Cusco — Where We Ate & Drank

Cusco was our Machu Picchu base in May — dry season, cold nights, perfect trekking light — and the city fed us better than acclimatization required. KUSYKAY and MORAY do modern Andean; the Monasterio's oxygen-enriched rooms are a legitimate altitude strategy. Coca tea, two slow days, then the Sacred Valley.

We spent those days eating our way through 15 restaurants, from Uchu Peruvian Steakhouse to Carpe Diem's Italian refuge at 11,000 feet. Every place below is somewhere we actually sat down, ordered, and ate.