Sumaq Machu Picchu Hotel

Sumaq is the Peruvian-owned property at the foot of the Aguas Calientes valley — a sixty-room hotel built to face the Vilcanota river, not the town. The architecture is contemporary Peruvian: stone walls in dialogue with the landscape, generous interior light, a central courtyard that catches the river breeze. What separates Sumaq from the international-chain options in the same price range is what happens at table.

The hotel's restaurant, Wiñay, is the most serious kitchen in Aguas Calientes — a multi-course Andean tasting menu that draws ingredients from the same surrounding valleys the morning's hike crosses. Wiñay is not a hotel restaurant that happens to be good. It is a destination restaurant that happens to share an address with a hotel. For travellers who care that the dinner after Machu Picchu is itself worth the trip, Sumaq is the only Aguas Calientes property that delivers that combination.