Restaurants in Puerto Rico
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St Germain Bistro & Café
Kudos to the chef for transforming the main course salads – so often the dullest dish on the menu – into something fresh, tasty and filling. Then there’s the aromatic Puerto Rican coffee, the delicious paninis and the homemade cakes which can only be described as melt-in-your-mouth heavenly. Nestled on the corner of Sol and Cruz, the St Germain is a bright neighborhood place with down-to-earth service, interesting clientele and a distinct European feel. Perfect for breakfast, lunch or a light dinner.
reviewed
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B
Dinghy Dock
If you can brave the gauntlet of cigarette-smoking expats that requisition the steps nightly, you’ll find the DD to be something of a culinary revelation. Unusually for Puerto Rico, there’s an all-you-can-eat salad bar to quell your early hunger pangs, and you can chomp on your lettuce and cucumber while watching the kitchen staff throw morsels of food to the giant tarpon that swim right up to the deck. Fish is the obvious specialty here – fresh catches such as swordfish and snapper done in creole sauces. The busy bar is a frenzy of expats nursing Medalla beers and acts as the unofficial island grapevine. If you haven’t heard it here first, it’s not worth…
reviewed
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La Bombonera
The old-fashioned coffee machine hisses like a steam engine, career waiters in black trousers appear like royal footmen at your table, and a long line of seen-it-all sanjuaneros populate the lengthy row of bar stools, catching up on the local breakfast gossip. It shouldn’t take you long to work out that La Bombonera is a city institution: it’s been around since 1902 and still sells some of the best cakes in town. Come here for breakfast, lunch or an early evening snack attack and soak up the unique Latin ambience over a copy of the San Juan Star.
reviewed
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Tantra
For purists, eating Masala Dosa in Puerto Rico is probably about as incongruous as chomping on mofongo in Madras, but for those willing to drop the cultural blinkers, Tantra’s adventurous ‘Indo-Latin fusion’ cuisine is actually rather authentic. It helps that the chef’s from South India. It also helps that the restaurant’s Asian-inspired decor, which places exotic lampshades among carved Buddhas, sets your taste buds traveling inexorably east. The pièce de résistance is the belly dancing that kicks off nightly at nine-ish.
reviewed
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Ajili-Mójili
The waiters wear hats and the reception displays aromatic cigars from the Dominican Republic, so leave your sandals and singlet in your room and venture out to this classy Condado classic. Housed in one of the neighborhood’s few remaining eclectic mansions, the menu is high-end comida criolla – such as island-style pork loin with mofongo – while the atmosphere is refined and romantic. Expect discreet service and sky-high prices.
reviewed
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Duffy’s
Esperanza’s newest bar is a sleeker and slightly more refined version of Banana’s next door. It fills a gap in the market with fresh salads and creative seafood, but still nurtures an undone Caribbean flavor. Opening out onto Esperanza’s main strip, the laid-back street atmosphere infiltrates the shady interior where expats and locals mingle over beer and scallops.
reviewed
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El Pulpo Loco
El Pulpo Loco is a criollo place that also rents out bikes.
reviewed
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Chez Shack
What have ’60s psychedelic band the Mamas and Papas and Vieques’ most bohemian restaurant got in common? They both owe at least a part of their success to expat impresario and restaurateur Hugh Duffy. In the 1960s, Duffy owned a restaurant called ‘Love Shack’ on the nearby island of St Thomas, where he hosted folk-music nights with a quartet of spaced-out hippies called the New Journeymen. It was an important first break. But while the Journeymen changed their name to the Mamas and Papas and headed off to LA for some California Dreamin’, Duffy transplanted himself 13 miles to the west where he opened up Chez Shack, a quirky Caribbean hangout that quickly began…
reviewed
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Trois Cent Onze
After putting all his creative energy into his food, French owner Christophe Gourdain presumably couldn’t muster up enough energy to think up an original name for his formidable culinary extravaganza: hence Trois Cent Onze (311), the place’s numerical address on Fortaleza St. With its well-established French connection, 311 has the words ‘elegant, ’ ‘refined’ and ‘sophisticated’ written all over it, conjuring up classy European cuisine without too many of those Latino-fusion makeovers (alas, no mofongo with a camembert twist here). Glide into one of the island’s most romantic interiors, awash with billowing white curtains, flickering candles and delightful…
reviewed
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La Piedra
Cough too loudly here and you could end up on the local radio. La Piedra, situated next to the Piedra Degetau Park is a long-time mountain institution that also accommodates the recording studios of Radio Cumbre. Yes, that guy on the next table behind the thick pane of reinforced glass isn’t a waiter wearing ear muffs; he’s a DJ reaching out over the airwaves on 1470AM. Broadcasting credentials aside, La Piedra serves up some rather decent food to accompany its regular diet of music and topical chat – chicken in a tamarind sauce and chicken broth and mofongo (mashed plantains) are popular local favorites. Thanks to its prime Ruta Panorámica location it also acts as…
reviewed
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E Franco & Co
Most of Puerto Rico’s culinary legends are less than 20 years old, but this salt-of-the-earth grocery-store-cum-café has been here for over a century and a half and is still drawing in punters from as far away as San Juan for a monthly stock up. Cocooned in the waterfront warehouse district, Franco’s is an upmarket place with tables scattered around a glass-topped deli counter in the style of an old English tearoom. Order your lunch from a set menu and you’ll receive a complimentary brazo gitano that goes down well with a cup of fine Puerto Rican coffee. Stocked with assorted condiments, fresh baked goods and opulent hampers, the store affords plenty of…
reviewed
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Galloway’s Bar & Restaurant
Snowbirds Welcome’ reads the sign out the front, but those four-seasoned spring-breakers from Minneapolis you’ve just spied sitting out on the waterfront deck aren’t the only birds pecking at the food. Small black feathered creatures will make a beeline for any spare tasty morsels, so hold on to your seafood crab salad and freshly prepared octopus before it all ends up as bird-feed. Something of a local legend, Galloway’s combines great seafood with a picturesque waterfront setting on Boquerón’s rustic downtown strip. It’s terrific for children, too.
All pretense of being a restaurant is dropped by 9pm on weekends, when a yuppie crowd shows up for live 1980s…
reviewed
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Parrot Club
The menu’s in Spanglish, the decor’s a lurid mix of orange, blue and yellow, and the waitress could quite conceivably be sporting a pink wig. Welcome to the Parrot Club, where Puerto Rican politicians wind down and enamored gringos live it up. Until the Parrot’s opening in 1996, the concept of SoFo didn’t even exist. But, with its caustic blend of live jazz and tasty ‘nuevo Latino ’ cuisine, this restaurant quickly set new standards and spawned the ultimate in neighborhood chic – an acronym. Now well into its second decade the menu continues to win kudos with its eclectic crabcakes caribeños, pan-seared tuna and vegetarian tortes.
reviewed
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Aquaviva
Designed with an arty water/sea-life theme – all turquoise blues and brilliant whites – the house specialty is seafood, in particular the cerviches, with plenty of patrons rolling in just to savor an appetizer with a pre-dinner cocktail. Often packed to the rafters, Aquaviva was invented with the word ‘hip’ in mind. Everything from the open-view kitchen to the catwalk clientele is slavishly stylish. But the real test is the food: fresh oysters, calamari filled with shredded beef, and dorado with lightly grilled bell peppers, seasoned with garlic and served with plantains. It has been voted one of the top 75 restaurants in the world.
reviewed
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Café Berlin
You’ve probably heard about the Taíno, the Spanish, the French and the Americans, but the German influence in Puerto Rico is less well documented, unless you wind up sampling sweet pastries on the pleasant terrace here. In a setting that’s more Viennese than Caribbean, the Café Berlin serves fresh European-style food with a strong vegetarian/vegan bias. Check out the veggie pizza, the tofu done any which way you want and don’t leave without ordering a manjito (a mango-flavored mojito). The sweet Teutonic deserts are positively sinful and the German rye bread is so popular that they fly it on demand over to Culebra.
reviewed
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Dragonfly
Duck nachos – say no more! Safe in its mantle as the hippest of the hip, Dragonfly is SoFo’s most stylish culinary innovator; the G-spot of the Latin-Asian fusion movement that brims nightly with a plethora of self-assured, well-dressed and, frankly, beautiful people. Presuming you pass the dress inspection on the door and survive the shock of your initial entrance (the place resembles a dark red bordello – all dim lamp shades and decorative mirrors), try following up with a hard-hitting Dragon Punch cocktail before you dive into a menu awash with the wonderful and the plain weird (yes, those duck nachos).
reviewed
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Tapas Café
Central San Germán has a perplexing dearth of decent restaurants so if you’re staying in town for more than one day you’ll probably end up here at least twice. Thankfully both the food and atmosphere are great, and on a busy night with a little bit of imagination you can picture yourself in the Triana district of Seville. Flamenco and bullfighting paraphernalia adorn the walls, while the plates are decorated with delicious fare such as albondigas (meatballs), queso manchego (Manchego cheese), tortilla española (Spanish omelette) and jamon serrano (cured Spanish ham).
reviewed
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Juanita Bananas
This revolutionary restaurant gives new meaning to the words ‘fresh’ and ‘sustainable.’ Sporting its very own greenhouse and garden, almost all of the fruit, vegetables and herbs listed on the menu will have traveled only a few hundred yards before hitting your plate. The seafood is also local and fished using sustainable methods. Specialties include tasty soups, fruity desserts and the famous sofrito sauce (garlic, onions and pepper browned in olive oil and capped with achiote – annato seeds). The restaurant is situated on a small rise about half a mile from Dewey. Reservations are necessary.
reviewed
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Che’s
Che T-shirts aren’t too common in Puerto Rico, where the man who promised to ‘create two, three…many Vietnams’ in the Americas is regarded with a certain degree of suspicion. That said, you might see the odd red-starred beret in here tucking into churrasco and parrillada (grilled, marinated steak), or veal chops with a kind of revolutionary zeal. Generally considered to be the best Argentinean food around, Che’s is popular with sanjuaneros and expats of all political persuasions who allow themselves to be united momentarily by a bloody good steak.
reviewed
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Belly Button’s
Make a beeline for breakfast at Belly Button’s and bring a good appetite. Your belly will be more than happy after you’ve heroically demolished the three Frisbee-sized pancakes that appear rather magically on your plate here. Consisting of a small collection of alfresco tables located outside a kitchen trailer on the malecón, this expat-run breakfast phenomenon conjures up enough food to keep you going until 6pm. Grab a copy of the San Juan Star, help yourself to a mug of gourmet coffee and make plans for a day of breathtaking action – or indolence.
reviewed
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Happy Belly’s
When the swell is good you could almost surf right up to the verandah here and place your lunch order with the dude waiter before paddling back out to catch a last wave. Perched above magnificent Playa Jobos, Happy Belly’s confronts the sea head on, offering front-row seats for one of Puerto Rico’s most visually dazzling surfing ‘shows.’ Food is of the simple burger and fish variety, but this place is more about setting than scrumptious cuisine. Order a cold Medalla beer and grab a wooden booth among the suntanned surf groupies and boogie boarders. There are also rooms available here.
reviewed
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Café Media Luna
Romance is not dead in Vieques’ original ‘posh’ restaurant where candlelit tables and a tiny street-side balcony add panache to any meal. And there’s more. Isabel II’s music scene more or less begins and ends in this attractive colonial building where smooth live jazz accompanies lamb chops, seared tuna and rather authentic pizza. OK, so the price is a little steep, but with a comprehensive wine list and free entertainment provided by the pizza-tossing chefs in the open-sided kitchen, you might just be inspired to dust off your credit card.
reviewed
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La Casa de Los Pasteliollos
After seeing the sorry excuse for what passes for pasteliollos elsewhere – dry as dirt and trapped under a merciless heat lamp– you might not recognize the namesake of this seaside patio restaurant. The ambitious variations of the fried staple (shark? octopus? pizza?) are made to order, arriving as greasy, seafood-stuffed slices of heaven. More ample, healthful options are also lovingly made, based around fresh catches. Add in the view of crashing waves and dreamy hammocks tied between palms, and this is the best lunch spot on the south coast.
reviewed
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Pamela’s
Right on the beach and right on the money, Pamela’s is encased inside the elegant Numero Uno guesthouse. Diners sup wine and munch on scallops beside a teardrop-shaped swimming pool while the ocean crashes just feet away. The menu specializes in fresh ingredients plucked from the nearby sea – think jalapeño-ginger shrimp and seafood chowder – though there are surprise twists with everything from Asian to Puerto Rican influences. The place is tucked away, but that hasn’t prevented it from becoming an open secret. Reserve ahead.
reviewed
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La Playa Minimarket
Run by brothers Evan and Irving, this little place is a well-situated (though not too well-stocked) bar and grill/minimarket, though the latter is only evident from a stock of dusty cans, mosquito repellent and dish soap. The food here is certainly a family affair: homemade sandwiches criolla and blood sausage come steaming from the tiny small kitchen, and the food is available to go. The beer is cheap and the locals feisty; they dance to a TV in the corner playing videos of old salsa bands. This is the ideal place to get away from the other tourists.
reviewed