Mayta – Lima

Mayta in Lima is currently ranked 39th best in the world, and, fittingly, was the 39th of the top 50 that I visited. There was plenty to like about Mayta: the service is warm, the drinks are excellent and much of the food is an absolute hit. For example, a corn tamale covered with textures of corn and corn oil; accompanied with a corn cracker, is one of the best dishes I’ve ever eaten. A red velvet beetroot cheesecake knocks it out of the park. A duck rice main with all its various textures of duck is delicious and very different to the main served in a lot of restaurants of this calibre.

There’s also plenty to raise your eyebrows at with Mayta. For a start, whilst it might sound picky, I was sat in the single most uncomfortable chair I’ve ever sat in at a restaurant I’d be expected to spend circa two hours in. I can’t describe how bad it was, and had they not been able to find me an incredible cushion, I don’t know that I could have stayed and sat in it. There’s also this constant current undertone that they are desperate to be Central. At one point I’m brought out fish heads, teeth and all, bound together with a singular cigar of cassava and pork on top. Why, I wonder, when there is no sign of this fish in the dish. It’s a lazy rip off of the very famous piranha dish at Central that you used to get atop piranha heads – the difference there being you are actually served some piranha. It’s bizarre, and is shortly folllwed by an actual dish of the fish, which I’m sorry to say was disgusting and reeked of overcooked white beans. A mushroom dish is equally as disgusting, with a stuffed mushroom bread reminding of a bushtucker trial.

So the highs were high and the lows were low. Do I think Mayta is one of the 50 best restaurants in the world? No. But it is good when it hits, and at the very least, it isn’t Le Du.