In the last decade, Peru has elevated its presence on the world’s gastronomical stage. 

This year, the nation was home to four of the world’s 50 best restaurants—a notable ascent from just one representative in 2012. It’s also home to this year’s best restaurant in the world, Central, headed by chef Virgilio Martinez and supported by food research nonprofit Mater Iniciativa. The restaurant is an ambitious display of theater through food, where each dish in the tasting menu recreates one of the country’s many types of ecosystems—and the first institution in Latin America to win the coveted award. 

This summer, photographer Hans Neumann traveled to Mil, Martinez’s restaurant in Cusco, Peru and the Andean research headquarters of Mater Iniciativa. Coursing through the Sacred Valley of the Incas, he met the Indigenous communities working hand-in-hand with the restaurant in farming and ingredient development. He captured Peru’s rich gastronomic history, venturing to the pre-Incan salt mines of Maras, where locals extract salt from a flowing stream, and to the archaeological ruin of Moray, the famed concentric terraces that Incans likely used for farming.

With a deep cultural history, rich biodiversity, and young trailblazing chefs like Martinez, Peru is charging head-first to become one of the world’s culinary capitals.