Trying something new can be daunting, such as starting a new exercise regime, deciding to find another job, or even choosing a new phone. What is even more daunting is dining at a restaurant where the ingredients on the menu have never been heard of before. That until being served their first course, a guest wouldn’t even realise the ingredients were edible. While this may sound scary, dining at the restaurant Central is not something to be feared. Central is an avant-garde culinary experience and has been voted the best restaurant in South America, where a guest can enjoy all the micro-climates of Peru through exquisite and sculptural dishes.

Central is based in Lima, Peru, and is widely considered one of the best restaurants in the world. The restaurant can seat up to 40 people, and guests roughly have a four-to-five-hour culinary experience. The restaurant’s founder and head chef Virgilio Martínez is famed for collecting and cataloguing rare ingredients, and has an episode within the TV show Chef’s Table on Netflix. Central was awarded the esteemed accolade of the fourth-best restaurant in the world and the best restaurant in South America in 2021 by a prestigious panel of 1,000 food critics, chefs, and restaurateurs of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

The very core of Central is its philosophies about sustainability. Six years ago, the restaurant stopped cooking with ingredients that were sourced overseas. Instead, Martínez decided only to source 100% organic ingredients grown in Peru. Each ingredient is sourced from the different micro-climates of Peru; this includes the Pacific Ocean, the Andes Mountains range, and the Amazon Rainforest. Even the restaurant’s sugar is organic since the culinary team uses sugar reductions made from fruit and not from traditional sugar cane. The chef has also been known to use the organic gelatine from tree bark found in the Amazon to create his dishes.

Central’s ethos reclaims the pre-Colombian tradition of barter and exchange between communities from the coast, mountains, and rainforest, featuring ingredients from altitudes as high as 12,000 feet to below sea level. While this approach is not necessarily new in Peruvian gastronomy, no other chef has achieved the same acclaim as Martínez. The chef created his menu from this structure since each course is a collection of ingredients from the micro-climates of Peru and the country’s varied altitudes.

Before entering the restaurant, guests are asked to stop at a large granite table that displays different flavours and ingredients they will experience while dining at Central. The table spread includes chiles, tubers, different types of potatoes, and fruits sourced from the Amazon Rainforest.

With a large and open interior, Central is decorated in a modern, minimal décor. The open-style kitchen allows guests to wander past, peep over the counter, and sniff the fragrant smell of the kitchen as their meals are being prepared. Once seated and waiting for their first course to arrive, guests can view into a small, picturesque garden space where the culinary team grows some of its ingredients, such as the coffee beans they plant, roast, and serve to their diners.

The 17-course tasting menu has a section of appetizer-like bites, a range of slightly larger main dishes, and a selection of desserts. While each dish may look small, they are carefully selected with rich flavours and ingredients, such as limpets, river snails, native tubers such as yacón and oca, raw cacao, and other unimaginable ingredients like clay. Guests are also given a drink pairing with each course, such as juices or alcoholic drinks. For example, one drink a guest can sample is a cocktail made from liquor, seaweed, and sweet cactus juice.

While planning their next travel destination, many travelers like to enjoy another country’s culture through its cuisine and food scene, experiencing the meats and spices beloved by locals of the region. However, for affluent travelers to dine at the restaurant Central, they can be transported to the micro-climates of Peru, such as the Amazon Rainforest purely through their sense of taste.