How Vegan Sushi Ended Up in Peru
Checking in with El Buda Profano, a restaurant serving up vegan sushi made with mushrooms and mangos in Arequipa
Without a second thought, I followed back the vegan sushi restaurant in Arequipa, Peru on Instagram. I try to catalogue all the vegan restaurants in Latin America, even in countries where I’ve never been and have no imminent plans to visit, and this seemed like a gem. In the years since hitting that button, I have fantasized about finally visiting the restaurant, called El Buda Profano, thanks to the moody images of its cave-like interior and precise rolls of cucumber, shiitake mushroom, and mango.
But vegan sushi is nothing new. In New York, Beyond Sushi has been serving up rolls that are a bit more inventive than “avocado” since 2012. On a 2016 trip to Montreal, I ate an omakase meal at Sushi Momo. And in Peru, the fusion of Japanese food with the local cuisine is standard fare. But this globalization of what seems like a very niche vegan sector is what really drew me to El Buda Profano, and finally, I asked its owner, Alan Pater (and, according to him, “chief executive dishwasher”), what led this Canadian to South America and how the response has been to its presence in the city.
