Gastón Acurio
Gastón Acurio Jaramillo (born October 30 1967) is a peruvian chief cook and an important representative of peruvian cuisine. He is owner of international restaurants and author of several example books. Besides, he's the host of his own television broadcast in Peru and has cooperated in several magazines.
Life
Gastón Acurio Jaramillo was born as a son of Gastón Acurio Velarde and Jesús Jaramillo Razuri. He was the only son and had four older sisters.
After dropping his law studies in Lima, he studied cooking at the hotel trade school Sol de Madrid in Spain and the Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. There he became acquainted with his later wife Astrid Gutsche, originally from Germany.
In 1994, he returned with a great cooking knowledge to Peru and applied it in a Gourmet level to the peruvian cuisine, resulting in the development of the so-called Cocina Novoandina. Nowadays he is recognized as one of the most important chief cooks of Latin America.
He has two daughters with his wife Astrid: Ivalú and Kiara.
Peruvian Restaurant Franchises
Gastón Acurio is a truly peruvian visionary, who has put all his effort in rediscovering the peruvian cuisine and developping ideas to offer in restaurants all typical peruvian meals in a modern and attractive way. As a result, he has turned this ideas into reality by creating various and successful restaurant franchises that focus on a specific category of the peruvian cuisine.
Along with his wife Astrid, he manages since 1994 the restaurant franchise Astrid & Gastón which opened originally in the district of Miraflores in Lima. This franchise has expanded over the years in Latin America and recently in Europe, opening restaurants in Santiago de Chile, Bogotá, Quito, Caracas, Panamá and Madrid.
The Cafe del Museo lies in the art-historical museum Rafael Larco Herrera in Lima. The Café was arranged by the architect Jordi Puig.
The confectionery and pralinerie T'anta was opened in 2003. T'anta comes from Quechua and it means bread.
La Mar is one Cevichería in Lima. Its specialty is peruvian seafood.
The latest and most comercially succesful franchise Pasquale Hnos. opened in late 2006 in Lima. It's a fast food restaurant which specialty are peruvian sandwiches, traditionally known as sanguches.
Other franchises to be released by Gastón Acurio are:
- Panchita, a peruvian anticuchería.
- A pollería which will attempt to release worldwide the peruvian pollo a la brasa (roasted chicken).
- A chifa which intends to create a chinese-peruvian fusion cuisine.
- Hoteles Nativa, a hotel chain which will focus on peruvian culture and will be based on Acurio's franchises.
Side projects
In parallel with the peruvian franchises, Gastón Acurio is involved in numerous projects which include:
- A cooking television program, La Aventura Culinaria, which is broadcasted on cable television by PlusTV. It features Gastón Acurio visiting various places in Lima and other regions of Peru in search of restaurants and places of a specific category, meal or ingredient. Some of this episodes include La Aventura del Ceviche, in which Gastón visited his top list of Cevicherias, and La Aventura del Queso, when Gastón enjoyed the best cheese based meals in various locations in Lima.
- Top cuisine events worldwide, in which he tries to promote the peruvian cuisine to a higher level, task which he accomplished at Madrid Fusion 2006, where he finally internationalized the peruvian ceviche.
- Cooking books, with a nice collection released recently by peruvian newspaper El Comercio.