Paris? Or maybe New York, Rome or Tokyo?
Naming the world's greatest food city is one of those deceptively simple challenges that gourmets could happily argue about all night.
Now there's a fresh contender for the title, a place that until recently few people associated with fine dining, yet one that has taken the culinary world by storm: Lima.
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Since the turn of the millennium, the Peruvian capital has become the epicenter of an increasingly celebrated culinary renaissance.
A generation of creative young chefs, trained at some of the finest cooking schools around the world, has returned to Peru and begun applying their new skills and techniques to the vast reservoir of traditional recipes from this Andean country.
The proof is in the elegantly plated pudding.
In the World's 50 Best Restaurants ranking for 2019, Lima appears twice in the top ten: Central at number six and Maido at number ten.
Lima's best restaurants have another advantage too. While a meal at similarly top-rated spots in Europe or North America can cost the equivalent of a monthly mortgage payment, here you can often come in at under 100 dollars for a single sitting.
The roots of Peru's gastronomic excellence aren't hard to trace.
Its cuisine is a literal melting pot of flavors and traditions from every corner of the globe. The country has seen significant immigration from places as varied as Spain, Italy, France, China and Japan.
Then there's the vital influence of its vibrant Afro-Peruvian community, along with the many Indigenous cultures of the coast, the mountains and the sprawling rainforests.
Add to that mix a spectacularly diverse natural pantry. Thanks to its tropical location and enormous variation in altitude, Peru has practically every kind of ecosystem, and crop, you could imagine.
The Andes and the Amazon are home to countless species of exotic, little-known but utterly delicious herbs, fruits and vegetables, while the cold Humboldt Current means Peru's Pacific fisheries teem with a myriad of seafood species.
Here we look at 11 of the best restaurants Lima has to offer.
Central
Currently the undisputed brightest star in Peru's culinary universe, Central has repeatedly been named the best restaurant in Latin America.
Chef Virgilio Martínez's philosophy revives the pre-Columbian tradition of barter and exchange between communities of the coast, the mountains and the rainforests, drawing on ingredients from altitudes of 12,000 feet all the way down to below sea level, in other words, fish and seafood.
This approach isn't new in Peruvian gastronomy, though no one else has done it at the level of acclaim Martínez enjoys.
From the high Andes, Martínez is known for serving guests a selection of Peruvian potatoes seasoned with muña, a type of Andean mint, alongside shavings of alpaca heart.
At the other end of the altitude spectrum, who would have thought that scallops seasoned with Peruvian rocoto pepper could be turned into a crust with a texture reminiscent of meringue?
Originally located in Lima's Miraflores district, Central has since moved to the trendy neighborhood of Barranco.
You'll need to book weeks, and possibly even months, in advance.
Central, Av. Pedro de Osma 301 Lima, Barranco 15063, Peru; +51 1 2428515
El Señorio del Sulco
One of the few restaurants with a perfect setting on Lima's Malecón, the clifftop boulevard overlooking the Pacific, this spot is famous for its repertoire of hearty Peruvian "criollo" classics, a coastal tradition that blends Spanish and local influences.
Come hungry and ready to try traditional recipes such as beef huatia, a pre-Columbian technique that involves slow cooking by burying the meat with large stones taken from the fire.
El Señorio de Sulco, El Malecón Cisneros 1470, Miraflores, Lima; +51 1 4410183
Astrid & Gastón
No list of Lima's restaurants would be complete without Astrid & Gastón, the establishment that spearheaded Peru's gastronomic revival when it opened its doors in 1994.
The flagship project of chef Gastón Acurio and his German chocolatier wife Astrid Gutsche, herself once named the world's best pastry chef, whom he met while training at Paris's Cordon Bleu cooking school, it now occupies a spacious 17th-century mansion decorated in a modern, minimalist style.
Acurio remains the father of modern Peruvian cuisine, both championing the country's rich tradition of home cooking and being the first to add touches of haute cuisine to it on the international stage.
Astrid & Gastón offers a tasting menu that is a tour de force, whisking guests swiftly through Peru's fascinating history and geography.
Astrid & Gastón, Av. Paz Soldan 290, San Isidro 15073, Peru; +51 1 4422777
La Picanteria
Another of Lima's most highly rated restaurants offers cuisine from Arequipa, Peru's picturesque third city, tucked into the foothills of the southern Andes.
There, "picanterías", which are usually open only for lunch, are a way of life, with dishes ranging from seafood to distinctly meaty options, especially chicharrón, also known as fried pork, a Peruvian classic.
Dishes worth seeking out include beef ribs, the crab parihuela or stew, and rocoto en chupe, a soup a little like chowder made with one of the spiciest local Peruvian chili peppers.
La Picanteria, Surquillo, Sta Rosa 388, Distrito de Lima; +51 1 2416676
Osso
Calling Osso a high-end steakhouse doesn't do the place justice. This specialist in all things beef actually started out as an exclusive butcher's shop.
At first, chef Renzo Garibaldi began inviting friends to enjoy a private grill around the cutting table while he experimented with aging different cuts, some for up to three months.
As the enzymes broke down the meat and gave it complex layers of flavor, he started getting requests from strangers eager to share the experience.
The chef's table remains open, though you may have to book months ahead. Garibaldi has also opened a second branch in the central San Isidro district, sparing foreign visitors the trek out to his original location in La Molina, off the beaten track on Lima's eastern edge.
Osso may be the least authentically Peruvian restaurant on this list, but it might also be the best place in South America to enjoy a steak.
Osso La Molina, Tahiti 175, La Molina, Lima; +51 1 3529915
Osso San Isidro, Av. Sto. Toribio 173 y Vía, Av. Central 172, San Isidro, Lima; +51 1 4697438
Rafael
The subject of great critical acclaim and some lofty culinary rankings, chef Rafael Osterling's eponymous restaurant has been around for 20 years.
Set in a striking Art Deco mansion, its menu pays homage to traditional Peruvian cooking while weaving in Japanese and Italian elements.
Among the dishes currently on offer are very Peruvian choices such as ceviche and tiradito, alongside sashimi, carpaccio and pasta.
Rafael, Calle San Martin 300, Miraflores, Lima; +51 1 2424149
Malabar
This highly praised spot belongs to Pedro Miguel Schiaffino, a chef particularly known for his use of exotic ingredients from the Amazon.
Malabar is also home to a bar that once ranked among the top ten in the world, should you fancy an aperitif before your meal.
These days Schiaffino, like Osterling, is a little more focused on pleasing his customers than on chasing critical praise, offering "everyday cooking, with a simple spirit and the warmth of home".
In practice, however, that means nothing short of strikingly original dishes, from duck in tucupí served with blackberries, farofa and garden greens, to Patagonian crayfish with a tomato and golf sauce
served with chorizo sauce, Tarapoto prawns, smoked pork, sweet peppers and plantain, right through to homemade pasta with braised pigeon and mushrooms.
Malabar, Av. Camino Real 101, San Isidro, Lima; +51 1 4405300
La Mar
If Peru has a national dish, it's ceviche, a fresh seafood salad marinated in lime juice and sold at specialist restaurants known as cevicherías, even up in the Andes.
No cevichería is more renowned than La Mar, whose name translates as "the open sea", Gastón Acurio's second flagship venue. Like all cevicherías, La Mar offers not only different kinds of ceviche but also numerous other takes on many of Peru's original fish and shellfish classics.
A bottle of white wine is the perfect accompaniment, but the classic Peruvian way to eat ceviche is to wash it down with a local, ice-cold lager.
La Mar, Av Mariscal La Mar 770, Miraflores, Lima; +51 1 4213365
Chez Wong
If ceviche has a doyen, it's Javier Wong. He actually started this restaurant in his own garage, though these days you'll need to book weeks ahead for his casual, lunch-only spot behind an unmarked door in an unfashionable neighborhood.
Wong prepares every dish himself and, unlike most, uses only one fish, sole, for his pared-down version of this Peruvian classic. He then adds slices of red onion, salt, black pepper, diced chili and lime juice, which marinates the pieces of raw fish.
It's a mark of his true mastery that such a simple recipe can be so utterly delicious. He also prepares all sorts of other seafood delicacies, without a recipe and often on the spur of the moment, depending on his mood.
Chez Wong, Enrique León García 114, Distrito de Lima; +51 1 4706217
Maido
The name means "welcome" in Japanese, and this restaurant from chef Mitsuharu Tsumura is the pinnacle of Japanese-Peruvian, or "Nikkei", cuisine.
This fusion dates back more than a century, thanks to the large community of immigrants from the Land of the Rising Sun who settled in this Andean country. According to the World's 50 Best Restaurants ranking for 2019, Maido is not only the second best restaurant in Latin America but also the tenth best in the world.
The menu ranges from traditionally refined Japanese sushi classics to original creations.
Maido, Calle San Martin 399, Miraflores; +51 1 3135100
Amaz
This is Schiaffino's other restaurant, designed to be more affordable than Malabar. It is also explicitly devoted to recipes and ingredients from across the Amazon basin.
Given how vast and biodiverse it is, you might wonder how the cuisine of the world's largest rainforest managed to stay largely unnoticed by most gourmets.
At Amaz that's put right with Schiaffino's refined versions of all kinds of jungle produce, from juanes (chicken, rice, olives and egg cooked together and wrapped in a huge leaf) to cecina and tacacho, also known as smoked pork with distinctive potato-like dumplings made from plantains.
Amaz, Av. la Paz 1079, Miraflores, Lima; +51 1 2219393; Av. Circunvalación del Golf los Incas 134, local 106, Patio Panorama, Santiago de Surco, Lima; +51 1 5013122.
