Nowadays, when we choose where to have dinner, we often find ourselves looking for the newest place, the aesthetic interiors, the restaurant everyone seems to be talking about.
But there are other places that call you for completely different reasons.
The small restaurant with only a handful of tables. The menu that has been there for years. The cooks who have worked alongside each other for longer than most restaurants have been open. The place your parents remember going to when they were younger, or the one a friend tells you their father used to take their mother on dates.
The kind of local restaurant you think of on a Sunday when you simply want to eat something special.
That is how I came to Elia.
And when I started looking into its history, I realized those stories weren’t a coincidence.
Elia’s story goes back much further than my own memories of the restaurant. Its roots can be traced to the 1930s, when Elia and Guillermo Tomasevich ran a small bodega in Magdalena del Mar, known for freshly baked bread, handmade pasta and Elia’s Italian recipes. At the time, their bodega was described as one of the first, if not the only one, on Javier Prado Avenue, when the neighborhood looked very different from the way we know it today.
After so many years, I don’t think there’s anyone who has grown up or lived in Magdalena who doesn’t know Elia, even if only by name. It’s one of those places that becomes part of the neighborhood and of the stories of the people who live around it.
Years later, in 1981, her son Guillermo Tomasevich opened what would become Elia Ristorante, carrying the family’s food tradition into a restaurant of its own.
More than four decades later, Elia is still there. But what I find even more special is that it remains a family-run restaurant, with the next generation continuing to be part of its story.
Today, Guillermo’s daughter Pía Tomasevich, Elia’s granddaughter, is part of the generation carrying that family story forward. And she isn’t only involved behind the scenes: Pía is very much part of the restaurant’s day-to-day life, so there’s a good chance you might see her there when you visit. To me, that continued family presence is part of what keeps Elia feeling so personal after all these years.
And that continuity goes beyond the family itself. Some members of the team have been part of Elia for more than 30 years. Reynero and Esteban, two of the restaurant’s longest-serving waiters, are among them.
What I love about Elia is its wooden ceiling filled with wine bottles. And somehow it feels fitting. Like wine, some places become more interesting with time, carrying with them the people, conversations and memories of all the years before.
Elia doesn’t try to look like the newest restaurant in Lima and I wouldn’t want it to.
There is something intimate and familiar about it. It feels like the kind of place where you can have a long lunch, come back with your family or simply return because you already know what you want to order.
The last time I went to Elia, we started with the Carpaccio de Lomo and followed with one of the dishes I now associate with the restaurant: the Pepper Steak, served with creamy cappelletti.
And I think this is another part of Elia’s charm. You don’t come here looking for the newest dish in Lima or whatever happens to be trending that month.
You come for the kind of food you remember and want to order again the next time you return.
For me, Elia is definitely one of my favorite places in Lima for Italian food. It’s one of those restaurants I keep coming back to for its flavors, the familiarity of its dishes and because, after so many years, it still holds on to what made it a classic in the first place.
Elia’s relationship with pasta also extends beyond the dishes served at its tables. For years, the family has produced the fresh pasta used at the restaurant, and that experience has continued to evolve with the next generation.
Sebastián Tomasevich, Elia’s grandson, is now behind Azoka, a project that takes part of that family food tradition beyond the restaurant. Azoka produces fresh pasta, breads, savory pastries and other ready-to-prepare foods without preservatives, vacuum-packing its products to preserve them. Today, they can be found in freezers at neighborhood bodegas around Elia and are also supplied to universities. Its name, Azoka, means “market” in Basque.
I particularly like this part of the story because it shows that keeping a restaurant’s traditions alive doesn’t necessarily mean keeping everything exactly as it was. A family business can evolve, create something new and still carry forward something that began generations earlier.
There is another side of Elia that feels particularly Peruvian.
On weekend mornings, the restaurant serves a traditional Peruvian breakfast, with classics such as tamal and chicharrón.
And somehow, Sunday morning also feels like exactly the right time to experience Elia.
It is the kind of place you go with your family, sit around the table without rushing, and have the sort of breakfast that feels much more like a Sunday ritual than simply going out to eat.
Location: Magdalena del Mar, Lima, Peru
Address: Av. Javier Prado Oeste 299, Magdalena del Mar
Cuisine: Italian-Peruvian
Best for: Family lunches, dinner and weekend breakfast
Reservations: +51 1 261 0720 / +51 1 262 9508
WhatsApp: +51 945 897 710
Instagram: @elia_ristorante
There will always be a new restaurant opening in Lima, a new table everyone wants to book and a new place appearing on our feeds.
And I love discovering those too, but Elia reminded me that not every finding has to be new.
Sometimes, the places worth finding are the ones that have been there all along.
