‘Rodent never tasted so good': My 14-course meal at the world's best restaurant

Telegraph

09-07-2025

The very first dish leaves me so baffled I have to ask the waiter which bits I am supposed to eat.
The only edible part, it turns out, is the tiny blob of brown foam, made from Amazonian chorizo, perched on top of a spiky bed of desiccated scales from the arapaima, one of the world's largest freshwater fish. Each the size of a credit card, the scales vaguely resemble prawn crackers; it's a shame, I think ruefully, that they are there purely for decoration.
This is the first mouthful of a 14-course tasting menu at Maido, a restaurant in Lima's touristy Miraflores district (just a short walk from my home of the past 15 years) that specialises in Peruvian-Japanese cuisine, known as Nikkei.
Even by the stellar standards of Peru's gastronomic boom, Maido is not just another high-end eatery. After years of bouncing around the top 10, in June 2025 it finally achieved the number-one spot at the World's 50 Best Restaurants awards. Never mind Michelin (which has yet to include South America in its star system) – the 50 Best, voted on by more than 1,000 industry insiders, is arguably the gold standard for international culinary excellence.
Maido, hidden behind a cluster of Eucalyptus trunks on an otherwise nondescript street corner, can thus claim to offer the most superlative gourmet experience on planet earth. Its chef-owner, Mitsuharu 'Micha' Tsumura, is now the Leo Messi of gastronomy. And I am here to soak up his skills.
The waiter recommends I pick up the hors d'oeuvre and down it in one. As I pop the foamy morsel into my mouth, it seems to simultaneously vaporise on my tongue and explode into improbably distinct flavours and textures.
Seasoned with annatto (derived from the seeds of the achiote tree), Brazil nuts, the juice of a local mandarin-citron hybrid, sweet chilli peppers and yacón (a crisp tuber from the Andean foothills), the foam clearly delivers a porky flavour. But it also gives off subtle tones of smoke, citrus and fresh fruit, along with layers of umami and sweetness that feels familiar but which I cannot identify. Ethereally light, the jungle-inspired chorizo concoction somehow also manages to have a faint, satisfying crunch.
What follows is a virtuoso voyage across Peru's dazzlingly diverse geography – without ever stepping out from beneath the forest of ropes that hangs over the dozen, highly-coveted tables in Maido's dining room. Although it is hard to make out, they portray the Hinomaru, the Japanese national flag. As new diners enter the dimly-lit space they are greeted by staff with a chorus of 'maido', meaning 'welcome' in the Osaka dialect of Tsumura's ancestors.
Diners are then swept from the 1,500-mile Pacific coast over the soaring Andes and down into the endless rainforests of the Peruvian Amazon and their myriad exotic fruits. There are sea urchins and scallops served with basil oil, and a sauce made from another rare tuber – arracacia – blended with tumbo, an acidic fruit once used, before the Spanish brought citrus to the Americas, to make a precursor of ceviche.
Then comes arapaima butifarra – slivers of a fishy cold cut in a diminutive bun, flavoured with an emulsion of sweet chilli peppers, karashi (a Japanese mustard) and honey. And Cuy San, or san guinea pig – Tsumura's haute-cuisine take on the fluffy (but, in this neck of the woods, very edible) Andean staple. A diminutive, delicately-battered leg is served with chilli peppers and greens; rodent never tasted so good.
Towards the end of the marathon feast there is charqui, a kind of Andean beef jerky but made with wagyu and garnished with huacatay, a minty marigold used widely in Peruvian cooking.
All of it is washed down with a New World wine pairing that runs from a semillon made from old vines in Argentine Patagonia, to two different sakes. The service is friendly and efficient but never fawning.
Maido is actually the second Lima restaurant in three years to claim the top spot in the 50 Best, after Virgilio Martínez's Central in 2023 (now in the rankings's hall of fame and withdrawn from future consideration), also a 10-minute walk from my home, but in the other direction. The Nikkei emporium leads a cohort of four restaurants from the Peruvian capital in the 2025 list. London, by comparison, has just two in this year's 50 Best, the genre-defying Ikoyi at 15, and Kol, offering Mexican fusion, at 49.
Like most top Peruvian restaurants, Maido achieves this at relatively competitive prices. My tasting menu with wine pairing came to 1880 Sols (roughly £390), including service. That's rather more than I am used to paying for lunch. But it's also hardly the arm and leg that many of Maido's international peers charge.
The story of how Peru, a poster child for political corruption and underdevelopment, came to overshadow gastronomic powerhouses such as Paris, Tokyo and New York is rooted in a national food culture that is highly original and diverse, and genuinely includes Peruvians of all races and classes.
That culture is itself the product of breathtaking geography as well as immigration from across the globe, and even, believe it or not, the brutal legacy of the Maoist terrorists of the Shining Path.
Peru's natural pantry is unrivalled, thanks to its tropical location and the Andes's vast altitudinal variation. The country is home to just about every ecosystem, and therefore every crop, plant and game species on earth.
Successive waves of immigrants, not all of them willing, from Spain, Italy, Africa, France, China and Japan, among others, have each left their stamp. So too distinct pre-Columbian traditions from the desert coast, mountains and jungle. No Peruvian kitchen, for example, would be complete without a wok or various uniquely local ajíes or chillies.
Then a generation of young chefs, including Tsumura, trained in the 1990s at top culinary schools from San Francisco to Rome and Tokyo. Many did so to flee a national collapse partly triggered by the Shining Path's bloodletting. On their return, they began applying their new, cutting-edge techniques and ideas on Peru's extensive pantheon of home recipes.
Adding some extra spice is the national propensity for breaking the rules. It's a trait that makes Peruvians both Latin America's worst drivers and best cooks. Mexico – whose wonderful food I do not underestimate, having lived there for four happy years – is a clear but distant second.
Eventually, after three hours of what becomes a quickfire blur of dazzling delicacies, I emerge back into the grey light of Lima's overcast, southern winter. I'm satisfied full, there's no question, but it will take me days to fully process the experience, perhaps the way one might after visiting an exhibition by a truly great artist.
The highlight dish? Tsumara's nuanced take on Peru's national dish, ceviche, titled Sea and Pistachios. Miniscule chunks of fortuno, a small local fish species, were served with diced squid and snails, floating with nuts and avocado pieces in a light, tangy chilled broth.
And does Maido live up to its new reputation as the 'world's best restaurant'? I can't say. But the meal is one I will remember for the rest of my life – which is not a bad thing to say of your local.