Peruvian star chef Virgilio Martínez opens Dubai restaurant

Virgilio Martínez, the Michelin chef and owner of Peruvian restaurant Central, talks to The
National about his foray into Dubai and the rising popularity of his country’s cuisine.

March 5, 2017
For even the casual diner, it is no secret that Peruvian cuisine has become a big deal over the
past decade, and in recent years the UAE has seen a number of -excellent Peruvian
establishments open their doors.

Now, the Michelin star chef of Peruvian cooking is launching a -restaurant in Dubai. Virgilio
Martínez is the chef/owner of Central Restaurante in Peru, which sits at number four on the
World’s 50 Best ­Restaurants list. But for the celebrated 39-year old, who is featured in Chef’s
Table: Season 3, currently airing on Netflix, a life in the kitchen was never the plan.

Martínez grew up in -Miraflores, a middle-class neighbourhood in Lima, and he always wanted

to travel. But when his career as a semi-professional skateboarder was ended by two
consecutive shoulder injuries he saw cooking as an alternative way to see the world and escape
the instability of Lima in the 1990s.

Starting out as a commis chef, Martínez learnt how to cook his way around the globe in Italian,
French, Asian and American restaurants. After a decade he went home to embark on a journey
around Peru to discover the cuisine of his own country.

“They were tough kitchens,” he admits. “I had a lot of difficult times, but I was trained in a
very difficult atmosphere, so, going back to Peru after 10 years, it felt like freedom to come
home to try to break the rules, once I knew the basics. It would be impossible to do what I’m
doing now without those times.”

His Central Restaurante uses about 180 different ingredients, of which half are not used
anywhere else in the UAE. Martínez and his team forage Peru in the Amazonian jungle, the
desert, mountains of the Andes and coastline of the country just to find new things to put on
the menu and new ways to represent Peru’s many regions.
But while Central is the grand culinary representation of ecosystems and varied climates of
Peru, he, along with partners Gabriel and José-Luis Gonzalez, opened an offshoot restaurant,
Lima in London, in 2012 as an expression of the food from his home city.

Modern, inventive and -accessible, it won a Michelin star within two years of opening. It is a
branch of Lima that opened in Dubai yesterday.

“Central is a tasting-menu with 18 courses, and each course represents an altitude of the country
– from the sea to the mountains. At Lima, it’s like the food you get in the city of Lima itself.
More casual and more traditional, but still with innovation, this is the modern cuisine that’s
happening in Lima city right now,” Martínez explains. “I have contacts there, it’s where I now
live and whatever is happening in Lima city I will put on the menu here.”

One thing that impressed Martínez as he prepared his latest launch was the ease of setting up
an eatery in Dubai.

“We had problems in London when we opened Lima, from getting visas for the young chefs to
importing my ingredients from Peru, but had none of those problems here – which was
amazing,” he says. “It’s ­incredible how Dubai makes things easier for us, and I’m having
really boutique products flown in – I spoke to my producer of potatoes in the Andes today and
it’s fine to send here.”

As a result, this is set to be the real deal, with Peruvian food as authentic as you’re likely to
find.

Sure, the carbon footprint for those ingredients flying the 14,735 kilometres from Lima to
Dubai is going to make environmentalists weep, but the vast majority of ingredients for all
restaurants in the UAE are flown in. At least with Lima, they’re things you won’t be able to try
elsewhere.

“We’re bringing Andean grains, potatoes from 4,000 metres up in the mountains, an
Amazonian fish called piache, different tubas and vegetables and fruits for cocktails. These
things have been in Peru for thousands of years but have not travelled much before,” Martínez
adds. Even the tables in the restaurant and other parts of the décor have been brought over, as
well as, of course, the eight Peruvian chefs.

So why has Peruvian cuisine become so globally popular?

“The whole nature of our biodiversity is huge and in Peru you only have to travel 30 minutes
to an hour to see a whole different microclimate and eco-system. We’re growing different
­varieties of corn, potatoes, ­tomatoes, cacao and many ­ingredients but really, who doesn’t
like tomatoes, corn, potatoes or chocolate, right?”

And along with the melting pot of styles, influences and huge range of ingredients Martínez
believes it has been driven further by the modern superfood trend. “Quinoa, chia seeds, maca
root. Things like that from Peru give the cuisine a mysticism. I go to the Andes, I see how
people adore the soil, and when I’m in the jungle I see how people have a communication with
trees and natural surroundings,” he says before adding with a smile: “It all makes the food
desirable.”

Other Peruvian restaurants in the UAE

Coya Dubai
From the group that gave us Zuma, this restaurant offers good value high-end Peruvian dishes.
The brunch is the best (and best-value) way to experience it, especially if you like a pisco sour
on the side.

• Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach, 04 316 9600

LIMO
There are no menus, instead the food is presented tableside for you to choose from and it
broadly covers an inventive trip through Peruvian classic seafood ceviches, lobsters, lomos and
traditional desserts

• Bab Al Qasr Millennium Hotel Abu Dhabi, 02 205 3000

Mayta By Jaime Pesaque
The much-travelled and celebrated chef brings his take on Peruvian classics presented in
sharing portions, but also with some outstanding mains you won’t get elsewhere, such as his
cilantro braised lamb shank with spiced pumpkin purée.

• Capital Club, Gate Village, Building 3, DIFC, Dubai, 04 437 6053

Pollo

Peruvian chicken restaurant with chefs brought in from Peru. It’s an authentic menu and the
picarones (sweet potato and squash doughnuts with sweet sauce) is a lovely dessert you may
not have tried before.

• Umm Al Sheif Street, Umm Suqeim, Dubai, 04 399 9951

INKA Dubai

The 34th-floor lounge and restaurant has a lovely setting and a set menu for Dh245 that includes
dishes including a queso helado dessert comprising sweet coconut popsicle with tobacco syrup,
toschi cherries and white chocolate yogurt.

• Sofitel, Dubai Downtown, 04 346 9295

Ceviche

Chefs Percy and Gonzalo serve up the classics to the DIFC crowd with ceviches dominating
the menu, but also some bigger mains like their fine aji de gallina – chicken breast strips,
parmesan and yellow chilli cream.

Totora Cebichera Peruana

More of a party place than the others – including a stylised Inca-inspired rope bridge you cross
to enter – this two-floor lounge bar/restaurant nevertheless has an extensive menu of traditional
dishes and an all-Peruvian back-of-house team.
Garden Peruvian Restaurant

This home-grown concept from Peruvian chef, Edgar Hurtado has been given a home in the
JW Marriott Marquis Hotel and it pretty much hits all the right notes, with ceviches, tiraditos,
a pisco bar and a Patagonian toothfish main-course worth visiting for alone.
‘Chef’s Table’ Recap: Virgilio Martínez
Take a spellbinding culinary journey around Peru with the chef behind Central
by Greg Morabito Feb 19, 2017, 1:46pm EST

This episode of David Gelb’s Netflix documentary series Chef’s Table circles around the theme
of discovery. Virgilio Martínez is the chef/owner of Central, a restaurant in Lima, Peru that
currently sits at number four on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. After a decade spent
cooking in kitchens around the world, Martínez only found his true identity as a chef when he
began exploring the different regions of his native Peru, from the ocean to the Andes. While
some chefs are obsessed with a “sense of place,” Martínez strives to offer his guests a sense of
many places — entire ecosystems over the course of a tasting menu. Here are some takeaways
from one of the most visually stunning episodes that Gelb and Co. have ever filmed:

• Martínez always had an adventurous spirit, but growing up in Peru during the 70s and ‘80s
meant that many parts of the country were closed off to him. The chef notes: “When I was a
kid, every single region of Peru was a tiny bubble, and I was living in this bubble of Lima. We
had no idea about the Andes, we had no idea about the Amazonia. I was actually forbidden to
go there because of the terrorism, the economic situation. There was a lack of hope and I felt
trapped.”

• As a teenager, he learned that pursuing a career in the kitchen would allow him the freedom
to travel all over the world. Martínez describes his first time working in the kitchen as “an
amazing experience,” and his love of the culinary life only grew deeper from there. The chef
remarks: “From an excuse, it turned to be my passion.”

• After working in European-centric restaurants abroad, Martínez returned home to Peru to

visit his family, where he got a chance to cook with some local ingredients. This made him
rethink the path that he was going down. Martínez notes: “I realized that I spent six years as a
foreigner doing cuisines that did not belong to me, and I had no idea about Peruvian cuisine.
For me, it was a call for a wake up.”

• The chef pursued a job working in a restaurant run by Peruvian celebrity chef Gastón Acurio.
After working his way through the kitchen, Acurio put Martínez in charge of a restaurant he
was opening in Madrid. This is really where Virgilio started to develop his experimental style.
Acurio explains:

People started telling me that he was much more creative than me. So I went to Madrid to see
my restaurant. I tasted arroz con pato, which is [a] traditional Peruvian dish. It was completely
changed. I told him to put the dish back. “You need to put more of this and that and that.” And
I left... I felt there’s a moment that you need to play the game, and there’s a moment that you
need to play your game. Clearly, it was time for him to play his game.

• Martínez decided to leave Spain to go and work on opening his own restaurant in Peru. “I had
to grow in my own country, with my own dreams,” he says.

• Shortly after opening Central, Martínez got some generally positive feedback. But people
were saying that the food reminded them of something they would find in New York or
London, which irked the chef. After some soul searching, Martínez realized what was holding
him back: “I was confused about what type of food I was going to serve. I was very influenced
by 10 years of being abroad. I was doing European cuisine with this Peruvian touch. There was
something missing, this lack of identity.”

• The chef decided to take some time to explore the different regions of Peru. His big “aha”
moment came while staying with a family in the Andes, near the ancient Incan agricultural
terraces at Moray: “After seeing these terraces, I was obsessed. And then I started to talk to
people, and I learned some Andean philosophy of life... They actually see the world in different
levels and altitudes.” After this trip he decided to explore the idea of cooking dishes based on
altitudes and ecosystems.

• Martínez runs Central’s kitchen with his wife, Pia León. They developed the altitude-based
menu concept together. Martínez’s sister, Malena, has a science background, so he brought her
on as part of the team to explore different terrains in search of ingredients that they could use
at the restaurant. Virgilio remarks: “We use 180 ingredients, and 50 percent of them are
unknown”

• While on the hunt for things to cook, the Central team members also document their findings
in the name of science. Malena explains: “We are focused on bringing stuff from different parts
of Peru, and doing identification of species. We are the research arm of Central... This would
be like the first filter. So the stuff that we see [that has] potential, we then bring to experiment
in the kitchen of Central.”

• At Central, Virgilio and Pia also want to honor the cooking traditions of communities from
all over Peru. One course of the dinner is inspired by the Andean tradition of baking potatoes
in a soil oven called a huatia.

• The altitude-themed tasting menu was introduced in 2012, and the following year, Central
landed at the bottom of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Two years later, it soared to
number four.

• Virgilio and Pia are now parents, and Martínez wants to become more of a family man. But
at the same time, he fells like the Central team is just getting started. Martínez explains: “Since
I came up with the idea of the altitude menu, we’ve been discovering these new things. And
after four years, I realize that we know nothing — we know a little, that’s it. I’m still learning
a lot. This is a work in progress. This is just the beginning.”
Culinary Journeys
Meet Virgilio Martinez, Peru's best chef
Sorrel Moseley-Williams, for CNN • Updated 11th March 2017

Peruvian chef Virgilio Martinez's Lima restaurant Central earned the top spot at the recent
Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants awards. The chef is famed for his beautifully creative
dishes that showcase the diversity of Peru's ingredients.

Editor's Note — This story was originally published in October 2015.

(CNN) — Carving up Lima's 16th-century streets on a board or carving up a medium-rare piece

of meat?

In the end, injury made the decision for Peruvian chef Virgilio Martinez and the skateboarding
world's loss was the culinary world's most fortuitous gain.

With a restaurant ranked fourth in the world and a Michelin star to his name, Virgilio flexed
his gastronomical muscles again last month when his Lima-based Central topped the
S.Pellegrino Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants list for the second year running.

"I was a semi-pro skater, but I fractured my clavicle while skating at a park in California,"
recalls 38-year-old Martinez.

The reputation of Virgilio Martinez is spreading far and wide as one of Peru's most innovative
contemporary chefs.

"Once it was fixed back in Peru, I went skating again but broke my other shoulder!

"That's when I stopped skating. I loved it but once I started cooking, I left all that behind and
became totally involved in the kitchen. I'd toyed with being an architect too but I wanted to
travel -- cooking lets me do that."

He certainly clocks up the air miles.

Peruvian chef Virgilio Martinez has travelled to over 3500 meters above sea level to learn about
a dish that dates back thousands of years: the huatia.

This past month, Martinez -- who admits to thinking about food from the moment he wakes
up, starting with which coffee to brew -- was in Tokyo cooking at RyuGin restaurant, in Mexico
City for Latin America's 50 Best awards and foraging and filming in Acomayo near Cuzco for
CNN.

"I went to the Andean community I usually visit near Cuzco that produces papas raices
potatoes, wild herbs, and other tubers," he says.

"We slept at homes belonging to belonging to Acomayo residents, and they really looked after
us: we cooked together and went foraging."

9 dishes you will not want to miss when you visit Peru

Showcasing Peru's diverse landscape

Chef Virgilio Martinez is ready to return to his home kitchen in Lima and reinvent an age old
of dish of the Incas.

While Martinez, whose Michelin star is attached to UK eatery Lima London, says it would be
easy to use products from other countries, Central's very existence is based on the diversity of
Peru's extensive larder, which spans the Pacific ocean, the Amazon and the Andes.

In fact Mater Iniciativa, the cultural and biological diversity research project he set up with
sister Malena, is the backbone of Central restaurant's Mater Elevations tasting menu -- a 17-
course dinner that shows off Peru's diverse altitudes.

Traversing his homeland to source underused ingredients or find a new piece of farming land
is key.
"I like combing our geography -- we work with lots of ecosystems so it's important to move
around and not just be in the kitchen," says Martinez.

"I don't believe a supplier should come to me, but that I should build a relationship with him,
his land and products."

"Central's concept isn't just lived through the restaurant and sitting down at a table, but also
through Mater Iniciativa," he says.

"Social media is very useful as I can share a bit of the countryside we're visiting. I'll put up a
photo as it's important that our clients see where we go and what we're cooking that day."

Martinez's newest professional project, recently-opened restaurant Nos, has taken the casual
dining route, placing it at the opposite end of the gastronomical spectrum to Central.

"Nos isn't Centralito [Little Central] as it isn't serving the same food as Central," he says.

"But truth is I've never created a cuisine like this before -- it's not conceptual and it won't change
your life. It's a direct cuisine with accessible prices you can enjoy all day long."

10 things to know before visiting Peru

Where to find Lima's best traditional food?

As for his favorite travel destinations, Martinez has a yen for Asia.

"I loved Thailand, and everything that Asia offers fascinates me: the traditions, its millions of
years of history plus the food is incredible," he says. "I'd love to visit China. If it wasn't so far
away, I'd go to Mongolia then work my way down."

With fatherhood pending -- Martinez and wife Pia will soon become first-time parents -- his
travel will be pared down but that means he can take advantage of Lima's incredible food scene,
which ranges from traditional street carts serving beef heart anticuchos to top-end fine dining.
One eatery in particular that he frequents specializes in traditional Peruvian food.

"Isolina serves up home cooking: clam tortilla, chicken escabeche served with white rice, lomo
saltado -- things I haven't eaten in a long time but are making a comeback," says Martinez.

"Ceviche and modern cuisine have taken over in the past few years so while this food isn't cool,
I really like it regardless."

With two books in the pipeline -- "Lima The Cookbook" will be released this October while
"Alturas," focusing on Central, is due out in 2016 -- another upside to a less intense travel
schedule means tucking into his mum's home cooking regularly.

"Her 'ají de gallina' chicken stew is one of the tastiest things ever and it's also one of the most
simple," he raves.
"But even if she made me a cebiche, it would be amazing too!"
Central Restaurante, Calle Santa Isabel 376 Miraflores, Lima LIMA 18 Peru;
Nos Restaurante, Av Vasco Nunez Balboa 660, Lima 18 Peru;
Sorrel Moseley-Williams is a British journalist based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She
specializes in culture, food and wine and luxury travel in Latin America.