713. Peru Trip | Dinner at Kjolle, Lima

With Lima being the food capital of Peru, we wanted to take the opportunity to try a nice restaurant for dinner that night. With a bit of research, we discovered the top restaurant there is Central, which is currently ranked 6th in the world! Unsurprisingly, they booked up months in advance. So we went to the next best place - their sister restaurant, Kjolle. They are located within the same building. The owners/co-chefs are a husband and wife team named Virgilio Martínez and Pia León who also live on the property they work. The wife, Pia, opened Kjolle last year. She is hailed as Latin America's best female chef.

Kjolle (pronounced "koy-ay") is named after a tree that grows at extreme altitudes. The tree produces a yellow flower that is fermented to make spirits and sauces. A lot of ingredients in Peruvian cuisine are only found at high altitudes which is what makes them so unique.

The menu at Kjolle features fresh ingredients found all over Peru, many ingredients being indigenous to the country's diverse landscapes and even some from the Amazonian jungles.

The food was incredible and very flavourful. Everything was beautifully plated. The atmosphere in the restaurant was tranquil and elegant, with very minimalist style decor. The staff was excellent. They were very knowledgeable in all the dishes, and knew just the right time to come and retrieve an empty plate or refill our glasses without infringing on privacy.

I loved the whole experience a lot and highly recommend it.


Each table was offered this drink before starting. I completely forgot what it was but I really loved it.

The bread was delicious! We asked for a second loaf after devouring this one. It was freshly made (we saw them being baked outside in their garden when we entered) from the stone oven/pit straight to our table. It was really soft and light inside.


We ordered several dishes to share. I believe this was the "sea bass and razor clams" and at the top is "squash and crustacean".


The bottom dish is yucca. I have to admit I don't remember at all what the top two were.


I believe this was pork belly.


This dessert was so good!! It was a mixture of cacao, coconut chunks and honey.




On the first floor they have some ingredients on display.


This is the entrance to the restaurants.

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712. Peru Trip | One Day in Lima

Our Peru trip started off in Lima, its capital city. It was the most convenient city to fly into from Toronto. If we weren't flying in and out from there, we probably would have left Lima off the list. There isn't a whole lot to see and do there, and one day was definitely enough to explore the city. My favourite thing about Lima is the food there. Before coming on the trip, I was told/heard multiple times that Peruvian food is really good..and Lima is like the "food capital" of Peru. Unfortunately we don't have many Peruvian restaurants here in Toronto but the ones that I've tried, I really loved.

Now after having visited several different parts of the country, I can safely say the food in Lima is the best. I loved everything we had in Lima, even the hotel breakfast was the best out of all subsequent hotels.

One of the highlights of our time in Lima was dinner at Kjolle, one of the best restaurants in the city. I will make another post of it next time. Besides that, we just walked around Plaza de Armas (the main square) and Larcomar (area beside the coast).




Our first meal in Lima was here. I don't remember the name of the place now but the pasta was soooooo good. It tasted so fresh and flavourful. To be honest I was quite surprised how good it was as it wasn't a fancy place or known restaurant in particular. We just went into the first decent place we found on the street. After that I realized that what I heard about the food in Lima was indeed true.


There are a lot of these red cars there.


We stayed at a hotel in Miraflores that was close to Kennedy Park. It was FULL of stray cats. There are 6 in this photo.




This is Larcomar, a shopping area beside the coast. We just came for photos but didn't have time to walk around the stores.

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702. Peru Trip | Day 1: Impressions of Lima

Hello from Peru! We are currently in our hotel at Paracas as I type this. I have been quite busy since arriving that I haven't had much time for a proper update..but there is a lot I wanted to write about regarding my first impressions of Peru/my first time ever in South America. I'm having a really good time so far.

I'm going to try and limit the photos to a maximum of 5 for these travel diary posts. When I am back in Toronto I will do full in-depth posts.

So we arrived in Lima a couple nights ago..very late at night (1:30am to be exact). It turns out the Pan Am games are being held in Lima this year so our flight was full of team Canada's athletes (mostly rugby players).

We waited quite a long time for our luggage then proceeded out to get a taxi to our hotel. I turned around and recognized a familiar face. By a huge coincidence, it turned out to be a famous travel vlogging/influencer couple that I follow. My boyfriend and I had just watched some of their vlogs from the Amazon before coming on our trip so it was so crazy to see them just as we arrive, walking right beside us (their videos from here were from over a year ago..we had no idea they would be here at this time). I was shocked. We got in our taxi then my boyfriend yelled out that I was a big fan but was too shy to say hi lol.

After that we left the airport and drove to our hotel in Miraflores. By the time we arrived and got settled in it was like 4am so we went to sleep right away.

The next morning, after breakfast we walked around our area a bit. As I mentioned, it is my first time visiting South America but I didn't feel much of a culture shock at all. Lima isn't that different from anywhere I've visited before (I think it has some similarities to Asia, Europe and North America). One thing I noticed is that the driving is pretty crazy. We actually witnessed a full on car crash while walking around Miraflores. We also almost got hit by cars while crossing the street. Then, as we were Uber-ing on the highway..I noticed the car beside us was pretty close. It got closer and closer until it was within an inch of us and I thought for sure we would crash. Luckily our driver swerved out of the way at the last second. So it was a very close call. I'm pretty sure crashes happen there quite often as the roads are a mess and drivers seem to have disregard for driving in lanes.

Another pretty interesting thing I noticed is that there's a lot of sellers on the roads. Like people selling random things on the highway (everything from drinks to selfie sticks to Peruvian flags). I am not sure why someone driving in their car would suddenly feel a desire to buy a flag lol. There's always a lot of traffic though so the cars go pretty slow most of the time..making it possible for these sellers to come around.


For dinner we went to a restaurant called Kjolle, one of the best in Lima. It was an amazing experience! Everything was so uniquely prepared and there were a lot of flavours I've never tasted before. I will devote an entire post to this dinner in a later post. So far, all the food here in Peru have been so good. I was told this before I came and it's definitely true.

Now I will go to sleep..tomorrow we will be going to Huacachina!




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