“I didn’t start Central with the goal of becoming the best restaurant in the world”

How has traveling in Peru influenced Central’s journey as a restaurant?

I had great times in the Amazon of Peru. Eating with people who use many medicinal plants in their diet, such as certain types of tree bark, and seeing this interaction with nature in an organic way; a way that people from the city don’t have. There’s wild cacao, so much tropical fruit, and you see people using the whole plant when they cook.

Cocoa Chuncho

Gustavo Vivanco

Can you tell us about Central’s juice and cocktail programs?

We cook ecosystems, so just as the entire tasting menu is composed on different levels, so are the (drink) combinations. It’s another opportunity to provide context, offer a new experience and continue to surprise our guests. Our drinks are delicate and contain many different plants, herbs, seeds and vegetables that we smoke, steep, extract and distill.

What are your best cocktail recommendations in Lima?

I want to say my restaurant, but I say my wife Pia’s restaurant, Kjolle. She has a few Amazon-inspired cocktails that use somewhat unknown ingredients. Then of course I have to say: grab a pisco sour – made from pisco, lime and a little egg white – in Barranco, my neighborhood in Lima. All the places that serve pisco sour in Barranco are great. There is also a beautiful bar called Lady Bee in the Miraflores district of Lima. They have their own juice and cocktail program, which is fantastic, and they use mostly Amazonian ingredients.

What are your best food recommendations for first-time visitors to Peru?

I have to say lomo saltado, which is salted beef loin with onion and tomatoes, and it comes with potatoes and rice – a very classic dish. Another one at the top of the list is ceviche, with sea bream, sole and perhaps octopus. Then we have causewhich is raw mashed potatoes with seafood on top. Carapulcra is a dried potato stew. If you dry potatoes in the mountains, you get potatoes that look like stones, so you have to boil them again. They have the special taste of earth and you add a little cocoa to them: it is very tasty and traditional.

We have a dessert called suspiro al la Limeñawhat looks like dulce de leche with meringue and port.

And then ají de gallina, a chicken stew made with aji amarillo (a type of Peruvian yellow chili pepper), which has a few things in common with what I’ve tried here in India: lots of spices and served with rice. Our use of spices and chili peppers is similar, including the way we use rice to protect us from the heat of the spiciness.

Chef Virgilio Martínez will be cooking two special dinners at Koishii, The St. Regis Mumbai on May 24 and 25, 2024, organized by Masters of Marriott Bonvoy and Culinary Culture