Calle Capón (Barrio Chino)

Lima's Chinatown — the oldest in South America

The Barrio Chino runs along Calle Capón in the historic centre, marked at its main entrance by a tall Chinese arch decorated with green and red tiles, donated by the Republic of China in 1971. It is the oldest Chinatown in South America, established in the 1850s when Chinese indentured labourers (the coolies) arrived to work in coastal sugar and cotton.

The street is lined with chifa restaurants — the Peruvian-Chinese cuisine that is one of the country's national cooking styles — alongside Chinese pharmacies, herbalists, and grocery shops. Salon de la Felicidad and Wa Lok are well-regarded chifas. Busy in the daytime, quieter after dark; the area immediately outside Chinatown can be rough at night.

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A story
Peru has the largest Chinese diaspora in South America — descendants of indentured labourers who replaced enslaved Africans on the coastal plantations in the 1850s. The fusion of Cantonese and Peruvian cooking — chifa — is now one of the country's national cuisines, eaten by every social class.

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