The globetrotting dinner party revisits the culinary capitol of Latin America.
Dining Impossible has been jetting off to different parts of the world, feasting at the greatest restaurants that San Sebastián, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Piedmont, Hong Kong, Chicago and New York City have to offer.
This year, our gastro-passports take us even further afield as Lima for the second time is added into the tantalizing mix of dining destinations, which also means you’re invited to join us in a region of the world that our fun-loving feast yet only have scratched the surface of.
We enter the mouthwatering metropolis in start-March, offering an otherworldly all-round, in-depth gastronomic experience to pleasure aficionados flying in from around the globe.
3 days – 3 of Latin America’s best restaurants – 1 great dinner party.
Thursday, March 9th – Friday, March 10th – Saturday, March 11th
12 notabilities only.
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THE MENU
Thursday, March 9th
Chapter 1 – The World’s Best Nikkei
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What do you get when you mix the ancient techniques of Japanese cooking with the delicious ingredients from Peru? You get the amazing lovechild known as Nikkei, and at Maido chef Mitsuharu Tsumura is one of the world’s leading representatives of this trend.
Mitsuharu has studied local the cusines in both Peru and Japan, honing his talent before opening his restaurant, Maido, where ingredients of both cultures complement each other like they had been born to be one. Maido welcomes guests to live the genuine Nikkei-experience.
In Japan there are many ways to say “welcome” but none grabs the meaning in a same way as “Maido” does. This word gives the name to the restaurant, but it also resumes the feeling of each customer to feel at home.
This year Maido cracked the list of The Worlds 50 Best Restaurants, ranking #13, not to mention #2 on Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurant List.
Tsumura’s Maido is considered the best of its kind in Lima, a city with an intrinsic relationship with Asian cuisine.
The tasting menu, known as Nikkei Experience, is a story that talks about tradition and innovation, where classic Peruvian dishes are reinvented using Japanese ingredients and techniques. From ceviche to chupe de camarones, everything goes through the chef’s playful imagination.
He even gives a Japanese passport to guinea pig, served with harusame cold noodles. Needless to say Chef Tsumura is a master of what he does.
We’ve asked him to go all-in.
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“The ultimate dinner party” – Forbes Magazine (2013)
Friday, March 10th
Chapter 2 – The Peruvian Legend
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Astrid y Gastón has been leading Peru’s gastronomic surge since its opening 20 years ago, with talented head chef Diego Muñoz at the helm for several years.
Now gastronomes have a new reason to visit the restaurant located in the palatial Casa Moreyra: its founding father, Gastón Acurio, returned to the kitchen in 2015 after several years flying the flag for his country’s cuisine around the world. His extensive tasting menu offers an exploration of the region’s ingredients, traditions and culinary techniques.
Known as The Godfather of Peruvian Cuisine Gastón Acurio has changed the way a whole nation perceives food and empowered a generation of cooks into reviving pride in their cuisine to the extent that it has become a national symbol.
Together with his wife, Gastón Acurio owns restaurants in several countries and is the author of numerous books. In Peru he is the host of his own television program as well as a contributor to magazines.
Astrid y Gastón holds a current ranking of #30 on The Worlds 50 Best Restaurants and #7 of best Latin American restaurants.
Astrid y Gastón coexists with an à la carte bar-restaurant, an experimental herb garden and a development kitchen whose brief extends to education, resonating with the chef-restaurateur’s Pachacútec Culinary School, located in a deprived area of Lima.
The restaurant’s high ceilinged interiors are the epitome of elegant grandeur, the décor minimalist, but the atmosphere never chilly.
After a series of menus based on themed narratives, the latest manifestation, called Región Lima, is designed as a more permanent, though evolving, structure. Every ingredient featured in the 30 or so courses comes from the wider Lima area (and many grown in the restaurant’s garden).
Astrid y Gastón is elegant high-ceilinged grandeur with minimalist décor. The restaurant is set within a brilliant-white 17th century former plantation house.
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“The world’s best dinner party” – The Telegraph (2015)
Saturday, March 11th
Chapter 3 – Latin America’s No. 1
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We end our second South American adventure in the hands of Virgilio Martinez, who literally takes Peruvian cuisine to an extreme elevation.
“Latin America’s Best Restaurant” takes you through a vertical journey across Peru’s landscape serving native ingredients from different altitudes. A visit at Central takes you through the mountains, the sea, the desert and the jungle, going from 25 meters below to 4,200 meters above sea level.
The restaurant is a celebration of the heritage of the Andes and the diversity of Peru, surprising guests with inventive creations that caters to the belly as well as the eyes. Furthermore the produce comes from the urban garden of the restaurant and the water is filtered and bottled onsite promising the finest purified water.
Expect the unexpected at Central, as you will try both local and well known ingredients as well as elements unknown to native Peruvians like Cushuro, a caviar-like bacteria found only in the mountains after a rainstorm and airampo, a magenta colored member of the cactus family local to the region of the Andes.
Martinez’s Mater Iniciativa research project plays a central role in developing the restaurant’s identity and ideology. The chef, who worked across the world before returning home to open Central in 2009, has led the formation of an interdisciplinary team combining gastronomy with nutrition, history, anthropology, and science.
He and his cohorts regularly travel across Peru to discover and study local ingredients, feeding the extraordinary culinary narrative played out on the plates of the restaurant.
At this internationally highly acclaimed restaurant that diners cross continents to visit, the Mater menu is an initiative of exploration and discovery, in which a multidisciplinary team travels throughout Peru in search of new products and new stories of people. A sample of what makes Peru a diverse country.
Currently Central claims the #4 on The Worlds 50 Best Restaurants 2016 and coveted the #1 of The Best Latin American Restaurants.
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“Plenty of people throw good dinner parties; few hosts are so successful they take their soirees around the world.”
– The Wall Street Journal (2014)
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DETAILS
Dining Impossible 22 – Lima is the full experience. Besides the extraordinaire dinners, it also includes receptions, selected transports and after parties at exclusive spots with a range of drinks, beverages and canapés.
All dinners include full wine/beer/cocktail menus predetermined with the respectful sommeliers, as well as mineral water, various taxes and gratuity.
As always the guest list remains a secret to the public and will only be shared in detail amongst the participants. Menus and wines will be served découverte, meaning presented and discovered on the night of the dinner parties as a part of the full-blown Peruvian storytelling.
Price per cover is confidential. Covers be booked through RSVP (press link) with a personal code after contacting Kristian Brask Thomsen for further information at:
Thank you.
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“Billed by Forbes Magazine as “the ultimate dinner party” and by Huffington Post as “the world’s most coveted dinner tickets”; Dining Impossible is a three-day gastronomic bender organized by culinary ambassador Kristian Brask Thomsen.”
– Sydney Morning Herald.
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Hungry for more? Read this recent grand feature by VICE Magazine.
