A Nikkei menu can read like a language exam. Tiger's milk. Cancha. Acevichado. Huacatay. Yuzu kosho. Half the words are Spanish, half are Japanese, and some of them are both.

We do not think you should need a dictionary to order dinner. But we also think the words are worth knowing, because each one carries a piece of the story. Learn a handful and the whole menu starts to make sense.

So here is the menu, read the way our kitchen reads it: starting raw, moving to the fire, finishing at the sushi counter.

Part one: the raw bar

This is where Nikkei begins, and where the two cuisines meet most directly. Peruvian acid and chilli, applied to fish handled with Japanese precision.

Tiger's milk

Leche de tigre is the citrus marinade at the heart of a ceviche. Lime, chilli, onion and the juices of the fish, blended into something sharp, savoury and alive. In Peru, people drink what is left in the bowl. Some swear it cures a hangover.

It is also the part of a ceviche that chefs argue about most, because it is where the personality of the dish lives. Ours changes from plate to plate. The Seabass Ceviche uses a mango and passion fruit tiger's milk, so the acid arrives with fruit behind it. The Ceviche Deluxe, with seabass, prawn and scallop, uses one built on roasted peppers, rounder and deeper. The Salmon Ceviche goes another way again, with an acevichado tiger's milk, trout roe and chilli oil.

Cancha and choclo

Peru grows corn in more shapes and colours than most of the world has seen. Two of them show up on our plates.

Cancha is corn toasted until it cracks and goes crunchy. In Peru it sits on the table the way bread does in Europe, and it is the classic partner to ceviche because it gives you something to crunch against all that softness and acid. You will find it scattered through our ceviches, and as a bowl of its own if you want something to pick at while you decide.

Choclo is the opposite: a large-kernel Andean corn, boiled, soft and sweet. Its job is to calm the heat down between bites.

Tiradito

If you want to see Japan's influence on Peru in a single dish, order a tiradito. It is a ceviche that went through a Japanese kitchen. Instead of cubes, the fish is sliced thin, like sashimi. Instead of marinating, it is dressed at the last moment, so the fish stays the star.

Our Hamachi Tiradito uses yellowtail with yuzu truffle soy, daikon and aji amarillo. Order it next to a ceviche and you will taste the difference between the two methods on the same table.

Aji amarillo

The yellow chilli of Peru, and arguably the backbone of its cooking. It brings heat, but the first thing you notice is fruit. If Peruvian food has a signature flavour, this is it.

Acevichado

A genuinely Nikkei invention. A creamy sauce that brings together Japanese mayonnaise and the flavours of ceviche, born in the Nikkei kitchens of Lima. It is what you get when two cuisines stop being polite to each other and start actually cooking together. It finishes our Bamboo Maki and our Salmon Ceviche.

Part two: the robata

The second half of Nikkei happens over fire.

Robata

The robata is a Japanese charcoal grill, built for cooking slowly over glowing coals rather than open flame. It is the reason so many of our dishes carry smoke without bitterness.

Anticucho

Anticuchos are Peru's great street food: marinated skewers grilled over coals on street corners across the country, traditionally made with beef heart. The marinade is what makes them, rich with chilli, garlic and vinegar.

Put an anticucho marinade on a Japanese grill and you have one of the most natural combinations in Nikkei cooking. Our Chicken Anticucho is grilled chicken thigh in anticucho sauce, over mashed potato with salsa verde. The same marinade runs through the Lamb Chops, the Grilled Octopus and the Grilled Sweet Potato, where it meets feta and pickle.

Huacatay

Peruvian black mint, and probably the least familiar word on the menu. It tastes like a cross between mint, basil and something more resinous. It is central to Andean cooking and almost unknown in London. We serve it as a sauce with the Ribeye, alongside chimichurri, and with the Pork Belly.

Part three: the sushi counter

The Japanese side of Nikkei is most visible here, but it does not stay purely Japanese for long.

Maki, nigiri and aburi

Maki are rolls. Nigiri is a slice of fish laid over a small pressed ball of rice. Aburi means the fish has been flame-seared on top, just enough to warm the fat and bring out the flavour, as on our Salmon Aburi nigiri.

Yuzu kosho and shichimi

Yuzu kosho is a Japanese paste of yuzu peel, chilli and salt: sharp, hot and fragrant all at once. It tops the seabass in our Nikkei Nigiri, a four-piece selection that also includes salmon kizami, tuna with foie gras and yellowtail with truffle.

Shichimi is a Japanese seven-spice blend built around chilli. A pinch of it finishes the Bamboo Maki and the Spicy Tuna.

The third influence nobody mentions

Nikkei is usually described as Japanese meets Peruvian. But Peruvian food already carried another Asian influence long before Japanese immigrants arrived.

From the middle of the nineteenth century, large numbers of Chinese workers came to Peru, and their cooking became so woven into Peruvian life that it has its own name: chifa. Two of Peru's most loved everyday dishes come from it.

Lomo saltado is beef stir-fried in a wok with onion, tomato and soy, Peruvian ingredients cooked with Chinese technique. Chaufa is Peruvian fried rice. Both are on our lunch menu at Canary Wharf, and our Chaufa Rice is finished with crunchy cancha, which tells you exactly where it was born.

What to drink

The Pisco Sour is Peru's national cocktail: pisco, lime, egg white and Angostura, which we sweeten with goma syrup. You will find it on our bar list at Canary Wharf.

Chicha morada is a deep purple drink made from Peruvian purple corn, spiced with cinnamon and brightened with fruit. In Peru it is everyday drinking, and it is our most Peruvian mocktail. It also turns up in our Spicy Margarita.

On the Japanese side, there is sake, from sweet to Junmai Ginjo, and Japanese whisky including Suntory Toki and Hibiki. And if you look closely at the wine list, you will find a few bottles from Moldova, where the ceramics on your table were thrown by hand.

How to put it together

Nikkei is built for sharing, so order across the menu rather than down it.

For two, start with a ceviche and a tiradito side by side. Add one dish from the robata, an anticucho or the lamb chops, to bring smoke against all that acid. Finish with a maki or a few pieces of nigiri, which taste completely different after chilli and charcoal than they would as a first course.

If you would rather not choose, the tasting menus do it for you. The Nikkei Voyage moves through the Ceviche Deluxe, Hamachi Tiradito, Chicken Anticucho, Ox Cheek and Dragon Maki. The Vegetarian Tasting builds the same journey from vegetables, with a veg ceviche, an artichoke tostada and the grilled sweet potato.

When F Word Magazine wrote about our Canary Wharf restaurant, they picked out the ceviche, the robata and the dedicated vegetarian tasting menu. Which, now you know the words, is most of the menu.

You do not need to remember any of this when you sit down. Our team will happily walk you through it. But the next time you see tiger's milk or huacatay on a menu, you will know exactly what you are ordering, and where it came from.

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