Foreign object, wrong order or excessive delay at a restaurant in Peru: what can you claim?

What the law says

Article 18 of Ley N.º 29571, the Consumer Protection and Defense Code, defines idoneidad as the match between what you expected to receive and what you actually received, based on what was offered, the price, and the circumstances of the case. Article 19 holds the provider — the restaurant — responsible for that idoneidad.

This isn’t a rule written just for restaurants: it applies to any product or service. But it translates directly to three common restaurant situations.

A foreign object in the food

A hair, an insect, a piece of plastic or glass in the dish isn’t what you were offered or what you expected to receive. Under article 18, that’s a failure of idoneidad, with no need for it to have caused any physical harm.

If the foreign object also caused you harm to your health — food poisoning, a cut, a reaction — this page doesn’t cover that part: that case may involve a health authority other than Indecopi, and this site doesn’t yet have a verified page on that. What you can do right away is keep the dish, take photos, and keep the receipt.

A dish other than the one you ordered

If you ordered one dish and were brought another, or were brought the right one but missing ingredients that were on the menu, that also doesn’t match what you were offered. The restaurant should fix it or discount it — charging you for something you didn’t order, or refusing to change it, is the same failure of idoneidad under article 18.

Excessive delay

Here the law doesn’t give a number of minutes. Article 18 measures idoneidad “given the circumstances of the case”: what’s reasonable at a fast-food place isn’t the same as at a multi-course restaurant with a full house.

That doesn’t mean you can’t complain. It means the delay is judged case by case, and it helps to note the time you ordered and the time the dish arrived, so you have something to support the complaint if you decide to file one.

How to complain

The path is the same for all three situations:

1. Say something on the spot, to the waiter or the manager. Many cases get resolved right there.
2. If it isn’t resolved, ask for the complaints book and file your complaint. The restaurant has fifteen non-extendable business days to respond in writing (Ley N.º 31435, articles 24.1 and 152).
3. If they don’t respond or the response doesn’t satisfy you, Indecopi’s Reclama Virtual conciliates for free. If you want the restaurant sanctioned, that’s a denuncia filed through mesa de partes, which opens a separate sanctioning procedure.