Neira Café Lab

Neira Café Lab is one of the names that built Lima's specialty coffee scene, and its café on Calle Enrique Palacios in Miraflores is where it started. The founder, Harry Neira, won Peru's National Barista Championship in 2013 after finishing second two years running, and learned his trade at Café Verde, one of the city's pioneering roasters. Coffee runs in the family: his grandmother roasted and ground beans in northern Peru with a batán, the traditional stone grinder. When the café opened its first shop, Neira described it as a centre for many ideas rather than just a coffee bar.

Since then the business has grown steadily. It now runs eleven specialty cafés, all in Lima, including sit-down cafés on Enrique Palacios, Dos de Mayo, Chacarilla and Aurora, as well as coffee bars inside the offices of several of Peru's large banks, for which it creates custom blends. It roasts around 36 tonnes of coffee a year and is moving its roasting to a new coffee centre in Surquillo, with plans to expand to the United States and Europe. Its stated aim is to make the world fall in love with Peruvian coffee, and it plans to restart a barista and roasting school with a social purpose, aimed at new baristas and the children of coffee producers.

The coffee itself comes from Peruvian producers, with beans from regions including Cusco and Cajamarca. Order an espresso or a filter coffee if you want to taste the origin clearly, or a cappuccino or americano if you prefer something familiar. The café was supplying Central's coffee when it first opened, which says something about the standard.

The Enrique Palacios café is a simple, relaxed space that has long been recommended as a good place to work for an hour or two. It suits coffee lovers, remote workers and anyone who wants a quiet break from the busier streets of Miraflores.

Opening hours vary between branches and are not published in a form we could confirm, so check before you make a special trip. Combine a visit with a walk to Huaca Pucllana or the clifftop malecón, both in Miraflores, or bring home a bag of beans as a souvenir of Peru's coffee regions.