La Mora Pastelería & Café

It takes a corner of Av. Emilio Cavenecia 114, half a block from Óvalo Gutiérrez, with a dining room, a long display case and valet parking. The house says it began in 1996 with a German immigrant and his traditional bakery and pastry recipes, and that his daughter joined the business in 2008 with a more contemporary European turn. Cakes and viennoiserie lead the counter — reviewers single out the pistachio croissant — and the menu adds breakfasts, sandwiches and coffee; Google flags the corn cake as popular. Our read: this is one of those pastry shops that let themselves become a café without giving up the counter, and it works equally for picking up a cake and for sitting down to work — it opens at 8, has free wifi and closes no day of the year. Curation note: the brand has three locations (San Isidro, Miraflores and Surco) and this entry is the San Isidro one, which the house's own website lists first; since Google publishes no price range, the level is an estimate.