Nikkei Cuisine

Nikkei
ORIGIN | Japanese 日系

Nikkei refers to the
Japanese diaspora.

Those of Japanese ancestry who choose to live outside of Japan.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Japanese heard of a country across the Pacific. Peru.

Thought to be full of gold and rolling with opportunity, this land was also blessed by rich soil and a tender-hearted climate. The call of mirrored mountains and the yearning for a new life enticed Japanese in their hundreds to cross the seas and arrive, exhausted, on the coastal plantations of a foreign land.

Peru welcomed them. The land offered abundance and sustenance and some ingredients that closely resembled the Nikkei’s own.

So began the relationship.

Aji peppers and Andean potato met miso, soy and wasabi. Fresh fish bathed in citrus. Cultures asserted themselves while their food painted a new canvas. And now, Peru is home to one of the largest Nikkei communities in the world.

And Nikkei has taken on a new meaning.

It not only refers to Japanese-Peruvians, who call Peru home, but to the cuisine that emerged from the blend of these distinct cultures, developed over years of experimentation, collaboration and expression.