He sweeps into the press conference like a rock star, dressed in black designer jeans and a black leather jacket. After a brief talk to push an upcoming food festival, Gastón Acurio steps off the stage and is immediately surrounded by TV crews, radio reporters, and food writers, all clamoring for attention and a good shot.

After half an hour facing cameras and interviews, Acurio makes a break for the door, flanked by two massive bodyguards. He climbs into a black S.U.V., a bodyguard slams the door, and they head to La Mar—a seafood restaurant that is just one of Acurio's seven Lima eateries.

Acurio is the most famous chef you've never heard of. In the last five years, the 41-year-old has emerged as a celebrity south of the equator: He has more than a dozen high-end restaurants in Peru, with outposts in Mexico, Panama, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, Colombia, and even Spain, plus a comfort-food chain, two fast-food franchises, a culinary school in Lima, a luxury eco-hotel opening next year, and a hit cooking show that plays constantly on Peruvian TV. Acurio's businesses reportedly made $65 million in 2007, and revenues are expected to nearly double to $120 million in 2008.

Over the last two decades, Peruvian cuisine has gone from being overlooked (even in Peru) to the hottest trend in South America, thanks in part to Acurio's evangelism. "Peruvian cuisine is a phenomenon," says Mayalen Elizondo, a society editor at the Mexico City daily Excelsior. "In Mexico, everyone wants to interview Gastón. He's considered one of the most important chefs in the world."

But Acurio admits that his biggest challenge is yet to come: making Peruvian the new Japanese in the U.S. His first beachhead: A La Mar outlet on San Francisco's Embarcadero that opened in early October and has been packed ever since. "Thirty years ago, there were no Japanese restaurants in the U.S.," Acurio says. "Then one day Americans started eating seaweed and raw fish. Now there's a sushi restaurant on every corner. Why can't we do the same with Peruvian cooking?"

Acurio's plan is to conquer America by using top-end restaurants to brand Peruvian cuisine, then introduce some of his mid-market and fast-food outlets. "The mission is that all these brands will become global," Acurio says. "They all can't do it at the same time—we want to present Peruvian food at the highest level first, and if there's a good reaction, we can put more democratic restaurants in the market."

That's the model that rocketed Acurio to celebrity in less than a decade. After dropping out of law school in Lima, Acurio went to Spain and France, where he enrolled at the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris. When he got back to Lima in 1994, he opened a French restaurant named Astrid & Gastón.

Around the same time, young chefs in Lima were beginning to use—even flaunt—local ingredients in their cooking. The potato was first domesticated in the Peruvian Andes more than 7,000 years ago, and crops including tomatoes, corn, and squash all originated in the highlands of South America. The arrival of the Spanish conquistadors brought European ingredients and cooking techniques to Peru; later waves of immigrants from Africa, China, and Japan all added their own flavors to the mix.