Peruvian restaurant Central triumphs once again as The Best Restaurant in Latin America for the third year in a row. The prestigious Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants 2016 list was announced in a lavish ceremony in Mexico on 26 September 2016, featuring a total of nine top restaurants in Peru’s capital Lima alone.
No 2 – Maido
No 7 – Astrid y Gastón
No 12 – La Mar
No 27 - Osso Carnicería y Salumería
No 30 – Rafael
No 34 – Fiesta
No 38 – Malabar
No 41 – Isolina
In addition to this, in July 2016 Peru was named South America’s Leading Culinary Destination 2016 for the fifth year in a row at the World Travel Awards.
While tourism to Peru once focused almost exclusively on the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu, these latest industry accolades reflect Peru’s consolidation as a one of the world’s best culinary destinations, highlighting the growing appeal in culinary travel to Peru.
With Machu Picchu receiving over 1 million visitors a year, implementing effective tourism management provides added incentives to support the development of alternative tourism products, alleviating pressure on honeypot sites.
Peru culinary travel is an opportunity for diversification, a shift noted in research from the Oxford Business Group1: “Besides the rising number of restaurant options branded by a generation of world-renowned Peruvian chefs, culinary events across the country are becoming a focal point of domestic and international tourism.”
Aracari, locally-based tailor-made Peru travel specialists are seeing on the ground that visitors are increasingly seeking out gastronomy experiences in Lima, before or after Machu Picchu, as another way to experience the culture.
As such, Aracari has developed a wide range of immersive food experiences, from master classes with top chefs, to sampling tours, to a 10-day culinary itinerary ‘Peru with Flavour’.
This trend correlates with the findings from ATTA’s Taste the Adventure report:
“The intersection of food and adventure tourism… creates a broader set of active experiences for adventure travel providers to connect their customers to the identity and culture of a place”.
Furthermore, in recognition of the growth in culinary travel to Peru, Aracari has created a free Culinary guide e-book, full of restaurant recommendations, information on classic Peruvian dishes and unusual ingredients to look out for.
Maria Julia Raffo, Aracari’s Gastronomy Advisor said:
“If you asked a traveller 10 years ago what they first though when asked about Peru, they’d probably have said Machu Picchu. But nowadays, the answer can be more varied. Awards such as Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants and the growing number of Peruvian restaurants from London to New York, mean people now associate Peru with its food scene, and increasingly want this to feature in their travel plans.
Peru’s gastronomy has so much to offer, and at Aracari we’re meeting that need by offering exclusive and authentic culinary experiences, such as connecting guests with some of the top chefs at the forefront of this progressive food scene. We’re offering adventures for the taste buds!”
1 Oxford Business Group. The Report: Peru 2016. https://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com/overview/new-routes-leveraging-country%E2%80%99s-variety-leading-new-tourism-products