The AC Marriott stands out for its design, comfort, quality service, its good gastronomy, and its location facing the Pacific Ocean.
The most lovable and endearing Lima, the unique and unrepeatable one, faces the sea. Its Historical Center is invaluable and, therefore, knowing it is essential and an exercise in knowledge. However, the place that summons our spirit, our sensitivity, our primary instincts is the ocean. Foreign travelers know it well: strolling through Lima’s bay will undoubtedly lead us towards love at first breeze.
For this reason, we like to walk through Miraflores, through its streets and avenues. Still, above all, along its boardwalk, the one that looks out to the sea and that generates nostalgia and melancholy, some fiery verses and prose, passions and affections. And all this needs a home, a place that shelters it. Fortunately, Miraflores has spaces that match the feelings it generates. One of them is the brand new AC Hotel Lima Miraflores by Marriott.
The beauty of Lima’s Pacific
Imagine yourself in one of the most welcoming terraces in Lima, one located on the 18th floor of a new building from where it is possible to observe all the majesty of the Pacific Ocean with its Lima peculiarities: a beautiful bay, green and desert cliffs, and an island. San Lorenzo, mythical and close.
Well, that exercise of imagination can become a reality if you visit the AC Marriott, a hotel located in front of the Miraflores boardwalk from which you have, if not the best, one of the best views of the Lima coastline.
AC is a chain of Spanish origin that belongs to the Marriott chain. For this reason, it is not for nothing that they send, among other things, Iberian gin and tapas. Its hotels are all over the world, and the one in Lima was the first to be opened in Latin America (today, there is also one in Santiago de Chile). It opened on April 1, 2019, and, due to its precise location, it immediately became one of the favorites of travelers who came to this crowned city.
The place has 150 rooms (75 of them with ocean views), 18 floors, five stars, and two restaurants, Insumo, which can be seen on the terrace, and Saladero, which specialized in Peruvian cuisine.
Harmony and elegance
Gisella Ochoa, her Room Division Manager, says that the AC Marriott’s occupancy reached 80% and that its projections for 2020 were bordering on 100% (that’s how successful they were). Still, the pandemic came, and all its plans changed. “We do not allow ourselves to be defeated. We created a ‘solidarity fee’ to accommodate it as best as we could. At first, many repatriated Peruvians needed a place to spend their quarantine. Then, to house the workers of those companies that never stopped to develop essential activities for life and the economy, such as food, health, mining, industry, and so on. Now that we have been allowed to operate and host other guests, we have targeted the local public, those who seek to escape from routine, as a couple, as a family, and seek comfort, warmth, and quality”.
And what are its other benefits beyond its location? “We emphasize the details. We are meticulous, we provide great service, and we seek harmony. We are friendly, elegant and we are committed to the highest quality. And today, in the midst of a pandemic, we are very rigorous with biosafety protocols. We use advanced technology to ensure our facilities’ health, the health of our workers, and, above all, of those we host. Every satisfied guest is a goal achieved”.
Insumo and Saladero: Creative Kitchen
The AC is a hotel that, in addition to well-appointed rooms with all the comforts that a five-star hotel can provide (gym included), has two restaurants that offer very high-quality cuisine. They are called Insumo and Saladero, and their corporate chef is Rafael Piqueras, one of our most important and renowned chefs.
Insumo is located on the 18th floor of the building. If the landscape offered by the sea is majestic from the other floors of the hotel, imagine its magnificence from one of the highest points of the city. Just imagine: you have breakfast; then, glimpse the enjoyment of a blissful lunch while the midday heat welcomes you or, later, feel the ecstasy of beauty as you watch, glass in hand, the sunlight fall and immerse yourself in our reddish, volcanic, fiery star, in the ocean. Get overwhelmed.
All this offers Insumo, a “signature cuisine restaurant”, according to Víctor Álvarez del Villar, its executive chef. Although Rafael Piqueras is the corporate chef of the hotel chain, Álvarez is in charge of the day-to-day operation and, when it comes to creating the dishes, they work side by side.
Álvarez is a chef who has developed his entire career in hotels. From a northern family (his mother is from Trujillo; his father from Paita), he trained at home watching how his mother prepared the menus for the neighborhood neighbors and, later, at USIL, where he met Rafael López, a professor who taught him. He took him to work with him at the Sonesta Hotel, then to the Belmond, and later to the JW Marriott. “Then I went to work at the Libertador de San Isidro and, shortly after, they appointed me chef at the Tambo del Inka, in the Sacred Valley. I have cooked in Spain, in Panama, in the United States. Two years ago, the chain called me to open the Aloft, another of its new hotels in Miraflores, and, shortly after, I was also commissioned to cook the AC Marriott. Today I direct both spaces, kitchens with different concepts and logistics, but that enhances my creativity”.
Insumo
Insumo is a restaurant that puts the ingredient and its quality on an altar. Without a good product, a great kitchen is not possible. For this reason, his shells come from Paracas; their vegetables, from Pachacamac; its tubers, from Ayacucho. Traceability, they call it.
Insumo proudly shows off its culinary “toys”: in addition to the sacred fire, induction cookers, and cold zones, it has a multifunctional Josper oven and a Kamado, the Japanese grill in fashion today. These technical gadgets come from delicious grilled shells with butter and citrus fruits, some garlic prawns, a salmon with capers and white wine, entrails with native potatoes, a very Peruvian fish sweat, and many other good dishes.
Yes, as the chain has an Iberian soul, its “signature cuisine” winks at the Mediterranean and, of course, if it looks at the Pacific, Peru: its sea, its Andes, and even its Amazon. There are also pizzas, traditional and naughty (with truffle, Iberian ham, and other concoctions), hearty hamburgers, sandwiches for gluttons, and salads to keep us healthy.
Saladero
Saladero is the AC restaurant specialized in Peruvian cuisine. Álvarez, who considers himself a “todista” chef because, curious as he is, he knows Peruvian and Spanish cuisine and Italian, Japanese, Chinese, and even desserts, says that in Creole gastronomy, he feels in his element. “It’s a trip back in time, to my mother’s kitchen, to her menus. My childhood inspires my rice with chicken, my dry with beans, my chicken chili, and others”.
Saladero has been and is very important for the AC: during the quarantine days and, even today, it allowed them, thanks to the delivery service, to keep their kitchen team in action, avoid unemployment and, above all, be close to local diners, those looking for food with a homemade soul and of extreme quality.
“We also have the AC Lounge, where we serve croquettes, Spanish tortillas, gazpachos, and other Iberian tapas. In the bar, the star was the gin, as the chain was born in Spain. All these concepts allow me to stay alive, creative and get away from the routine”, adds Álvarez del Villar.
He is right. Few times does one feel more alive than enjoying all the possible pleasures admiring the beauty of the Pacific, that which bathes this Lima that shelters us and is endearing to us thanks to its sea.
All photos courtesy of AC Marriott.