Maido

Maido is a Nikkei restaurant of the chef Mitsuharu “Micha” Tsumura in the Miraflores district of Lima, Peru. Its kitchen joins Japanese technique with Peruvian produce, and the World's 50 Best Restaurants named it the best restaurant in the world in 2025.

Tsumura was born in Lima into a family whose ancestors had come to Peru from Japan in the 19th century. He trained in the United States at Johnson & Wales and then, on his father's advice, went to Osaka to study Japanese cooking. After a short spell at the Sheraton he opened Maido in October 2009, taking its name from a Japanese word used to greet people. The start was slow, with only around 30 dishes leaving the kitchen on a typical day in the early years.

Ingredients for the long tasting menu come from the Andes, the Amazon and the northern coast of Peru. From the forest come snacks such as a ‘ham’ made from sustainable paiche and yucca with Amazonian beans, and squid ramen is matched with an Amazonian chorizo. Sea snails are cooked al sillao, in soy sauce, under a foam of yellow chilli with a Nikkei sauce, and the dish called The Triple layers chashu, the braised pork belly, with egg, tomato and avocado. Guinea pig is fried in duck fat and finished with a cream of cassava, while the signature short rib is braised slowly across days.

Maido has dining rooms both upstairs and downstairs. It joined the Latin American edition of that ranking early, has topped it repeatedly and has stayed on the world list every year since its debut there, and Tsumura's peers also chose him for the Estrella Damm Chefs' Choice Award. Peru has no Michelin guide, so the restaurant holds no stars. Japanese method gives the Peruvian larder a strict frame here, and the guinea pig and the paiche show how far that meeting reaches beyond the fish of the coast.