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Since Apega, the Peruvian Gastronomy Association that organizes Peru’s largest food fair, announced in August of last year that the Mistura 2018 will not be held on its traditional date in September and further details will be disclosed “in the coming weeks”, we had to wait until now (January 21, 2019) to hear from them again. The Mistura 2018 is of course water under the bridge by now, but it seems that in 2019 Mistura will definitely take place – but not the way we are used to.
Please note that this article was originally written on January 21, 2019. An update was added at the end of the text on July 28, 2019.
Mistura started in 2008 as small local food festival and thanks to numerous prominent Peruvian chefs and committed organizers grew into the largest and most important yearly gastronomic event in Latin America held at the Costa Verde in Lima each September.
Problems began in 2017 when some prominent supporters withdrew from the organization. Mistura was moved from its traditional location at the Costa Verde to a new venue in Rimac and postponed over two months just weeks before Peru’s largest food fair was supposed to start.
Then last year in April organizers first announced that the Mistura 2018 would return to the Costa Verde of Magdalena del Mar and be held around its traditional date in September, just to once again inform the public a few weeks before the start that Mistura will be postponed again.
So, now (January 2019) we get information about the Mistura 2019 from Bernardo Roca Rey, the president of Apega, which at this point should perhaps be taken with a grain of salt – at least until we hear more, according to him “in the next 10 days”.
He announced during an interview with the Peruvian daily Gestión that the transformation and reorganizing process of the new Mistura concept is finished and that the Mistura 2019 will definitely happen this year; however, to the astonishment of all not in Lima anymore, but most probably either in Trujillo or Arequipa.
Additionally, it seems that Roca Rey and Fernando López de Castilla, founder of the Nexo Franchise, turned their plans to bring Mistura abroad into tangible reality. Talks with Chile and Colombia, but as well Bolivia are underway. So, in the future we might even see a Mistura in Santiago de Chile, Bogota, La Paz or Sucre.
Let’s hope we don’t have to wait months again to get more information about the Mistura 2019. We of course will update this article as soon any details are announced.
Over the past few weeks we received several inquiries, if there are any news about the Mistura 2019 in Peru. To let our readers know that we haven’t forgotten about Mistura and our promise to update this article - which initially was written on January, 21, 2019 - as soon as more details are announced, here an update, even though it unfortunately isn’t one.
After the Mistura 2017 chaos and the Mistura 2018 fiasco, we really had high hopes when Bernardo Roca Rey, the president of Apega which organizes the event, finally emerged again in January 2019 letting all eagerly awaiting news know that Mistura is back on track and the Mistura 2019 is definitely on. Back then we were promised more info within less than two weeks.
But since then once again silence. More than 6 months later and we still haven’t heard a thing. Organizers seem to have disappeared, no news on the Mistura or Apega social media sites, nothing on their webpage, no answers to messages and e-mails and nothing in the local press.
As things stand today, July 28, 2019, we unfortunately don’t know if the Mistura 2019 will take place at all. And even if it is held this year until now there hasn’t been any official announcement where and when.
The only thing we can do at the moment is to promise you that we will stay on the ball and inform you about any Mistura news as soon we get them.
In loving memory of "Jack" & "Lola"
