Make room Spain and Korea, Peru is having its moment in the gastronomic sun.

Yesterday, a crew of the culinary world's leading lights, including Denmark's René Redzepi, France's Michel Bras and America's Dan Barber began descending on Lima for a star-studded food festival. This week, Spain's Ferran Adrià, the unofficial dean of global haute cuisine, will begin making a documentary film about the food scene there. A huge restaurant from the nation's top celebrity chef will open later this month in Manhattan.

Peruvian cuisine, the result of a nearly 500-year melting pot of Spanish, African, Japanese and Chinese immigration and native Quechua culture, is on the lips of top chefs worldwide. Zagat Survey lists four times more Peruvian restaurants in New York, San Francisco, Miami, Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia than it did a decade ago. The cuisine's key ingredients (like aji amarillo, a yellow chili) are now found at farmers' markets frequented by chefs, and sales of pisco, Peru's fiery grape brandy, have doubled in the last five years. Ceviche, the country's famous cured-seafood salad, abounds on menus, even outside of Peruvian spots: Haute cuisine temples Le Bernardin and Daniel both serve it. Peruvian chefs say they are able to entice investors to finance homages to their national cuisine for the first time.

Mr. Adrià said he became intensely interested in Peru after members of his team went there and came home raving about the food scene. He decided to take his first visit this month to make a documentary about what he discovers.

"I want the world to know what's happening there. I'm excited about the flavors and the food, and also the social web of the food, farmers, chefs and the people," Mr. Adrià said.