Two Tables in Barranco: Duck, Flan & the New Lima

The first time I went to Barranco, we took a taxi from Miraflores. It was about twenty minutes, but it felt like we were heading somewhere quite different.

On that first visit, Barranco was somewhere we went to eat. The second time we went to Lima, we decided to stay there, at the wonderfully eccentric Second Home Peru, the former home and studio of Peruvian artist Víctor Delfín.

That story deserves a Dispatch of its own, which I will get around to. Let's just say it is not your average Lima hotel. The old mansion sits dramatically above the Pacific, filled with Delfín's art, odd corners and the accumulated personality of a place that was once someone's home and working studio. I loved it, crumbling quirks and all.

Barranco

Barranco has a cooler, more intimate energy than Miraflores. It is vibrant and arty without feeling overly curated or corporate. Street art and huge wall murals cover old walls and facades. There are little shops, galleries, restaurants and bars packed into a relatively small area, and the whole place has a cozy, neighborhood feel.

Miraflores is polished and convenient, and I enjoy staying there too. It makes Lila feel like an elegant world class city. But Barranco feels more like a neighborhood you can settle into. You walk out with nowhere particular to go and find yourself wandering down another street, stopping for a drink, ducking into a gallery or discovering a restaurant you hadn't noticed the day before.

I got particularly lucky with my hotel as two of my favorite restaurants in Lima ended up being a block away.

One I fell in love with for their duck, the other, their flan.

The New Lima

Lima is having a remarkable moment as a food city. In 2025, Maido, the city's Japanese-Peruvian restaurant, was named the World's Best Restaurant by The World's 50 Best Restaurants. But it wasn't alone. Four restaurants in Lima made the world's top 50: Maido at No. 1, Kjolle at No. 9, Mérito at No. 26 and Mayta at No. 39.

What I find fascinating about eating in Lima is how many different cultures have become part of what we now think of as Peruvian food. There is Nikkei, the Japanese-Peruvian cuisine that has become one of the country's great culinary signatures, and chifa, the Chinese-Peruvian tradition born from Chinese immigration. There are Italian and Spanish influences, food from the Andes and Amazon, French and other Latin influences.

You can see that mix in the two restaurants we ate at in Barranco. At Awicha, Peruvian ingredients and traditions meet French, Italian and Japanese influences. At Demo, Venezuelan chef Juan Luis Martínez brings his Venezuelan roots into his cooking, combining them with Peru. And their famous Flan is a Spanish dessert, brought to Latin America during the colonial period and then absorbed into the food cultures of individual countries.

Perhaps that is what makes Lima such an exciting food city: all of these influences, combined with extraordinary local ingredients and very good cooking, have created a cuisine that feels both deeply Peruvian and new and evolving.

Awicha - Duck

Of all the meals we had in Lima, Awicha was one of our favorites.

It is a small, low-key restaurant tucked into a colonial house on Jirón Domeyer. Nothing about it feels fancy or overly polished. It is cozy, intimate, and exactly the kind of place I like discovering.

And most importantly, the food is good.

Chef Jason Román's cooking draws on his Peruvian roots, particularly the food of Huacho, while bringing in French, Italian and Japanese influences. The result is hard to categorize, which I think is part of its charm.

We started with a Pisco Sour, a very good version of Peru's most famous cocktail, and then left ourselves in the hands of the waiter.

It turned out to be an excellent strategy.

We shared a Tiradito Awicha, delicate slices of fish with avocado and a bright, citrusy leche de tigre, followed by a dish of roasted tomatoes with whipped garlic ricotta, strawberries and aguaymanto, a small golden Peruvian fruit with a lovely tartness. The strawberry was the surprise. I wouldn't have thought to put strawberries with roasted tomatoes, but the little bursts of sweetness worked beautifully

We also had panceta cooked in a Caja China, a Peruvian style of roasting that gave the pork an intensely crisp, almost crackling exterior while the meat underneath was incredibly tender and juicy.

But the dish that won our hearts: the duck.

Awicha takes duck seriously. There are several duck preparations on the menu, and we let our waiter choose ours. He brought us the magret de pato con gnocchi, sliced breast with beautifully crisp skin, served over soft gnocchi and mushrooms.

It was beautifully cooked, pink through the center with that lovely crisp, caramelized skin. The gnocchi and mushrooms made it feel almost wonderfully French, while everything around it kept pulling the dish back toward Peru.

We also couldn't resist trying another of Awicha's duck dishes, this time the duck confit with gnocchi in a vivid green huacatay pesto. The duck was crisp and deeply savory against the bright, intensely herbaceous sauce, a completely different expression of the ingredient from the magret.

And that is really what Jason Román does so well. Awicha's food draws from different culinary traditions, but it doesn't feel like fusion for fusion's sake. There is a sense of food being cooked by someone who knows where he comes from and is perfectly happy to borrow from everywhere else.

I also loved the wine list. For such a small restaurant, it is surprisingly broad, with bottles from France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Australia, New Zealand and across South America. The restaurant describes its wine cellar as a journey around the world, and the staff is happy to help you choose.

What stayed with me most, though, was how relaxed the whole evening felt.

The food was thoughtful and beautifully executed, but it never felt precious. It felt like the kind of dinner you might have in someone's very good home, if someone's home happened to have an exceptionally talented chef in the kitchen.

And perhaps that is fitting. Awicha means grandmother in Quechua, a name chosen by Román in homage to the grandmother who taught him the traditional cooking of Huacho.

Awicha — Jirón Domeyer 296, Barranco, Lima 15063, Peru

https://www.instagram.com/awicha.restaurante/?hl=en

DEMO- Flan

We first went to Demo for brunch and liked it so much that we came back for a late lunch.

Demo is the more casual sibling to Mérito, the restaurant created by chef Juan Luis Martínez and Michelle Sikic. Mérito has become one of Lima's internationally recognized restaurants, landing at No. 26 on The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2025. Demo is a very different proposition. It takes some of the same ideas and ingredients but brings them into a much more relaxed, everyday cafe setting: coffee, bread, pastries, sandwiches, Venezuelan specialties and, of course, that famous flan.

The two restaurants have a particularly nice relationship. Mérito is the serious, more formal restaurant, while Demo was created as the casual side of the operation, originally growing out of the pandemic when the team began making breads, pastries and other food for delivery. It eventually found its own home on Jirón Domeyer, in a lovely old Barranco house.

And it is a great place for brunch.

The morning menu runs until 1 p.m., when it switches to the afternoon menu, so there is a reason to get there early. We had the golden Venezuelan tequeños, crisp little pastry parcels filled with cheese and served with guasacaca, and some seriously good sandwiches. The menu includes things like panceta, deli ham, croissant mixtos and turkey, alongside Venezuelan dishes such as cachapas and arepas. Juan Luis Martínez is Venezuelan, and he loves bringing his Venezuelan roots into his cooking, combining them with the ingredients and flavors of Peru.

I can completely see why people make Demo a regular brunch or lunch stop. It has good coffee, excellent bread and pastry, interesting savory food and enough things on the menu to make you start planning your next visit before you've finished the first one.

Which is exactly what happened to us.

But there was one thing I was particularly interested in trying.

The flan.

The flan is part of the Mérito legacy. It has long been one of the restaurant's signature desserts, and Demo carries it over as the Flan de Mérito. They even make a flan cruffin, combining the silky custard with flaky croissant pastry. The flan has become something of a signature in its own right.

And honestly, I wasn't expecting to care that much. I'm not really a flan person. I'm much more of a chocolate girl myself.

But this was the creamiest flan I have ever had.

It was rich and incredibly silky, with that almost impossibly smooth custard texture and a lovely caramel sweetness. It was the kind of dessert that makes you reconsider your own preferences.

Demo is open into the evening now, but for me it is still a perfect brunch or lunch table. Come early for the morning menu, order a sandwich, try one of the Venezuelan specialties, have a coffee and leave room for the flan.

https://www.instagram.com/demo.lima

Demo — Jirón Domeyer 282, Barranco, Lima 15063, Peru