Peru Named Best Culinary Destination by the World Travel Awards

Foodies take note: Thanks to a winning combination of fresh ingredients and continual innovation, Peru took the World Travel Awards prize for Best Culinary Destination for the third year in a row!

The 2014 edition of the World Travel Awards, dubbed the ‘Oscars of Tourism’ by those within the industry, chose Peru as the Best Culinary Destination of the Year during a ceremony on Sunday, December 7th on the Caribbean island of Anguila.

The fellow nominees bested by Peru include culinary heavyweights such as China, France, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, Thailand, and the United States.

You might be surprised to know that this is the third year in a row in which Peru has taken the top spot. This fits in with a steep rise in the popularity of Latin American cuisine, brought about by fresh ingredients, surprising flavor combinations, and increasingly savvy marketing that’s succeeding in getting the word out.

In Peru, it all starts in the small family farms and the bustling markets, where an astounding variety of produce arrives from the Andes, the coast, and the Amazon. There are also more young people attending culinary schools than ever before, thanks to a culture which, inspired by Gaston Acurio, treats chefs like superstars. Many of the cooks of this new wave bring international techniques to local produce, offering dishes that have come to be known as Andean Fusion. Some examples of the cuisine are Quiñotto, risotto made with quinoa rather than rice, and Alpaca Cordon Bleu.

The rise of Andean Fusion is merely the continuation of a process which has been taking place in the country for more than a millennia. There’s lomo saltado, a Peruvian-Chinese stir-fry, the Peruvian-Japanese fusion called Nikkei, and the criollo cooking of the coast, which combines Spanish, African, and Andean traditions in dishes such as the creamy and spicy ají de gallina stew or the marinated beef heart skewers known as anticuchos.

Fecha de Publicación: 15/12/2014