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Kjolle is the brainchild of Pia Leon, who worked at Central for many years and is the wife of Virgilio Martinez. Both restaurants occupy the same, extremely beautiful space. When I last went to Lima in 2019, Central was in the top 10, but Kjolle had literally just opened and wasn’t really on my radar. In 2023, Kjolle entered the world’s 50 best list. This year, it rocketed up to number 9. To be quite honest, a large part of my enthusiasm to go back to Lima was to eat at Kjolle. And it certainly did not disappoint.

Kjolle is driven entirely by the vision of showcasing Peru’s biodiversity. The whole team strives to make use of the best ingredients from across the country, highlighting what an extraordinary country it is. Of the 32 recognised world climates, Peru has 28 of them. Kjolle was a tour de force of colours, textures, flavours and the country’s top offerings.

Two things definitely confirm for me how superb Kjolle is (and I believe if Michelin came, they would award them three stars): the first is the food. Every dish is exceptional - a 50 hour cooked beef shortrib with chilli; a dish of tubers you mix together on the plate with herbs is rich and complex and delicious; and clams and fish marry together incredibly with sweet potato and kiwicha. The absolute highlight dish for me is duck, brazil nut sauce and ‘cheese’, sea urchin and peruvian mint. It sounds bonkers written down but it is one of the most accomplished plates in terms of balance I can recall eating in the last few years.

The second is service. You are treated like utter royalty from the moment you arrive. Wine is generously topped back up on the pairing. It’s never too much trouble for someone to take you through the story of a dish or go and get you ingredients etc. You take home a beautiful art book. At the beginning I’m asked if I eat octopus. I tell them I do. At the end there was no octopus. I ask why they asked me in case I’d missed something. I hadn’t but they insist on making me a delicious off-menu octopus dish without blinking. That is world class and those are the two words I’d equally use to describe Kjolle through and through.

Clon is the slightly more casual sister restaurant of the incredible Merito. Often the second restaurant can be an afterthought - sometimes great for one or two dishes but mostly used as a funnel for people who can’t get into the ‘main place’. No chances of that here - Clon swings and hits with every single step of the food.

First up, an excellent ceviche meets tartare with a granita of green sauce and a slice of fresh-as-you-like avocado dusted with beetroot powder. It looks beautiful and tastes even better, especially with the corn torrejas that accompany it. Next, chilli peppers stuffed with fish sausage and topped with kimchi and various sauces. For main, a sea bass curry, packed with flavour, served with tubers and onion, and accompanied by an incredible black tuber and garlic rice. The fish is cooked perfectly and the flavours are extremely well balanced.

Then the flan. The Merito flan. The beautiful, creamy, unctuous, sticky, delicious flan of dreams. This flan is, imo, one of the three finest desserts ever created on this earth, alongside the cheesecake at the original Tickets in Barcelona and the tipsy cake and spit roasted pineapple from Dinner By Heston Blumenthal. It is truly a thing of magic.

Circa 2016 there was a restaurant on Bold Street in Liverpool called Miyagi. It was a local institution for those in their mid 20s, serving what it called Japanese street soul food. It served dishes like sticky chilli beef nori tacos, pork belly bao buns and beef gyozas with an array of sticky sweet sauces. We loved it, though we knew it would never win any awards, and a night there with a few asahi on draft would run you £40 each max.

Why am I telling you this, I hear you ask. Well, because this week I returned (last there in 2019) to Maido in Lima. This feels significant because since the last time I was there it has been named the single best restaurant in the world. Though I recall enjoying it seven years ago, and though it has received worldwide acclaim in the window since, I did find this a surprise as I didn’t rate it anywhere near the likes of Central or Astrid Y Gaston at the time. And having been this week, a surprise is the least I’d describe it as - I’m absolutely baffled. This is like a reincarnation of my beloved Miyagi on Bold Street but it’s not as fun and they definitely don’t charge £40.

I order à la carte as I’m tasting menu’d out, and I did that last time I was here. A welcome snack first, consisting of some raw fish, sweet potato and all the other bits you’d expect. Perfectly pleasant, but its fridge cold and so all the elements blur together. I order a toro and sea urchin tartare. It’s delicious, but it’s delicious because toro and sea urchin are delicious. If you gave me some of both I could probably replicate it to a similar standard as there is nothing to distinguish it from any tartare you’d get in any decent sushi restaurant. A spicy scallop temaki is next. It’s fine - but again not discernible from fare you’d get at any decent sushi restaurant. The same can be said from Wagyu nigiri with quails eggs. These are ceremoniously blow torched at the table - thank god as the flames are the only real flavour imparted upon the dish. Then it starts to really dip. A smoked eel and foie gras nigiri is so cloyingly sweet that it would fit on the dessert menu. Both this and the temaki have left me with sticky fingers (the second nigiri impossible to unstick from the plate with chopsticks due to all the sugar) but there are no signs of any sort of hand wipe. In the best restaurant in the world. To finish, slow cooked short rib. Cooked to absolute perfection but covered in a sauce that’s grossly over sweet and over reduced. I’m quite surprised it’s left the kitchen but I’ve lost the will to challenge it. It’s served with what they describe as mashed potato. It resembles teletubby custard. It’s also served with a fried rice that smells and tastes of nothing but oil and wok.

Don’t get me wrong - Maido is nice. The service is warm, if inattentive. But the best restaurant in the world? As Gordon Ramsay once said - you’re pulling my plonker now aren’t you?

In 2019 I visited Central for the first time, and, at the time, placed it in my favourite meals of all time, alongside peak Tickets and peak Eleven Madison Park, the unrivalled hospitality of Den and the time that Gaggan Anand locked us into his flagship restaurant on New Year’s Eve and fed and watered us until 4am. Now Lima is far, so I figured if I am going back all that way I should go back again. It confirmed one thing for me - this is potentially the best restaurant in the world.

For anyone unfamiliar, Central is the brainchild of Virgilio Martinez. There is an episode of Chef’s Table on Netflix around Virgilio and Central, which I recommend watching as it is one of the compelling and interesting hours of food television you can find. Virgilio is obsessed with exploring and showcasing the biodiversity of Peru and the menu explores this by moving through various altitudes of the country.

From the moment you arrive you’re treated like royalty - there’s a welcome drink in the beautiful gardens and the tables are humongous. Everyone serving is professional but warm and I was even lucky (imo) enough to have Virgilio come over and chat to me for a while and serve me a course.

So what of the food? Well first of all, it looks like an art installation. The use of seaweeds and algae allows playfulness through colour, and the use of textures and experimental techniques runs through everything. It is also, most importantly, delicious. It would be impossible to name all the food I ate as I don’t know if I’ve ever eaten so much food in my life, but some highlights would definitely be a scallop dish with vongole and sea urchin; a corn and kiwicha dish with about ten textures going on and the deepest corn flavour I’ve ever tasted; sliced and cured duck served alongside a play on a chicarron taco; and a dish of octopus where the skin was peeled to make an initial dish and the served with a super cold dish loaded with crunch. At the end, you’re taken upstairs to a cacao factory and shown the incredible work they’re doing with cacao - this includes being served circa 15 small cacao desserts.

This is a truly incredible experience and one I’m so happy I went back for. People talk about the best restaurants in the world all the time, and places like Central can be so polarising. I can imagine many would hate it, and some would lament style over substance, but I can’t say that’s my take from it. I think it’s an incredible place with an incredible story, and I cannot wait to experience Kjolle tonight on the back of it.

Instagram: boothonfood

Mayta in Lima is currently ranked 39th best in the world, and, fittingly, was the 39th of the top 50 that I visited. There was plenty to like about Mayta: the service is warm, the drinks are excellent and much of the food is an absolute hit. For example, a corn tamale covered with textures of corn and corn oil; accompanied with a corn cracker, is one of the best dishes I’ve ever eaten. A red velvet beetroot cheesecake knocks it out of the park. A duck rice main with all its various textures of duck is delicious and very different to the main served in a lot of restaurants of this calibre.

There’s also plenty to raise your eyebrows at with Mayta. For a start, whilst it might sound picky, I was sat in the single most uncomfortable chair I’ve ever sat in at a restaurant I’d be expected to spend circa two hours in. I can’t describe how bad it was, and had they not been able to find me an incredible cushion, I don’t know that I could have stayed and sat in it. There’s also this constant current undertone that they are desperate to be Central. At one point I’m brought out fish heads, teeth and all, bound together with a singular cigar of cassava and pork on top. Why, I wonder, when there is no sign of this fish in the dish. It’s a lazy rip off of the very famous piranha dish at Central that you used to get atop piranha heads - the difference there being you are actually served some piranha. It’s bizarre, and is shortly folllwed by an actual dish of the fish, which I’m sorry to say was disgusting and reeked of overcooked white beans. A mushroom dish is equally as disgusting, with a stuffed mushroom bread reminding of a bushtucker trial.

So the highs were high and the lows were low. Do I think Mayta is one of the 50 best restaurants in the world? No. But it is good when it hits, and at the very least, it isn’t Le Du.

I dined at the chef’s counter at Merito (currently ranked 26th in the world, and the 38th of the top 50 list I’ve been to) and it was an absolutely spectacular and utterly unique meal. From the minute you start with the sachatomate fruit, you know you’re in for something special. Next, a beautiful yacon cracker with catch of the day and kiwiciha - almost too beautiful to eat. Scallops come, as fresh as you like, with sanky fruit and jalapeno - a wonderful dish with just the right amount of heat. The best course for me is the tiny gnocchi made with loche squash with a curry sauce. It’s probably one of the best dishes I have ever eaten anywhere in the world. Lobster is tempura’d and served with cacao and tucupi. There’s a main of beef dumplings with mango that blows my socks off. Then, the creme de la creme, not part of the tasting menu, but added on by me…the flan. Worth the 16 hour journey from the UK alone. Service was excellent and the cocktails were spot on too. World class.

I went to the up-and-coming spot Verbena in Lima, and I loved every minute of it. The service was warm, the food was excellent and the drinks were also great. It’s a tasting menu or a la carte - I opted for the former. Some highlights included an absolutely ethereal raspberry cured fish; a playful take on a jamon croquette with a mango sauce; and a duck and pear dim sum with “ramen sauce,” chifa mushrooms and ají limo. They make one hell of a negroni as well. Lovely stuff.

On my first night in Lima, I found myself in Cosme, which I found out about when it was ranked 9th best in Latin Americas 50 best restaurants. It is headed up by James Berckemeyer, formerly of Celler De Can Roca and Arzak.

The meal had some real hits - a crab toast with avocado was fresh, spicy and delicious; and a take on seafood stew with crispy little potatoes in it was incredible. That said, I ordered the 9 course tasting menu that was apparently supposed to showcase the best of the chef’s dishes, and I can’t help but think I was actually given whatever was the fastest to make. The tiradito was wildly unbalanced; a main of beef short rib and lentils was massively uninspiring; and I just cannot believe that someone’s peak of cooking is a piece of seabass sat on an overly sweet ginger sauce. Many of the dishes I watched leave the kitchen from the a la carte menu looked massively more interesting and I couldn’t help feeling I may have been swindled at this one.