Machu Picchu is the headline, but Cusco is where you eat. The city sits at the overlap of Andean, Amazonian and Pacific-coast cooking traditions, and the gastronomy scene has only sharpened in the past decade — San Pedro market in the morning, Chicha or Cicciolina by night.
Peruways’ Cusco food tours visit the markets first (quinoa, kiwicha, 3,000-plus varieties of potato) and then sit you down for ceviche, lomo saltado, ají de gallina or a quinoa risotto, depending on the kitchen. Street food covers the gaps: anticuchos skewered over coals, choclo con queso, chicha morada by the glass.
Guides don’t just order for you. They explain why the quinoa is purple that day, why the ceviche uses lime instead of lemon, and why the Nikkei influence runs so deep in Peruvian cooking.
Book a Cusco food day with Peruways before you head on to Machu Picchu, or stitch it into the return leg from Aguas Calientes.
