Pedro Miguel Schiaffino
Peruvian chef
Biography
Pedro Miguel Schiaffino is a Peruvian chef who has built much of his career around highlighting the foods of the Amazon jungle and Amazonian cuisine. Known as the "jungle chef", he has been compared to René Redzepi, although his work is best understood within contemporary Peruvian cooking.
He graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, in 1997, and later completed master's work at the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners. In Italy he worked with Nadia Santini at Dal Pescatore and with Piero Bertinotti at Ristorante Pinocchio. In Lima he opened Malabar in 2010, a fine-dining restaurant, and in 2012, with his partner Andrea Ortiz de Zevallos, ámaZ.
Since 2010 he has experimented with Amazonian and Andean ingredients, and in 2019 he received the American Express Icon Award from the Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants. He now works as executive chef aboard the M/V Aqua and, together with Ortiz de Zevallos, promotes the NGO Despensa Amazónica, which backs projects to add value to these ingredients.
Key contributions
- Malabar: a fine-dining restaurant in Lima that puts Amazonian and Andean ingredients at the centre of its menu.
- ámaZ: his second restaurant, focused on the pantry of the jungle.
- Use of ingredients such as aguaje, paiche, camu-camu and giant snails, within a cooking style that seeks its own identity.
- Despensa Amazónica: an NGO that supports projects to promote jungle foods.