Dining at Mayta Lima, Peru (from World’s 50 Best Restaurants).

Mayta in Lima, Peru, is one of the world’s best restaurants.

Named as No.39 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 list and No.11 on Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025, Mayta was one of the restaurants I was keen to check out and dine at when I visited Peru back in April.

My friend Pia and I are both massive foodies, so we booked dinner at Mayta on our second evening in Lima, after visiting Cusco earlier in the week, and Astrid y Gaston the night before.

The whole experience exceeded all expectations! It was honestly incredible and I’m SO glad we went.

So, ready to find out more about dining at Mayta Lima?! Let’s go!

‘Mayta Experience’ 10-Course Tasting Menu

We both had the ‘Mayta Experience’ ten-course tasting menu, which cost 989 soles ($264USD / £198), not including drinks and service.

We didn’t choose the accompanying wine pairing, as we’re both quite fussy with alcohol and don’t drink huge amounts.

Instead, I chose a lemongrass cocktail (Pisco Quebranta, hierba Luisa, muña, kion, cítricos) from the menu, and Pia chose a glass of wine.

We had the following dishes within the tasting menu:

• Tubers
• Scallops, clams, codium
• Loche, macre, huacatay, yellow chili
• Corn, tarwi, cushuro
• Quinoa flower
• Paiche, cocona, chonta, rough lemon, charapita chili
• Ribs, fava beans, butter beans, potatoes, chincho
• Moraya, capuli
• Camu camu, melipona honey, copoazu, macambo
• Chaco, coffee, lucuma

Now, let’s get into the actual review of Mayta!

Firstly, my Lemongrass cocktail (Pisco Quebranta, hierba Luisa, muña, kion, cítricos) was incredible. I still dream of it.

When it comes to the interiors, the entire restaurant is beautiful.

It feels very organic, with lots of wood, plants, and natural materials. It’s a very aesthetically pleasing restaurant!!

I was also obsessed with the cutlery! The cutlery changed with each course, and every single piece of cutlery was just so pretty and well thought out.

Now, onto the food!

Usually when I go to Michelin-starred or fine dining restaurants with a tasting menu, there are at least a few things I’m not a huge fan of. But literally everything we ate at Mayta was incredible.

And all of it was SO beautiful. The presentation was truly stunning with lots of vibrant colours and interesting ways of serving the food.

Surprisingly, most of the menu was also vegetarian, which we actually really loved.

It was just so great having the opportunity to try sooo many local Peruvian plants, herbs, and vegetables.

We started with Tubers. I was super worried we’d have to eat the entire bowl, then I realised it was just the little bite with the red top haha.

Then we moved on to scallops, clams, codium, another excellent dish, and SO colourful and beautiful!

One of my favourite dishes was the curried butternut squash (Loche, macre, huacatay, yellow chili).

It tasted very much like a Thai dish, which was really interesting, and again it was super vibrant in terms of colour and presentation!

Maybe the most underwhelming dish was the Corn, tarwi, cushuro (below). It was still delicious, just compared to all the other dishes was a bit meh.

Annoyingly I didn’t get any photos of the Quinoa flower dish…was it that good that I didn’t get any?! I have no idea, I honestly can’t remember it for some reason?

Nevermind.

Next up was a giant river fish (Paiche, cocona, chonta, rough lemon, charapita chili).

Paiche is actually one of the world’s largest freshwater fish, and it was slightly odd having a (faux) skull watch me while I ate…but the bite on top of it was very tasty!

The skull accompanied the dish (photographed below) that was created with the meat from the fish. It was 10/10 dish, no notes. Delicious.

The final savoury dish was the rib (Ribs, fava beans, butter beans, potatoes, chincho), which was served on a rib bone before being moved onto the plate.

Our final savoury dish was Moraya & capuli, a potato-based dish. Like the quinoa flowers, for some reason I didn’t take a photo, which in my mind means it must have been a little boring?

So, let’s move onto my favourite course: dessert, in three parts!

We then had two amuse bouches: a delicious mochi style bite with a local Peruvian fruit sorbet encased in a mochi-style charcoal rice coating, and these little jelly Persimmon’s wrapped within Persimmon leaves.

The jelly Persimmon’s were unbelievable. I could have eaten an entire plate of them, and was super disappointed we only got one each!

The main dessert was Camu camu, melipona honey, copoazu, macambo, aka, Mayta’s famous ‘smash’ dessert. The idea is you hit the top with your spoon, and underneath is the dessert.

It was fun and delicious! Really light and refreshing, and very tasty.

Finally, we enjoyed Chaco, coffee, lucuma, which reminded me very much of the dessert at 3-Michelin L’Enclume in the Lake District, in that it was a bowl of pebbles and you had to figure out which ones were edible! (hint: squish them between your fingers and you’ll figure out the right ones)

A Perfect Peruvian Dinner

The whole meal was completely perfect. Honestly, 10/10 dinner, no notes.

Beautiful, stunning, perfection.

One of the best meals of my entire life.

If you’re visiting Peru, book Mayta, I promise you won’t regret it.

Read my Perfect One Week Travel Itinerary for Peru and my Two Days in Lima Guide!