Hopefully, what I write will not be a simple rehash of what many others have written, mostly positively, about L'Eau Vive already but will be a useful contribution.
It is in an old and impressive building situated in historic Central Lima.
It has a beautiful facade and a spacious and high ceiling lobby.
The restaurant area itself is quite simple but good sized with comfortable tables and chairs but nothing fancy.
It is run by nuns who were not wearing their habits but it was quite clear that this restaurant was situated in a convent, given the religious pictures, statues, etc., on display and that the staff had their hair covered up. The nuns are quite nice and very attentive but speak no English. Apparently, they are both Spanish and French speaking. We should have guessed, given the name of the restaurant, and tried to communicate in French with them but did not...
However, it is a difficult place to find. We were searching for it to have our lunch there, after consulting Fodor's Travel, but after walking around in Central Lima and just kept missing it, we finally decided to hail a taxi which took us close to it within minutes but not to it since vehicles were not allowed in that area. We arrived at 14h59 and, after reading a sign at the door that indicated that lunch was from 12h30 to 15h00, felt very disappointed. We were on the verge of leaving when I decided to go right inside and ask whether we could be accommodated. A positive answer made us breathe a sigh of relief.
When we entered the restaurant, the four occupiers of one of the two tables in use were leaving. After five to ten minutes, the couple at the other table also left. The nuns then went to close the doors and we were alone for most of the time.
The 3 course lunch menu is a very affordable 19 soles. In addition, we each had a free glass of apple juice. All three of us chose the mushroom soup, then two chose the trout while the third the pork, which proved to be the better choice because it was excellent, as the main course. Finally, one of us chose the delicious ice cream, a generous three scoops while the others chose the quinoa, which was a little disappointment and was left unfinished.
When we had finished and paid for our meals as well as given a tip, the nuns opened the doors for us. When we went out we saw two queues of people already lining at the two doors and the nuns started to immediately distribute bread and other stuff to them. We were happy that we had contributed, even to a very small extent, to the charitable work of these remarkable people. We wish we could have gone back to L'Eau Vive but that was our last day in Peru.
We highly recommend that you give L'Eau Vive a try, you will be guaranteed a memorable experience.