Peruvian super foods were the star of the show at a lunch organised by the Peru Trade & Investment Office at London’s Lima Floral, the first Peruvian restaurant to be awarded a Michelin star.
The event, which took place on Thursday, featured a menu created by head chef Robert Ortiz with distinctive Peruvian ingredients and speeches on the origins and nutritional qualities of Peruvian foods by Christian Nelson of Sumaq Superfoods and nutritionist Dr Laura Wyness.
The initiative is the latest to take place under the Super Foods Peru banner and adds to recent projects including the super foods Peru Young Chef of the year competition, and campaigns to raise the profile of Peruvian quinoa and avocados.
The winning chef, to be announced on 8 May, will travel to Lima to train at the world-renowned Central restaurant.
Jaime Cardenas, director of the Peru Trade & Investment Office, said: “It’s a really exciting time for Peruvian food in the UK. In the last few years, we’ve seen a relatively niche cuisine become one of the most talked about, as well as many new Peruvian restaurants opening in this country.
“Behind all of this is Peru’s incredible, vibrant basket of ingredients, which gives such a healthy quality and distinctive flavour to our foods. This lunch and our young chefs’ competition are just two of the ways in which we are highlighting this.”
The menu at Lima Floral included infused pisco with Amazonian chocolate, blueberries and cherimoya; a sea bream ceviche with traditional tiger’s milk, avocado, crispy corn and dehydrated onion, slow-cooked suckling pig and crackling served with celeriac pure and sweet ají garlic sauce; and a mousse of Peruvian chocolate from the Palo Blanco community with blue potato crisp.
