Once a year, some of Peru’s most celebrated restaurants leave their dining rooms behind and cook together for a cause. For the third time, I joined a team for a 300-plate service—and remembered why feeding people can be one of the most rewarding things we do.
There is one night every year when I put my apron back on and return to a professional kitchen.
It is the third time I have been invited to cook alongside a team, twice with Mérito during Cocinemos con Fundades. This annual fundraising dinner brings together some of Lima’s leading restaurants to support Fundades and its work with vulnerable communities, particularly people with disabilities.
I spend most of my year writing about restaurants rather than working inside them. But I am a cook, and there is something deeply fulfilling about returning to service—especially when it means working alongside friends. Joining Juan Luis Martínez and his team to put out 300 plates in a single evening is intense, exhausting, and incredibly rewarding. And Cocinemos con Fundades is unlike any restaurant service.
Building a Restaurant for One Night
The work begins days before anyone sits down to dinner. Cooking at Fundades does not mean simply taking Mérito’s menu and reproducing it somewhere else. The dishes have to be conceived for an entirely different setting: hundreds of portions, an improvised kitchen, limited space, and a service in which 13 restaurants will be cooking simultaneously.
When we arrived at the Puericultorio Pérez Araníbar on August 20, everything was still being assembled. What is normally an empty lot was becoming a dining room for the night. A huge central tent held some 65 tables, with two bars running along the sides and a stage at one end. Around it, temporary kitchens had been built under smaller tents for each participating restaurant. Everyone was moving.
Making all of that happen for a single night also requires support beyond the kitchens. Cocinemos con Fundades 2026 was made possible with Wong as Official Sponsor, alongside Range Rover, Volvo, La Positiva Seguros and other partners whose support helps Fundades bring the annual fundraising dinner to life.
It looked chaotic, yet it wasn’t.
It was that very particular kind of controlled chaos anyone who has worked in hospitality recognizes immediately: hundreds of people doing different things because, at a very specific hour, everything needs to be ready at once.
This year, 13 restaurants participated, including Maido, Kjolle, Mérito, Sapiens, Astrid & Gastón, Alado, Isolina, Tomo, Troppo, Huaca Pucllana and Tragaluz. Alegría, led by Francesco de Sanctis, and Ricardo Goachet’s Verbena joined the event for the first time.
For De Sanctis, participating was also about the responsibility cooks have beyond their restaurants. “As a restaurant and as cooks, we believe we have a responsibility to contribute, even if it is just a small part, to social causes,” he told us before the event.
That idea becomes much more tangible once service begins.
Three Calls, 13 Restaurants, 300 Plates
Cocinemos con Fundades has its own rhythm. There are three calls during the evening—starter, main course, and dessert—and at each one, guests leave their tables and make their way toward the restaurant stations surrounding the main tent.
Then it happens very quickly.
Hundreds of people begin moving between kitchens, deciding what they want to try. Some restaurants have become fixtures of the event, particularly Maido and Huaca Pucllana, which have been involved for years. Then there is the curiosity surrounding newcomers such as Alegría and Verbena. From inside the kitchen, however, you don’t see the event quite the same way.
You see plates, A lot of plates. You assemble, clean, garnish, check, pass and start again. The line keeps moving. Three hundred portions may sound like an enormous number when you are preparing them, but during service they disappear astonishingly fast. And then you look up, the people who were standing in front of your station are now back at their tables eating, talking, and smiling. For me, that’s the moment when it makes sense.
I Didn’t Eat a Thing
There were potentially dozens of dishes to try that night. I ate none of them, I was working. Strangely, that might be one reason I enjoy Cocinemos con Fundades so much. My relationship with food has always been connected to service. I like taking care of people. I like the idea that something you make with your hands can make someone feel good, even if only for the few minutes they spend eating it. Here, that gesture extends beyond the person receiving the plate.
Fundades has spent more than three decades working to improve the quality of life of vulnerable people, particularly people with disabilities. Its network supports initiatives ranging from rehabilitation and child protection to digital education and employment inclusion. That gives every plate leaving those temporary kitchens another purpose.
Ricardo Goachet described that feeling before his first participation with Verbena: “The most important thing is knowing that, through our work, we can contribute to improving the lives of people who really need it.” From inside the kitchen, you can see it happening.
When the Plates Come Back
Another image from Cocinemos con Fundades stays with me every year, after each call, the plates start coming back. Not individually, but in towers. Stacks and stacks of dirty plates arrive to be washed as the dining room prepares for the next round. You see hundreds of people eating and smiling on one side and, behind the scenes, mountains of plates being cleared and cleaned.
It is a surprisingly powerful measure of what has just happened.
More than 600 people have gathered around 65 tables. Thirteen restaurant teams have spent days preparing and hours cooking. Volunteers, producers, sponsors and dozens of people most guests will never see have worked to make that dining room appear for a single evening.
And by the end of the night, it will disappear again. For me, that’s the beauty of it. I spend most of my time now telling food stories. But once a year, Cocinemos con Fundades gives me the chance to return to the other side of the pass and remember something very simple: I am also a cook, I like serving people. I like making them feel welcome. And being able to help a community by doing something you genuinely love is a privilege.
The Night is Over, the Help Keeps Going
Cocinemos con Fundades may be over for another year, but there is still a way to be part of it. A selection of wines from the event remains available through its To Go sale, with proceeds continuing to support Fundades and its work.
The available six-bottle cases include JCV Pinot Noir, Muga Reserva, José Zuccardi, Casa Boher Gran Chardonnay, Donatella Cenerentola Bio, Rioja Vega Gran Reserva 2018 and Renieri Rosso di Montalcino 2023.
IN THE KNOW: To get the full list of available wines contact Fundades via WhatsApp.
It is a simple way to keep the spirit of that night going: buy a case, open it with people you care about, and let another table become part of the cause.
Every case adds something. Every toast helps.
