tour’s end.

2. Interactive Cooking Lessons with Urban Kitchen

For context around some of Peru’s most iconic dishes, look no further than this Lima culinary experience. Urban Kitchen’s mission goes far beyond showing you how to prepare a delicious Peruvian meal. It introduces you to the historical, cultural, and social aspects of each and every dish, giving you a new appreciation for Peruvian food and culture in the process. The best part, however, has to be sitting down and digging into the dishes you’ve just cooked up. You get to be the chef and the diner in this unforgettable cooking experience.

3. Rooftop

For a taste of Andean-style Peruvian cuisine in a jaw-dropping setting, pencil in a cooking class at Cusco’s Rooftop Kitchen. Located on the top floor of their building with stunning views of downtown Cusco and its surrounding hills, Rooftop Kitchen’s cooking class begins with a guided culinary tour of the San Pedro Market before taking you back to your personal cook station to prepare a menu of regional dishes with a pisco sour crafted by you. They’ll even send you home with the recipes for each dish you prepare so that you can relive the experience (albeit minus the view) once you’re back home from your Peru holiday.

4. Maras Moray with a Pachamanca at Lake Piuray

This is one of the most well-rounded culinary and cultural experiences you can have during your visit to Cusco and the Sacred Valley. The full-day tour starts with a visit to the Inca’s former agricultural laboratory at Moray, then continues with a tour of the Maras salt terraces, and finishes with a traditional Pachamanca lunch on the shores of Lake Piuray. Watch as a local chef prepares the earthen oven with hot stones, then with layers of marinated and seasoned ingredients like pork, chicken, lamb, cuy (guinea pig), potatoes, and fava beans. The finished product is a meal well worth the several hours’ wait. Plus, the setting can’t be beat. 

 Which of these Peruvian food experiences whets your appetite?  

Chances are you’ll be traveling to Lima and Cusco during your adventure tour in Peru. Get in touch with our Explorandes team if you’re interested in incorporating one or several of these unique culinary experiences into your Peru holiday itinerary.