So the eldest child was back for reading week and by way of a little get together we decided to do a little eating ‘n’ shopping in Covent Garden. Our rendezvous was at the Lamb and Flag (top pub, recommended if you don’t know it already) and not being in the mood for scouring the area for food we went to literally the nearest restaurant.

This meant Lima (not Lemur, arf), a short stagger out the back in Floral Street. Having never been to a Peruvian restaurant in my life before 2016 I’ve now been to two in a few weeks but this was a totally different experience to that to be had in Tito‘s. While Tito’s is at the cantina end of South American dining Lima is definitely at the the opposite end of the scale of sophistication.

The food and ingredients are basically the same however – ceviche, seafood, meat, maize, exotic spuds and sour/sweet heat. But at Lima the food is exquisite both to taste and to look at. Each plate was a picture, and the refined nature of the food is only enhanced by a similarly elegant room. We had a Peruvian Chardonnay and were soon hit with the two bottle conundrum – three people and one bottle doesn’t work but two bottles seems a bit much. Being on holiday the next day we went for broke and got a second. What we should have done of course is had a pisco cocktail to warm up and then supped one bottle of white. Which goes to show that in Peruvian dining I may be learning rapidly but have yet to turn pro.

All this good stuff comes at a cost – Lima is not cheap. But that’s okay if the product is good; compared to most places in Covent Garden Lima delivers value for money.

8/10

To see which other restaurants I’ve visited in 2016 check out my GoogleMap

London Restaurants covent garden lima London Peruvian Restaurant