Limo — Restaurant in Distrito de Cusco

New Year's Eve Chef's Menu: Mediocre and Disappointing.

My wife and I visited Limo for their New Year's Eve service in 2022. We paid $85 USD per person for a service that included: one appetizer, one main, and one dessert, as well as one bubbly wine, one red or white wine, one water or soda, and one tea or coffee.

Our reservation was for 9 pm, for which we were seated promptly. A few people served us, but I believe our main waiter was called Diego. After sitting, we asked for water and the cocktail menu. Some 5-10 minutes later, he came to get our cocktail order. We each got a cocktail for an additional $9 USD. I also reminded our waiter about the water we had asked for. About 10 minutes later, our waiter comes by asking if we are ready to make our dinner choices... and still no water. We make our choices, which I will describe below, and I once again ask for water. He finally then brings us some water, and a few minutes later, our cocktails arrived.

Our cocktails were quite good. I had an "Emperador," a twist on an old-fashioned with shiitake-washed vermouth. It was very complex and bold, yet mellow and smooth, with a great fatty umami flavor. It contained a shiitake slice, which had been infused with vermouth, and almost felt like a gummy bear, flavored of vermouth and shiitake, it was delicious, and I would have eaten a bowl full of them. My wife had their signature cocktail, the "Limo" which was like a passion fruit and chili sour, with a chili pepper as a garnish. They recommended that we have a bite of the pepper along with the drink. It was also excellent. The drink by itself was only slightly spicy, and I would recommend it to anyone. Then, having the drink along with a bite of the pepper was excellent, as the sweet fruitiness really mellowed out the pepper, and the juicy spiciness of the pepper really added to the drink.

The menu that night had three options for appetizer, main, and for dessert. The three options for appetizers were a crunchy shrimp with a passion fruit sauce, a grilled Peruvian calico scallop, or a salmon maki. The entree options were a cut of beef (possibly a strip steak) with a miso mashed potatoes, a duck confit with a black rice, or a steamed fish dish. Finally, the dessert options were a chocolate soufflé with a matcha ice cream, a banana caramel crunch roll with a salted caramel ice cream, and one final choice, which I cannot recall.

For our appetizers, we both chose the shrimp. They were "breaded" in a finely shredded starchy vegetal, probably a tuber similar to potato or yucca. And frankly, it was a huge miss. The texture was very soft and moist, and absolutely not crunchy. Honestly, it was a halfway good idea, and the chewyness of the breading could have really complemented the shrimp if it had been crunchy on the outside. Perhaps it just needed to be cooked hotter or longer. The sauce was good, and the shrimp were cooked well.

For my main, I had the steak with a balsamic reduction and the miso mashed potatoes. This dish was good if a bit uninspired. The steak was cooked very well, and seasoned nicely. The balsamic sauce complemented it well. And the miso mashed potatoes were very nice, tho a little lacking in the miso flavor. Overall a satisfying dish. My wife chose the stick confit on black rice, and it was quite disappointing. The duck was cooked well, but with no sauce or additional seasoning, it was very boring. The rice had no complexity to it whatsoever, and it frankly tasted like generic chicken broth rice. An astoundingly boring dish, that left so much to be desired. We were served our wine with the main, we both chose the red, and were given a young cabarnet

For desserts, I had the chocolate soufflé with matcha ice cream. I am an absolute chocolate lover, so I was very excited about this. I was greatly disappointed. The soufflé was completely overcooked, solid, dry, and stiff all the way through. Additionally, it was extremely bitter while somehow also being bland; with no sweetness, and little chocolate...

From Asian point of view ，2 star for been nice local service and nice deco and great desert but no idea food sequence, Ramen or noodle come as first course before drinks and entree or apertizer, taking food away too quickly before empty… my experience with Nikkei food was more like anything mimic or looks Japanese and far more buzzard but not to the equivalent taste. Sashimi fish some how just like Maido or other places no fish fresh taste(diff kind of fish should? have its own kind of fish taste even when fresh their unique texture and freshness taste… but I don't know why most sashimi itself no taste?). Again that's from someone who's familiar with Japanese and Chinese food. Perhaps we just one odd but most Japanese will agree. Tempura was nicely battered with local asparagus but the extra mayo and orange cream chillies sauce were truly unnecessary and destroy the whole taste as been in oily side, the creamy sauce could perhaps be placed in separation. Food was nicely presented. Fried rice (the rice was local hence not as acquired light fluffy but more risotto type heavy fluffy but the taste was at best tasty of wok with minimal to none vegetables seen) and together with Peruvian chocolate desert were the best dish that night. Fruity drink was present nicely. Ramen was a bit dull in taste, shouyu broth was lacking flavour of broth but light soybean sauce while it's noodle is more like Chinese prepare thin noodle that can easily get in Asian grocery store outside south America. I have to say it is great to be able to see so many Nikkei but you cannot called anything that's not taste nice nor yraditional Japanese as Nikkei, we asked ourselves if they taste nice if you were to return to restaurant again? I am sorry to be honest but the...

“Limo” fusion Great food, great atmosphere, inconsistent, double standards as far as the service.

We were a group of three Filipinos. The white patrons in the tables on either side of us were given hot towels before being served food. We were not. And when we ordered an order of tea that should come in a teapot (the menu heading for tea literally says “teapot”) we were given the tea straight into the teacups and were told that they ran out of teapots. Ok fine. But shortly after, we noticed the white people group sitting behind us were given multiple teapots. And the ones on the other table as well.

All this after we were served our drinks and starters, but our server never returned. We had to hail one of the staff down to ask where our server was and she crudely curtly snapped back (the guy literally wasn’t back in 20 minutes, and we finished our starters and the guy never checked on us so I had to flag somebody down. And I literally just went “we’re looking for our server - can you get him for us?” Totally a fair statement. Don’t passive aggressively respond with a “can you wait a minute?!“) Yea they seemed to be short staffed as we saw the server who took us in, stationed without someone telling us at the bar making drinks and to the woman’s (who seemed to be the hostess) credit another server came over and promptly and efficiently took our mains, and dessert order. But I’ve been to a billion spots, and never given lip like that.

So yeah. Swiss cheese model of events. It is what it is man, but I call it like I see it. Great food. Great setting. But you better give everybody hot towels in the beginning, and everyone their teapots- it’s only fair. Or if you lie to us, make sure that the tables next to us don’t get...