Though Peruvian food in New York City has seemed to suddenly have become a fascination among culinary minds with the opening of Gastón Acurio’s La Mar in September of 2011, there are dozens of Peruvian restaurants in the five boroughs. The sleeker, trendier ceviche centric restaurants are primarily in Manhattan, though in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and parts of New Jersey where the Peruvian immigrant community mostly resides options for pollo a la brasa, ceviche, and even chifa are plentiful. Here is a run down of New York’s best Peruvian restaurants.

A complete guide to packing for a trip to Peru, including the Amazon, the Andes, and the desert coast.

Vater Otto might be the epicenter of the least Peruvian seeming city in Peru. The patrons at the one room, wood cabin looking pub on a corner of Oxapampa’s Tyrolean seeming main plaza appear Peruvian at first glance, but they’re friendlier. The bartender remembered me from the night before and greeted me by shaking my hand. A few bar stools were on the sidewalk beside an open window and passerby’s would lean in and say hello to a group of regulars in a corner near the bar. A few had blue eyes and blond hair and they spoke with a funny twang. They sang German drinking songs and clanked their glasses together. When one leaves they tell me goodnight. Another asks me where I’m from and that I should have come and chatted with them. They were cheerful and laid back, while the people in rest of Peru, in comparison, can seem so intense and formal.

Lima, Peru’s annual food festival, Mistura, is currently under way in the Parque de la Expocision. This year’s event has attracted the likes of culinary icons like Ferran Adria of El Bulli and Rene Redezipi of Copenhagen’s Noma. Regardless of the big names and special decrees issued to the world, the more than 300,000 attendees come for the food.

Mistura is Lima, Peru’s annual gastronomic festival. Now in its 3rd year, the festival is running for longer and attracting bigger names than in its previous incarnations.

To understand Pisco Porton, you must first understand Mosto Verde Pisco. Pisco Porton is probably the most highly anticipated pisco to hit the US market in the past few years, amid a slew of other new Peruvian pisco brands. It’s crafted by Master Distiller Johnny Schuler (considered a top pisco expert in Peru) at Hacienda la Caravedo in Ica (the oldest distillery in the Americas). It is the only pisco readily available on the US market to be Mosto Verde.

While has Peruvian chef Gaston Acurio has opened more than 30 restaurants around the world, few have been as big of a test as the branch of La Mar that is set to open in New York City this September.

Intipalka, produced in the Peruvian pisco heartland in of the region of Ica, manages to accomplish something that rarely occurs with Peruvian wine: not be spit out. Sure Tacama has put out a few alright wines, mostly their reserves, but nothing that could ever rival an average (lets not get carried away here) vino from Argentina or Chile. This wine isn’t half bad. Drinkable even. It proves Peru has the grape growing potential that extends beyond pisco.

The Sacred Valley of the Incas (El Valle Sagrado de los Incas) is where it all started. Inca civilization began here when Manco Capac, as the legend goes, came upon the valley from Lake Titicaca and founded the city of Cuzco. One of the greatest civilizations the world had ever seen grew from there. The valley is dotted with spectacular Incan and pre-Incan ruins, not to mention the world-renowned site of Machu Picchu and several other lost cities.