Goodbye guinea pig, hello gourmet: Tucking into Peru's top dishes at its famous food fair

In a city-sized foodfest on a Pacific beach, surrounded by every kind of strange food from giant squid on skewers to rainforest fruits, we found ourselves queuing for.... the ultimate pork bun.  
Peruvians, the foodiest people in the world, may be most famous for their ceviche - a marinated raw fish dish - and cuy - deep-fried guinea pig - but they don’t do anything better than a sanguiche de chicharron, a huge, steaming, salty, crackling-packed answer to the bacon butty.   

Cooking up a storm: The Mistura food fair has become a major event on the world's culinary calendar

Mouthwatering: The star attraction in Peruvian cuisine is delicious chicharron pork

The bun was from El Chinito, Lima’s favourite street-food hangout, and was the star of the show at Mistura, possibly the world’s largest food festival. Running in the first half of September, Limenos, as locals call themselves, rub shoulders with the world’s greediest gastronomes on a kilometres-long stretch of Costa Verde beach in the Peruvian capital. 
They slaver over racks of carcasses stretched over smoky firepits from where chancho al palo - mouth-watering piles of grilled, red-lacquered pork on a bed of potato gravy - are served.

Local tastes: Chillis and other foods popular with Peru's indigenous groups have become national favourites

Peruvian staple: Ceviche is a raw fish dish marinated in chilli and lime juice

Then they will stroll up to the tents offering everything from tropical fruit and river snails from the Amazon to fat, multi-coloured corn cobs and thousands of varieties of yellow, black and purple potatoes from the Andes.
A whole world is devoted to the Chifa and Nikkei (Chinese and Japanese respectively) fusion cuisines which make Peruvian food so different and exciting.

Local colour: Potatoes of every shade - an Andean staple - are displayed at Mistura

This year’s Mistura coincided with the inaugural Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants awards, which simply had to be held in Lima because the city’s chefs took seven of the top 15 prizes.  
Gaston Acurio, Peru’s answer to Jamie Oliver, was the overall winner and has his sights set on London, where his friend Virgilio Martinez, number four in the awards, already has a restaurant called - of course - Lima.    

Show stealer: The lip-smacking sanguiche de chicharron, or pork bun, and right, a receipt from the famous El Chinito restaurant that serves it up...

After queuing on the beach for buns, anticuchos (skewers of beef heart or squid) and ice-cream made from lucuma - a tropical fruit which tastes of butterscotch - well-heeled Mistura-goers packed out Lima’s top restaurants to complete their foodie experience.
As well as Martinez’s eatery Central and the many restaurants owned by Gaston, these include Maido, a temple of Nikkei cuisine, Chez Wong, whose eccentric owner waves the flag for Chifa in his own home, and Pedro Miguel Schiaffino’s Malabar and Amaz. This last offers an exciting introduction to Amazonian cuisine - if the giant river snails packed with golden tapioca seem an adventure too far, the duck with coconut rice and the chonta - heart of palm - salad are more approachable.

Amazonian treat: Try giant river snails at Amaz

We had the most fun of all in Barranco, a hip, colourful Lima neighbourhood where we joined the locals for breakfast at La Preferida.  What were they eating? Ceviche. The city that likes to end a night of partying with rich belly pork and crackling likes to start it light and sharp with raw fish marinated in chile, onions and lime juice. Lip-smackingly pungent, but at least no-one was roasting guinea-pigs on the street corner. 
Though if gourmets keep descending on Lima, the days of cuy, lying paws-up in a bun, can’t be far away.  

Travel Facts

American Airlines (www.aa.com, 0844 499 7300) flies daily from London to Lima from £847 return.
Double rooms at the El Pardo Doubletree by Hilton (www.doubletree.hilton.com) in Lima start from $116 (£74) a night including breakfast.