30 DAYS OPEN PURCHASEVirgilio Martínez runs Central in Lima and builds his menu around altitude, from the seabed up to the highest cultivated zones of the Andes. Every dish is marked with its elevation. It sounds like a conceit until you learn that, according to a frequently cited figure, Peru contains 84 of the world's 104 life zones, meaning that within relatively short distances the country moves from desert coast through high mountains to rainforest.
Behind the menu is Mater Iniciativa, a research organisation he runs with his sister Malena Martínez, who trained as a doctor. They travel throughout the country, document ingredients and work with local communities in the highlands and the Amazon. That is where ingredients such as cushuro come from, a spherical algae that grows in Andean lakes above 4,000 metres, along with a long list of tubers, grains and fruits that often have no established names outside Peru.
They also run Mil, a restaurant at around 3,500 metres beside the Inca terraces at Moray, where the idea is carried out literally.
In 2023 Central was named the best restaurant in the world, the first South American restaurant ever to take the top spot. That is the strongest evidence for the claim that Martínez put the continent's cuisines on the international gastronomic map.
The book follows the altitude structure chapter by chapter, with recipes, documentary photography and personal essays.
For anyone interested in culinary genealogy, Martínez's wife Pía León was head chef at Central and now runs Kjolle in the same building. She was named the world's best female chef in 2021.
Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 288
Language: English
First published: 2016
