What to Eat in Cusco, From Morning Market to Night Cart

Short answer: In Cusco, eat a fresh juice and a hot soup in the market for breakfast, a set menú at lunch, chicharrón in Saylla or cuy al horno in Tipón on a weekend afternoon, the round pan chuta of Oropesa with anything, chiriuchu at Corpus Christi and a hot emoliente from a street cart at night. The city sits at 11,152 ft (3,399 m), so save the heavy plates for day three.

What to eat in Cusco, hour by hour

Time	What to order	Where	First 48 hours at altitude?
7 to 9 a.m.	Fresh fruit juice, a hot broth or adobo cusqueño with pan de Oropesa	San Pedro market, Mercado de Ttio	Yes, juice and broth
10 a.m.	Choclo con queso (giant corn with fresh cheese)	Markets, street sellers, Sacred Valley stations	Yes
12:30 to 2 p.m.	Menú: quinoa soup or chairo, then fried trout or a stew	Local restaurants with a chalkboard menu	Yes, the lightest options
Weekend lunch	Chicharrón with mote and mint salad	Saylla, Poroy	Wait until day 3
Weekend lunch	Cuy al horno, pepián de cuy	Tipón (Oropesa district)	Wait until day 3
Any time	Pan chuta, the round bread of Oropesa	Oropesa, bread stalls in San Pedro	Yes
Corpus Christi (late May or June)	Chiriuchu, the cold festival platter	Stalls around Plaza San Francisco	Share one, after day 2
Dinner	Quinoa soup, trout, a small plate	Restaurants near your hotel	Yes
9 to 11 p.m.	Emoliente, a hot barley and herb drink	Street carts	Yes

The first thing Cusco serves you is not food. It is a cup of coca tea at the hotel desk, handed over while your lungs are still asking where the air went. The second is usually a mistake: a full plate of fried pork and a pisco sour on the first evening, because someone said you had to try it. Cusco cooks a strong regional kitchen, built on potatoes, corn, pork, cuy and chili, and it is heavy food made for cold nights and long days in the fields. Eat it in the right order and at the right hour, and it is the part of the trip people talk about at home.

This page is organized the way a day in Cusco runs, from the market at seven to the emoliente cart at ten at night, with what to order at each hour and what to leave for later.

Which dishes make Cusco food famous?

Cusco is known for Andean comfort food: oven-roasted cuy, chicharrón of pork fried in its own fat, roast pork and lechón, big soups, giant corn with fresh cheese, and chiriuchu, the cold festival platter of Corpus Christi. PeruRail's guide to Cusco dishes names chiri uchu, fried trout, chairo soup, quinoa soup, cuy al horno, mushroom kapchi, chicharrón, corn with cheese, roast pork and pig's foot zarza as the ten to try.

Two places outside the city are part of the menu. The towns on the road southeast toward Urcos, Saylla for chicharrón and Tipón and Oropesa for cuy and bread, are where people from Cusco drive on a Sunday to eat, according to the state news agency Andina. And the picanterías, simple kitchens that serve chicha with the food, still hold on in the historic center, with at least 14 of them counted by Andina.

What should you eat for breakfast in Cusco?

For breakfast in Cusco, go to a market: a fresh fruit juice made in front of you, then a hot soup or a plate of adobo with bread. Your hotel buffet is fine, but the market is where the city eats before work, and it costs a fraction of a café.

Juice and soup at San Pedro

In San Pedro market, ten minutes from the Plaza de Armas, the juice stalls blend papaya, pineapple, orange, mango and passion fruit to order, and the vendor will often top up your glass from the jug. At the back, the food counters serve soups from early morning. Order the juice without ice if your stomach is sensitive, and pick the busiest counter for soup.

Adobo and the breakfast broths

Adobo cusqueño is pork marinated a day ahead in chicha de jora, the fermented corn drink, with ají panca, cumin, garlic and spices, then simmered and served with a round of pan de Oropesa, as a cook at the Mercado Modelo de Ttio in the Wanchaq district explained to the radio station RPP. The same market serves the breakfast broths that cusqueños swear by: caldo de cabeza, made with a lamb's head, caldo de pollera and caldo de patita. Order adobo if you want flavor. Order a broth if you slept badly at altitude and want something warm and gentle.

What is a menú, and why is lunch the main meal?

A menú is the set lunch of local restaurants: a soup, a main course and a drink, served at midday at a fixed price in soles, much lower than the à la carte menu of a tourist restaurant. Lunch is the big meal of the day in Cusco, and the good kitchens put their effort into the noon menú, not into dinner.

Look for a chalkboard by the door listing the day's soup and two or three mains. A good Cusco menú will often start with quinoa soup or chairo, a thick soup of chuño (freeze-dried potato), lamb, dried beef, broad beans and herbs, followed by fried trout, lomo saltado or a stew. Fried trout from the highland rivers and lakes is the safest main in town for a sensitive stomach, crisp outside and served with rice and boiled potato. If you are vegetarian, ask for kapchi, a mushroom and broad bean stew with fresh cheese and a black mint called huacatay, which PeruRail lists among the classic Cusco dishes.

Corn with cheese

Choclo con queso is a cob of giant white corn with a thick slice of fresh cheese, sold by women with baskets at bus stops, markets and the stations of the Sacred Valley. PeruRail notes that the best corn comes from Urubamba. The kernels are as wide as your thumbnail and less sweet than American corn. It is cheap, filling and gentle on the stomach, so it is the snack we recommend on your first afternoon.

What is chiriuchu, and when is it served?

Chiriuchu is the cold platter of Corpus Christi in Cusco: roast cuy, boiled hen, charqui (dried meat), a sausage, fresh cheese, a corn tortilla, fish roe, seaweed and toasted corn, with a strip of rocoto chili, all piled on one plate and eaten cold. The name is usually translated from Quechua as cold chili. PeruRail calls it the main culinary art of Corpus Christi, and it mixes ingredients from the coast, the highlands and the jungle on one plate.

You eat it once a year, in late May or June, during the Corpus Christi festival, when the saints of the parishes are carried into the Plaza de Armas. In 2016 Andina reported 284 women from two food associations selling chiriuchu around the Plaza San Francisco during the festival. A few restaurants serve it outside the season, but the real one is the one bought from those stalls. Share a plate. One chiriuchu is a lot of meat, and the cuy and the hen are served bone in.

Where should you eat cuy al horno?

Eat cuy al horno in Tipón, a village in the district of Oropesa on the road southeast of Cusco, where the restaurants specialize in oven-roasted guinea pig and other cuy dishes, including pepián de cuy, a cuy stew, and cuy chactado, flattened and fried, according to Andina. The cuy is seasoned, roasted whole in a wood oven and served with potatoes, rice and a little salad, as PeruRail describes it.

What people get wrong is ordering it on day one, at a restaurant on the Plaza de Armas, for the photo. The cuy in Tipón is crisp, rich and served whole with the head on. Ask for it cut in pieces (en presas) if that bothers you, eat it with your hands like everyone around you, and share one between two the first time. The meat sits close to the bone and tastes like the dark meat of a chicken with more fat.

Where is the best chicharrón near Cusco?

For chicharrón, Cusco goes to Saylla, a district on the same southeast road, where traditional chicharronerías line the highway, and to Poroy, on the road toward Abancay, according to Andina. Cusco chicharrón is chunks of pork cooked slowly in their own fat until the outside crackles, served with mote (boiled hominy), fried potatoes and a salad of mint and onion, and PeruRail dates its sale in the city to 1927 and 1928.

It is the best plate in this guide and the worst one for your first 48 hours. Order it after you have slept at least two nights at altitude, eat it at lunch rather than at night, and skip the beer with it until later in the trip.

Lechón and roast pork

Lechón al horno, roast suckling pig, is a weekend dish. Andina points to the road toward Anta and Abancay for lechón served with tamales and the wheat bread of Huarocondo. In the city, roast pork (chancho al horno) is marinated overnight with chicha de jora, yellow, mirasol and panca chilies, cumin and garlic, then roasted the next day, per PeruRail. Ask for it in a sandwich if you only want a taste.

What is pan chuta?

Pan chuta is the big round wheat bread of Oropesa, the town on the South Valley road known for its bakeries, and it goes with almost everything in Cusco: adobo at breakfast, cheese at lunch and a coffee in the afternoon. Andina calls it the famous bread of Oropesa, and a sign at the entrance to the town names it the national capital of bread.

The loaves are wide, slightly sweet and dense, often decorated on top, and they keep for days. Buy one warm at a roadside stall in Oropesa, or look for the stacks in plastic bags at the bread stalls of San Pedro. It is the best souvenir you can eat on the bus to Puno.

What should you eat and drink at night in Cusco?

At night in Cusco, eat light and drink something hot: a bowl of quinoa soup or trout for dinner, and an emoliente from a street cart on the way back to your hotel. Dinner is the small meal of the day in Peru, and your sleep at altitude will be better for it.

Emoliente is a hot herbal drink sold from street carts in the morning and the evening, made from roasted barley with herbs such as horsetail, flaxseed, alfalfa and plantain, sweetened and finished with lime, as Wikipedia describes it. The vendor mixes it to order in a glass from three or four steaming jugs. Ask for it with less sugar (con poco azúcar). It is the cheapest warm thing in the city at ten at night, when the temperature in Cusco often drops close to freezing in the dry months.

What should you avoid eating at altitude?

For your first 48 hours in Cusco, avoid alcohol, large fried meals and anything that keeps you up late. The CDC advises avoiding alcohol for the first 48 hours at high altitude and keeping exercise mild for the same time. Heavy plates such as chicharrón, a whole cuy and chiriuchu are not dangerous, but they sit badly on a stomach that is already adjusting.

Order now or wait until day 3

Order on days 1 and 2	Wait until day 3 or later	Why
Quinoa soup, chairo, caldo	Chicharrón, lechón	Fat and big portions sit heavy while you adjust
Fried trout with rice	Whole cuy al horno	Share your first cuy, it is rich
Fresh juice without ice, coca tea, emoliente	Pisco sour, beer, chicha de jora	The CDC advises no alcohol for the first 48 hours
Choclo con queso, bread	Chiriuchu	A full plate of cold meats is a lot for day one
Cooked food served hot	Raw salads in cheap places	Tap water rinses carry the usual travel stomach risk

The everyday food safety rules matter more here than the altitude. Drink bottled or filtered water, choose busy places, eat cooked food served hot, and peel your own fruit. If you have a headache, nausea or no appetite on day one, that is altitude sickness talking, not the food. Read our Cusco altitude guide for the symptoms that mean you should see a doctor.

Want to cook these dishes, not only order them? Our guide to Cusco food tours and cooking classes compares the market visit, the class and the pachamanca. For the rest of the country, see our Peruvian food guide.

Where can you taste these foods on a tour?

You can taste most of this menu on two of our day trips. The South Valley tour, from US$127 per person, visits Tipón, Pikillacta and the painted church of Andahuaylillas, and stops on the way back where you can buy chicharrón in Saylla, cuy al horno or Oropesa bread, paid on your own. The Cusco walking tour, from US$27, starts inside San Pedro market with time for a juice. For more ideas on how to spend your days, see our list of things to do in Cusco.

What we offer, and what is up to the traveler

We are a travel agency based in Cusco. We plan tours, hotels and transfers, and our day trips stop where the food is good. We do not run restaurants, cooking classes or food tours and meals at the food stops are paid by you, at local prices, in soles.

Updated October 2026.