Peruvian cook María Zúñiga has won the Somos Bernardo Roca Rey Lifetime Achievement Award for her decades of work promoting traditional Peruvian cuisine. Zúñiga is the culinary creator behind Casa Zúñiga, where she has developed approximately 80 varieties of tamales and humitas and served former Peruvian presidents Fernando Belaúnde Terry and Francisco Morales Bermúdez.
Before cooking became her professional career, Zúñiga used kitchen work to understand the world. She grew up in a family environment centered on food, pots, and frying pans. Her mother, María Barbieri de Zúñiga, moved to Lima from the provinces at a young age and worked as a domestic worker before starting her own food business in 1955.
María Barbieri de Zúñiga began preparing chickpea tamales to order for local families, establishing a client base through word of mouth that eventually brought her cooking to prominent tables. Zúñiga joined the family kitchen as a child, working at a small table where she chopped chicken for tamales. She removed fat and skin alongside salt and rocoto pepper, secretly eating pieces of chicken breast with chili sauce when hungry before continuing her work.
Zúñiga said her palate was formed starting at four years old by tasting, recognizing, and understanding ingredients. As a child, she discarded elements like cilantro stems, only to discover years later that they were central to seasonings in international cuisines. She maintains that cooking cannot be learned solely from reading recipes, but must be felt and inherited through experience.
Two decades in public auditing
Before dedicating herself entirely to gastronomy, Zúñiga worked for two decades at the Comptroller's Office as an auditor and team supervisor. Her auditing duties required traveling across multiple regions of Peru, exposing her to local products, customs, and regional traditions. She closed her auditing career in 1992 to focus full-time on cooking.
Returning to culinary work meant returning home to her family recipe collection and values of respect, honesty, and careful product selection learned from her mother. Her early tamal production eventually evolved into Casa Zúñiga, a closed-door culinary operation that expanded through catering, special events, and group meals. Rather than functioning as a standard restaurant, the venue preserved the atmosphere of a family home.
Located at Pasaje La Viñita 51 in Barranco, Casa Zúñiga accommodates Peruvian and international groups strictly by reservation. The establishment offers breakfasts, lunches, and special dinners on key calendar dates. Guests make reservations and place orders through WhatsApp at (+51) 904 900 319 or on Instagram at @casazunigaperu.
The establishment structures its menu around three main categories: traditional Creole dishes, tamales and humitas, and traditional Limeñian, Peruvian, and convent desserts. The chickpea tamal originally created by Zúñiga's mother remains one of the menu's cornerstone items. Her participation in the Mistura food festival expanded her visibility, attracting attention from national media and prominent chefs.
Tamal varieties and traditional dishes
Zúñiga expanded her recipe repertoire by researching native Peruvian ingredients for culinary meetings, books, and food fairs. Her offerings include classic Creole tamales, quinoa tamales, cheese humitas, sweet humitas, and a pisco sour humita. She also created specialized tamales and humitas using Andean ingredients such as chuño and cushuro.
Her signature main dish is ají de gallina, which she serves with yellow potatoes. Her dessert selection includes traditional rice pudding prepared with precise sweetness and without condensed milk, purple corn pudding known as mazamorra morada, and Chancay pudding. Former Peruvian presidents Fernando Belaúnde Terry and Francisco Morales Bermúdez are among the public figures who have eaten Casa Zúñiga's traditional cuisine.
Over her career, Zúñiga has shared culinary experiences with prominent figures in Peruvian gastronomy, including Javier Wong, Humberto Sato, Teresa Izquierdo, and Pedro Solari.
Teaching and preserving culinary tradition
Zúñiga has taught classes on Peruvian cuisine, regional dishes, and convent desserts at several educational institutions. Her teaching history includes instruction at SISE, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, and Instituto Nuevo Pachacútec. She instructs students on cooking techniques alongside product origins, timing, and respect for agricultural producers who supply ingredients like corn, chili peppers, and tubers.
When hosting foreign visitors, Zúñiga uses each dish to explain that Peruvian gastronomy extends beyond Lima to include coastal, northern, southern, Andean, and Amazonian culinary traditions. Zúñiga said recipes can be taught and shared, but cooking is felt as a direct transmission of the soul.
Zúñiga identified Zulema, who entered the family household at five years old, as the successor to her culinary knowledge. Zúñiga said Zulema will inherit her entire range of skills, including hospitality practices, ingredient selection, and kitchen management. Michael, a former student of Zúñiga, assists by handling table service during dining visits.
The Bernardo Roca Rey Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes Zúñiga's ongoing active work in Peruvian gastronomy. Zúñiga continues cooking, teaching, and hosting diners to preserve traditional recipes and help Peruvians maintain a connection to their native food culture.
