Lima (Callao), Peru: Coastal Ceviche Capital and Gateway to South American Heritage

Miraflores, the coastal residential and commercial district that extends along the cliff above the Pacific, is where most of the restaurants that have made Lima internationally famous are located. The Huaca Pucllana, an adobe pyramid built by the Lima culture around 400 CE and still being excavated, sits in a city block in the middle of Miraflores, illuminated at night, with a restaurant that serves contemporary Peruvian cuisine in the adjacent pre-Columbian space. The Malecón (the clifftop promenade above the ocean) runs for several kilometers through Miraflores and connects the Parque del Amor (the mosaic sculpture park at the clifftop) to the paragliding launch points where tandem flights over the coast operate daily from the grass clifftops.

The Lima food culture at the market level, rather than the restaurant level, is accessible at the Mercado de Surquillo No. 1, which is where the city's serious home cooks and restaurant suppliers actually shop: fresh corvina and sea bass for ceviche, mounds of aji amarillo and aji panca peppers (the flavor base of Peruvian cooking), chirimoya, lucuma, and passion fruit, potatoes in two dozen varieties (Peru has more than 3,000 cultivated potato varieties and Surquillo carries dozens), and all the components of the Peruvian pantry that are difficult to find outside the country. The market is twenty minutes by taxi from the port.

The Museo Larco, a private collection of pre-Columbian art housed in a colonial mansion in the Pueblo Libre district, is the most accessible introduction to Andean art and civilization in the city. The collection spans 5,000 years and is arranged chronologically; the ceramics from the Moche culture (100–800 CE) are extraordinary for their realism and narrative sophistication. The museum also has the most complete collection of pre-Columbian erotic ceramics in Peru, displayed in a separate gallery (the Sala Erótica) with scholarly context. The garden behind the museum is planted with species from across the Peruvian coast and highland regions.

The Real Felipe Fortress at Callao, adjacent to the cruise terminal, is a UNESCO-proposed eighteenth-century Spanish colonial fortification that controlled Pacific access to Lima through the War of Independence and the War of the Pacific. The bastions, moats, and cannon emplacements are largely intact; the military history museum inside covers the sieges of Callao in detail. For passengers with limited time, the fortress is the most accessible significant historical site from the pier.

Ceviche in Lima is served leche de tigre-style — raw sea bass or corvina cured in fresh lime juice with aji amarillo, red onion, and cilantro, with the curing liquid poured over and served immediately, not marinated overnight. The canonical version at La Mar (Miraflores) and its imitators involves a corn cake (choclo), a slice of sweet potato, and crispy cancha (roasted corn kernels). The pisco sour — pisco brandy, lime juice, egg white, angostura bitters — is the national cocktail and is made correctly in Lima in a way it rarely is elsewhere; Peruvians will tell you this.