Gastón Acurio launched Nikkei cuisine, a fusion of Japanese and Peruvian cuisine. The culmination of fusion, the disciples of the Peruvian genius have surpassed their father and brought the penultimate evolution of this appetising formula to Miami. Three talents trained by Acurio, and triumphant in the United States, took the stage at Madrid Fusión Alimentos de España to present the new flavours that this rich fusion offers the world. They are Diego Oka and the siblings Valerie and Nando Chang, who combine Japanese cooking and cutting techniques with the richness and character of Peruvian flavours.

Like many fusion cuisines, it was born out of immigration, and the mix of cultures it represents. The first Japanese ship arrived in Peru from Okinawa in 1899. Rejected and discriminated against, these 'japos' kept the recipes they had inherited from their family, and the culinary fusion took place very slowly. With the third generation, in the 1950s, the first signs of culinary integration appeared. "The embrace of Peruvian and Japanese products or recipes", says Acurio. By the 1980s, there were already Nikkei restaurants, whose great promoter was Nobu Matsuhisa. Then came Micha Tsumura, with Maido, considered one of the best restaurants in the world.

Nando Chang opened his restaurant, Itamae, in Miami, "one of the most culinarily vibrant cities in the United States, with a 70% Latino population", he pointed out. His father introduced him to Japanese cuisine and the preparation of fish, called itamae in Japanese. Chang has transformed ceviche, Peru's national dish, which he prepares as a tiradito, with raw Aori ika squid. Turned into a flower, he serves it with kosho-fermented chillies.

Valerie Chang, Nando's younger sister, of Basque and Chinese descent, also runs her own restaurant in Miami, Maty's, named after her grandmother. In her case, she has taken another Peruvian classic, anticucho, "which has to do with yakitori" with the audacity to replace meat with vegetables in her anticuchera cabbage. This is a grilled cabbage with garlic confit, aji panca, and chimichurri. "She didn't turn the vegetable into something it's not", says the winner. Within six months of opening, Maty's was named one of Bon Appetit's 24 best new restaurants and appeared on the New York Times restaurant list.

Diego Oka, chef at Gastón Acurio's La Mar, is the most famous of the trio. He has prepared a tuna belly, cured for three hours, to make a ceviche with julienned onions and turnips, and a dash of aji limo. He has created the leche de tigres galáctica, based on lemon, with fish stock, garlic, celery, ice, and pieces of fish. He mixes it all together and clarifies it with cow's milk that has been cut, "which gives it a level of flavour that brings out the umami". He prepares a panela honey syrup and ferments it to obtain the leche de tigres galáctica, which gives the ceviche a bubbly texture.

Oka also makes his own ceramics to display his culinary creations. Gastón Acurio has been his teacher and mentor since they met 22 years ago, in a supermarket. He has worked with him for almost two decades.