Once upon a time, a certain duffel-coated visitor from Peru was only too happy to forsake the food and drink of his native land in favour of endless rounds of marmalade sandwiches.
Six decades after Paddingtons arrival, however, it appears the portly bears loss is on the verge of becoming Britains gain. In March, a new embassy for Peruvian gastronomy and tropical bohemianism will open its doors – and a few bottles of pisco – in the middle of Soho in central London. Two months later, it will be joined by an outpost in the east of the capital hoping to convert people to the pleasures of chilli- and lime-marinated fish and beef-heart kebabs.
Meanwhile, in deepest, darkest Hertfordshire, a pair of expat Peruvian siblings are using old family recipes to cook up sauces that honour Perus sacred quartet of chillies – and selling them at Fortnum amp; Mason and beyond.
Although few nations have adopted Perus most famous crop – the potato – quite as greedily as the UK, the rest of the countrys cuisine has remained largely unknown here, save for the odd gap-year report of guinea-pig munching in the high Andes.
But the recent success of restaurants offering Mexican, Argentinian and Brazilian food shows that Britain has developed a serious appetite for Latin American cuisine. According to Peter Harden, half of the fraternal duo behind the eponymous London restaurant guides, Peru could be next in line.
Latino cooking in general has been a thing for two or three years: Argentinian steakhouses all of these different tortilla wrap chains like Benitos Hat or Chipotle, he says. Those are the vanguard. But lets not forget that the inspiration for Nobu, as well as of course being Japanese, is Peruvian – so its not as if its a totally new concept.
What is new, though, is the profile of the countrys food: Perus unique blend of indigenous, Spanish, African, Chinese, Japanese and Italian cookery traditions has been praised by the Catalan gastronomic superstar Ferran Adrià, while Perus most famous culinary son, Gaston Acurio, saw his flagship restaurant named among the 50 best on the planet in 2011.
The flavours of Peruvian food are very unique it has a lot of variety and influences, and its sophisticated, says Gabriel Gonzalez, owner of Lima, which will open in Shoreditch in May. Its healthy qualities are very much in line with todays eating habits and – last but not least – its delicious.
Virgilio Martinez, who was executive chef at Astrid amp; Gaston, Acurios restaurant in Peru, before coming to London to run the kitchen at Lima, believes that Perus natural larder is the foundation of its kitchen riches: It has the coast, with lots of seafood the Andes with 3,000 types of potatoes, tomatoes, corn, quinoa and the Amazon rainforest, which is full of new ingredients still to be discovered.
Martin Morales, a 38-year-old Anglo-Peruvian who sold his house to start up Ceviche in Frith Street, Soho, is equally evangelical about the food that his grandmother and great-aunts taught him to cook in Lima.
If people love sushi and something that is refreshing, ceviche is going to take you to the next step, he says. The other key dishes, like anticuchos (beef-heart kebabs), are light theyre marinated and theyre going to be a new take on eating steak and barbecued food.
Morales had to leave Peru in 1984 after his English father was threatened by Shining Path guerrillas, but he has never forgotten the food of his youth. Were cooks, were not chemists, he says. Were not here to do molecular gastronomy or fusion – were just here to make delicious food.
Sadly for aficionados of Andean cuisine – but happily for the creatures concerned – neither Ceviche nor Lima will be serving guinea pig or alpaca, two delicacies that are unlikely to go down well in the animal-loving UK.
Homesick stomachs can instead comfort themselves with the wares of Rico Picante, the Hertfordshire-based chilli sauce company established last year by Allison Ward and Christian Castillo-Martinez, a brother and sister from Lima. We missed the chilli sauces from Peru, says Ward. Most of the chilli sauces here are very hot and are nowhere near the flavours we grew up with and knew. Their sauces, which use black mint from the Andes and chillies from the Amazon jungle, have gone from farmers markets to the shelves of shops in the UK, Ireland, the US and Canada.
While it remains to be seen whether ceviche will surpass sashimi in the nations affections, Harden is not surprised by the lure of Peru s exotic gastronomy, nor by the cyclical nature of our appetites. I read a history of New York recently. It was talking about the smash-hit dining sensation of the late 1890s, and the hot thing then was South American street food, he says. These trends really do come around.