Qatar 2022: the gastronomic proposal of La Mar Doha by Gastón Acurio for the World Cup

Thanks to the World Cup Soccer Qatar 2022, this Arab country will receive about 2 million visitors from all corners of the world. In addition to sports fever, visitors will find gastronomic embassies in the Qatari capital willing to show the richness and variety of their culture with some of the most successful restaurants in the world. Countries like Spain, Mexico and Peru will have culinary temples adapted to the peculiarities of a country where you cannot eat pork or drink or cook with alcohol and avoid raw food, so traditional dishes have their limitations in some countries where they are basic elements of the kitchen.

Some of the most important international chefs have found in Qatar an open and hospitable country and Michelin stars and some of the best chefs in the world such as Wolfgang Puck, Pino Lavarra, Nobu or Alain Ducasse have an establishment, but also the famous chef and businessman Peruvian gastronomist Gastón Acurio.

Peru in Qatar through its cuisine

Frank Ponce is 32 years old and is the chef at La Mar, Gastón Acurio’s cebichería.

The restaurant is located in the Intercontinental Hotel in Doha and has more than thirty proposals for fusion and tradition. Frank arrived at this restaurant in 2018, although he has been working with Acurio since 2014. His career of more than 13 years began in his grandmother’s kitchen and from there he went on to specialize not only in high-level Peruvian cuisine but also in the best Italian and Japanese tradition.

“It is a Peruvian restaurant, we offer seafood cuisine. But we have varieties of meat, lamb, a very varied offer getting used to the Qatari market, which is totally new for us. We did not know how it was going to work, but in all this time that we have been, 4 years, the acceptance has been very good. Traditional Peruvian cuisine taken to another level”, details the chef.

Causa Lima, tiraditos such as the yellow chili, Nikkéi cuisine or the classic ceviche are some of their most popular dishes, but they have also made specific creations for the Qatari market: “the creation of dishes is with the help of Gastón Acurio, giving ideas . We have a dish that was born here. The ‘chaufa middle east’, which is a super-classic Peruvian anticuchera sauce with ingredients from the Middle East” such as cinnamon, cloves, or star anise, and the lamb is sautéed in a wok with rice.

Ingredients that are not always easy to find in the Qatar market.

”From the beginning and until today we encounter these problems. I think that throughout this time we have managed to handle it. We have the Peruvian product. Our base of Peruvian cuisine is chili peppers” but they also find local products, the yellow chili or the panca they substitute for the Thai or Mexican and mix it.

“The cook, after all, is like an alchemist, he always tries to reach the flavors so that there is always a consistency in the dishes,” he adds.

Now, as a novelty, they have incorporated their restaurant into the beach area, creating La Mar Beach & Manko Doha on the same sand, with an exceptional gastronomic proposal and absolutely unique and essential views of the bay’s skyscrapers. Both premises, barely separated by meters, are distinguished, refined and in them light plays a fundamental, almost magical role.

Like the Peruvian La Mar, hundreds of restaurants bring an international flavor to the Qatar desert and complement a unique offer not only with the best of the region, represented by tasty Lebanese, Indian or Yemeni food, but also with culinary embassies from all over the world. .

The Qatar 2022 venue is a country in which 80% of its population, more than 2.2 million people, are immigrants and it shows in the cultural mix. Qatar 2022 is, without a doubt, the definitive opportunity to delight and enjoy the great spectacle of football, the color of the hobbies and visit, through the palate, the local culture and the best of international gastronomy.

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