Peru is in the midst a gastronomic revolution. Its army: thousands of culinary students. Its leader: the Peruvian chef Gastón Acurio. Its weapons: centuries of ethnic fusion. Can an entire nation be represented by its cuisine? This documentary journeys to the kitchens of Peru’s coast, highlands and jungle, as well as Peruvian expat communities in Paris, London, Amsterdam and New York for answers.

From the most humble family kitchens to the poshest restaurants, from stories of pioneering Peruvian chefs abroad to those who preserve ancient recipes at home, we find that Peru’s cuisine is deliciously integrating for its people, who have historically been divided by ethnic and economic differences. This documentary isn't just about food. This documentary is about integration, challenges, culture, poverty and wealth. We’ll discover the origin of Peru's ubiquitous national dish – cebiche – the anticuchos of beef hearts or the annual meal mourners share at the graves of their dead relatives.Famed chefs such as Spain's Ferran Adrià, as well as Peru's Gastón Acurio share their views and experiences with Peru’s cuisine alongside the thousands of unsung chefs, who also dream of Peru’s cuisine as a motor of development.

Ernesto Cabellos was born in Lima in 1968. In 1994, he founded Guarango, a non-profit association production house for development-oriented audio-visual projects. Director and producer of feature-length documentaries on to environmental conflicts in his country, such as the internationally-lauded “Choropampa: The Price of Gold” (2002) and “ Tambogrande: Mangos, Murder and Mining” (2007). Cabellos now presents “Cooking Up Dreams” (2009), his third feature documentary, a film that explores a point of convergence in his home country: Peruvian cuisine. Cabellos is also working on a series of documentary shorts on the political violence in Peru from 1980-2000 in which close to 70 000 people were killed.