Causa

Cold mashed yellow potato bound with lime juice, ají amarillo paste, and oil, pressed into layered terrines or moulds with fillings between the potato layers — typically tuna mayonnaise, prawn-and-avocado, or shredded chicken — and topped with sliced hard-boiled egg, olive, and a sliver of avocado. Served chilled as an elegant starter or light meal. The signature is the cool, faintly spicy potato wrapped in lime acid and ají amarillo's fruity-warm character, set against a cold protein-and-mayonnaise filling that adds savoury richness and a textural contrast to the smooth potato. A more refined Peruvian dish than anticuchos or lomo saltado — gentle, lime-driven, cold, with the potato as the textural unifier. Assuming tuna or prawn causa, the most common preparations.

Pairs Perfectly

Albariño from Rías Baixas, Spain. Atlantic salinity meets the cold seafood filling, the saline-stone-fruit-and-acid spine handles the lime-and-ají potato cleanly, and the moderate body matches the dish's substance without overwhelming the cold register. An Alvarinho-led Vinho Verde from Monção e Melgaço offers the same logic with sharper saline cut at a more accessible price point.

Pairs Well

Argentine Torrontés from Salta. High-altitude floral aromatics meet ají amarillo's fruity-warm character and the avocado precisely, and the moderate alcohol stays kind to the chilli — the South American answer for the South American dish.

Eden Valley Riesling, dry, South Australia. Where the lime in the potato base is dialled up and the dish leans citric, Eden Valley's lime precision and additional mineral structure meets the analytical signal directly, with cool-climate Australian restraint that matches the dish's elegance.

Worth Seeking Out

Hunter Valley Semillon, New South Wales, Australia. Bone-dry, low-alcohol (10 to 11%), with a lime-zest and lemongrass profile that meets the lime-and-ají potato with rare precision, and the unoaked structure stays clean against the seafood — the most underrated dry white in the world for this kind of refined cold dish.

Avoid

Oaked wines — react with the seafood filling to produce metallic flavours; tannic reds — clash with the cold potato and the fish entirely; sweet wines — fight the savoury cold register; aromatic whites with rose or lychee — overwhelm the gentle dish.

Failing That

A Picpoul de Pinet, Languedoc.

If All Else Fails

Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough.

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