This diet-destroying dish shares a home with the world’s best restaurant

The dish

Tacu-tacu, Peru

Plate up

All eyes of the culinary world are on Peru right now. Since the recent announcement of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants for 2023, in which Lima fine-diner Central was crowned No.1 and fellow Peruvian eatery Maido No.6, the question on everyone’s lips is what’s up with Peru? How has this country, known globally for Incan ruins and occasional unrest, begun to dominate the world food scene? And the answer is that this is nothing new: for a very long time, Peru has had great food. And yes, we could have brought you a fancy dish as an example, something complex that speaks of great skill and passion. But instead, we’re going to talk about tacu-tacu.

Tacu-tacu is a classic stomach filler, starchy, fatty and carb-heavy. To make it, leftover rice is mixed with stewed Peruvian Canary beans, shaped into a giant patty, and shallow-fried in oil. This crispy diet-destroyer is then served with salsa criolla, and sometimes meat or eggs.

First serve

Tacu-tacu has its roots in Peru’s colonial and slave history: this was a dish developed hundreds of years ago by those brought to the country forcibly from Africa, who used cheap food such as leftover rice and figured out how to make it taste good. It first appeared in southern coastal Peru, and though the dish’s popularity has now spread, it’s still something you’re only likely to find in the coastal lowlands, rather than in the Andes or Amazon. The name is thought to come from either the native Quechua language, or Swahili.

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