“There is culinary innovation in respecting the classic and the authentic”

[Inkriql]

With 31 years, Lima Jhosef Arias has managed to gain a foothold within a new generation of Peruvian chefs and chefs. Through its three restaurants: Piscomar (traditional and marine cuisine), Callao24 (Creole cuisine) and Capón (Chifa and Nikkei cuisine), Arias intends to take its guests through a culinary trip to Peru without leaving Madrid.

Who taught you to cook?
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My mother. She is an empirical cook and thanks to her I have lived in a kitchen. She made a living selling street food.

Where I study?

In INTECI, a cooking school in the Olivos neighborhood, the neighborhood where I lived in Lima.

What is your favorite dish?

I love chicken (Peruvian) marinade, with an ocopa that is a huacatay cream from the Peruvian highlands.

What is the “generation with cause”?

It is a movement of Peruvian chefs who are now around thirty and that would come to make the third generation after Gastón Acurio, Virgilio, or Misha (Mitsuharu Tsumura), among other chefs.

Why do you think Peruvian cuisine has been so successful in recent years?

Because it is mestizo. In his food you find influences from almost all parts of the world: Spanish, Mediterranean, Japanese, Chinese, African, Italian and of course the pre-Hispanic. Peru has managed to absorb all these influences and merge it in a way that can only be presented as Peruvian.

What is the story behind Callao 24 and his mother?

There is a story of thanks to my mother who taught me and gave me everything. The name Callao comes because it is a Creole and rogue cuisine, as is the port of Callao in Peru. And 24, because my mother's birthday is August 24.

What will the diner find in Capón?

A Peruvian has the habit of eating chifa (Peruvian-Chinese food) once a week. With Capón we wanted to rescue that custom, but not only to rescue Chinese food, but also Japanese food. Here the specialty is sauteed and makis acebichados.

What is the dish that customers most ask for in Capón?

The Makis and the Airport, very typical also in Peru. Take chicken, shrimp and veal wrapped in noodles and rice, mixed with a tamarind sauce. It also has yellow pepper and rocoto.

What do we need to know about pisco?

That there are eight varieties of pisco within any brand. And that there are actually eight varieties or types of grapes, divided into two large groups: aromatic (albilla, italia, muscat and torontel) and non-aromatic (mollar, black Creole, quebranta and uvina).

What is the ideal measure for a good pisco sour?

Two, one, one. Two measures of pisco, one of rubber syrup, one of egg white and one of lime juice. It is a winning recipe. We have eight varieties of cocktails based on pisco quebranta. But besides pisco sour, I really like the chilcano that is pisco with ginger ale and a touch of lime juice. It is always served very cold.

What do you like most about Spanish cuisine?

I love everything, really. I love rice, I'm very rice. In Valencia you eat very well. I also like Andalusian food and gazpacho. I have worked in Malaga and I like Espetos. In Madrid, cooked and corns.

What would you say is the most innovative thing you have done?

This is going to sound paradoxical, but lately our innovation is about respecting the authentic, the classic. Many chefs are constantly looking for new formulas and end up betraying the essence of Peruvian food. But apart, we are working on what is usually called “optimal cuisine”, that is, making the most of the products. We are working with the banana skin, the lime skin, or the shrinkage of the yellow pepper that we are dehydrating. We are making a kind of Peruvian kimchi with various kinds of chili pepper.

What chefs do you admire?

Gastón Acurio, whom I call dad. He has made Peruvian cuisine known to the world. Something that no president or ambassador has been able to do.