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For a while now the Peruvian food has been in fashion, but until now we did not know which the best restaurants of our gastronomy were. Thanks to Summum, starting this year there’s a detailed ranking in no less than 25 categories.

Is it possible to identify where the best “Lomo Saltado” (sauté loin) of Peru is prepared? Is it conceivable to pick a place to have the best businesses meeting or the most appropriate romantic dinner? Are we Peruvians able to classify our tastes and homing instincts at the time of eating? The three questions have only one answer (yes), an instrument that consecrates them (Summum) and a promoter (María Rosa Arrarte).

Sybarite and untiring discoverer of huariques, new restaurants and reboosted menus throughout the country, María Rosa Arrarte is also director of The Manual of the Good Gourmet- the gastronomic guide of Peru. As its name indicates, this guide, which has been published for the 4th consecutive year, has become the white book of anybody who wishes to know and recognize the tastes of Peru, and which some months ago obtained in Peking the prize to the Best Gastronomic Guide in Latin America and the World in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards, considered the Oscar’s of the literature related to cooking.

“We Peruvians spend more than Chileans, Colombians or Argentineans in dining out - says María Rosa Arrarte. We like it and besides we are very demanding because at home we eat very well, which has nothing to do with money. So now that Peruvian gastronomy is booming at a global level, it is important that we Peruvians know which the best places to live a good experience of food are”.
What needed to be done? A ranking. It sounds easy but it is not simple at all. So in order to avoid this need for information to remain limited to the decision of a handpicked Jury or to the unawareness of a consultation in an Internet forum, the team of María Rosa Arrarte started to work with the market research company Ipsos-Apoyo.

So, on the basis of a scientific method, a rational survey was carried out on a large list of people who due to their work or their consumption habits were regular customers in restaurants. The number finally surpassed the 5 thousand and the results of their perceptions were presented in an obliged consultation book, Summum, which today is also a distinction that is proudly exhibited by the best Peruvian restorers and chefs.

There are 25 categories in total. From the best Japanese restaurant or the new Peruvian cuisine to the best wines a la carte, passing through those that emphasize our gastronomic ambassadors: the “sauté loin”, the pisco sour and the cebiche. At the end, from the weighted average of all classifications, the Top Ten (see table) are obtained with a few names that are a surprise, like those of La Gloria, Astrid and Gastón or Rafael.

The Summum ranking is commented everywhere, in chef’s schools abroad, in travel agencies that have to make recommendations to travelers, and, particularly, among the same Peruvian restorers, who have a tool to measure the quality of their cooking and, especially, of the service they are offering.

As Alfredo Torres, President of Ipsos-Apoyo points out, maybe Summum will generate controversies, but these will always be healthy if they oblige restaurants to take note of how their customers appreciate and qualify them, because everything is not just preparing a meal with the best ingredients or having the most highly reputed chef; a fundamental area is the experience that each diner has, if he/she felt pleased with the treatment, the environment or with the relation price-quality.

What is upcoming next year? Summum will include the category of Best Waiter and through the recently founded Gastronomy Peruvian Association (APEGA) bets for founding technical gastronomy schools at national level. As Arrarte well indicates, the growing wave of the Peruvian food cannot remain only in the funny anecdote of the grandmother’s receipt. To be consolidated in the world, it requires professionalism and Summum aims at that goal.

Oscar Velarde, owner of La Gloria, the top restaurant of Peru, defines himself as a hueleguisos by vocation and he answers some questions which are included in the Summum book.