Maido in Lima, Peru: A Review of The Alleged Best Restaurant in the World
When a restaurant is named the best restaurant in the world, expectations become almost impossible. You don’t walk in hoping for a good meal. You walk in expecting magic.
That was the setup for Maido in Lima, Peru. Maido is the acclaimed Nikkei restaurant from chef Mitsuharu “Micha” Tsumura. In 2025, Maido was named The World’s Best Restaurant by The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, cementing Lima’s status as one of the most important dining cities in the world.
We were excited. We were curious. And after eating there, our take is this: Maido was really fun, with a few standout dishes, and we can absolutely believe it is one of the best restaurants in South America. But the best restaurant in the world?
It’s ceviche! And it was our favorite dish - absolutely delicious
The Concept: Nikkei Cuisine at the Highest Level
Maido is a celebration of Nikkei cuisine, the culinary tradition born from Japanese immigration to Peru. At its best, Nikkei food combines Japanese technique, precision, and restraint with Peruvian ingredients, acidity, spice, seafood, and boldness. That is exactly what Maido is built around.
The restaurant is located in Miraflores, one of Lima’s most popular dining and hotel neighborhoods, and the experience feels polished from the moment you walk in. It is sleek, energetic, and welcoming, and not overly formal or hushed. This is fine dining, but it has an almost relaxed personality.
Chef Mitsuharu “Micha” Tsumura is the force behind the restaurant. He is Peruvian-Japanese, trained in the U.S. and Japan, and opened Maido in 2009. His cooking reflects both identity and technique: part sushi counter, part Peruvian pantry, part high-end tasting menu.
The result is a restaurant that feels very Lima, somewhat Japanese, and very much its own thing.
Accolades: The World’s Best Restaurant in 2025
Maido has been highly ranked for years, but 2025 was the big moment: it was named No. 1 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, making it officially “The World’s Best Restaurant” for that year.
That is a huge achievement, not just for Maido but for Peru. Central nearby had previously won the same title in 2023 (read our review of Central here), and Maido’s win further confirmed Lima as one of the world’s most exciting food cities.
It is worth noting that Peru does not currently have a Michelin Guide, so Maido does not have Michelin stars. That does not mean the restaurant would not earn them if Michelin covered Peru; it simply means there is no official Michelin-star framework for Lima restaurants at the moment.
Still, because we eat at a lot of Michelin-starred restaurants, it is hard not to use that language as a reference point. And for us (spoiler on our takeaways) Maido feels like a strong two-star experience.
The Experience
Maido is fun.
That is probably the best word for it. It is not solemn or overly intellectual, but surprisingly approachable. It does not feel like a temple of gastronomy where everyone is whispering over tweezed herbs. It feels energetic, colorful, and alive.
This is intentional. “Maido” is a more casual way to say “Welcome” in Japanese businesses, almost more like a “Welcome home” or “Welcome back.”
The pacing is smooth, the service is warm, and the room has a celebratory feel. This is the kind of restaurant where you can go for a major culinary bucket-list dinner and still actually enjoy yourself. Compared with some of the more serious restaurants at the top of the global rankings, Maido feels more playful. That is one of its strengths. The meal has movement, variety, and a strong sense of place.
The only issue is that when you are sitting at the restaurant currently ranked best in the world, “really fun” is not quite enough. At that level, you expect not just charm and good dishes, but course after course that feels undeniable.
Maido had some of those moments. It just did not have enough of them to feel like the best restaurant on earth.
The Menu
Maido’s tasting menu is built around the Maido Experience, a multi-course journey through Nikkei cuisine. The menu changes, but the general structure highlights Japanese technique through Peruvian ingredients, such as seafood, rice, broths, sauces, Amazonian products, Andean ingredients, and deeply flavored meats.
You can expect a progression that may include:
sushi and nigiri-style bites
seafood-forward courses
refined takes on Peruvian-Japanese comfort food
broths and noodle-inspired dishes
richer meat courses
desserts with tropical or Japanese influence
The World’s 50 Best description highlights the menu as spanning more than 10 dishes, with examples like squid ramen with Amazonian chorizo, sea snails with yellow chili foam, and Tsumura’s signature short rib, braised for more than two days.
That gives you a good sense of the range: some dishes are delicate and precise, others are much richer and more playful.
What stood out
The best dishes were excellent. There were moments where the combination of Japanese technique and Peruvian flavor really clicked — the kind of dishes that felt specific to Maido rather than something you could find at any high-end tasting menu.
The seafood courses were especially strong, and the richer courses brought a satisfying sense of comfort and depth. Maido is at its best when it leans into the natural harmony between Peru and Japan: clean fish, bright acidity, deep umami, and beautiful texture.
Where it fell slightly short
Our issue was not that anything was bad. Nothing was bad.
The issue is that at the “best restaurant in the world” level, you expect a higher concentration of unforgettable dishes. A few courses were great. Several were very good. Some were simply enjoyable.
That is still an excellent meal. It is just not the same thing as an all-time meal. We left very happy, but not stunned.
Price
Maido is firmly in destination dining territory. Current pricing for the Maido Experience is listed as:
S/ 1,295 per person without pairing
S/ 1,985 per person with the Maido pairing
S/ 2,525 per person with the Tokujou pairing
S/ 1,659 per person with the non-alcoholic pairing
Prices include tax and service charge.
Converted roughly, the base menu is around the mid-$300s USD per person before any exchange-rate fluctuations. With pairings, you are easily moving into a much higher spend.
For Lima, this is extremely expensive. Compared with top tasting menus in New York, London, Copenhagen, or Paris, it is still relatively reasonable for a restaurant ranked No. 1 in the world. But regardless, it is absolutely a splurge.
Our Verdict
We really enjoyed Maido. It was fun, polished, creative, and had several standout dishes. We can absolutely believe it deserves to be considered one of the best restaurants in South America.
But best restaurant in the world? For us, definitely not.
That does not mean the award is wrong in some objective way. Global restaurant rankings are subjective, political, and shaped by many factors beyond one dinner. Maido is clearly an important restaurant, and chef Micha’s contribution to Nikkei cuisine deserves serious recognition.
But if we were using Michelin-style language, we would call this a two-star restaurant: excellent cooking, worth a detour, and absolutely worth trying if you are in Lima. It just did not feel like three stars. And it did not feel like the single best restaurant in the world.
Still, we would recommend going… just go with the right expectations! Maido is not the most mind-blowing meal on earth, but it is a joyful, high-level, distinctly Peruvian-Japanese experience that belongs on any serious Lima dining itinerary.
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