112 Best Restaurants in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Early risers and those heading off on fishing charters will appreciate the daily 5 am opening time. The café, which is filled with wonderful art for sale, has fruit smoothies, coffee in many manifestations, and tasty frappés with Oreo cookie bits or frosting-topped carrot cake.

Typical food of the countryside—enchiladas, tamales, pozole, beefsteak with beans and tortillas, and so on—is served in an equally typical family home that has been expanded to welcome guests. Straw-bottom chairs are comfortable enough, and the oilcloths shiny and new. The small bar is at the back behind the large, open kitchen. It's open for breakfast, too.

Fine Italian food can be found at any of the three locations of this well-known local business. Casual attire is expected, with the location in Nuevo Vallarta being somewhat fancier and ideal for either romantic dinners or family reunions.

Sayulita institution Don Pedro's has wonderful pizzas baked in a wood-fire oven, prepared by European-trained chef and co-owner Nicholas Parrillo. Also on the menu are consistently reliable seafood dishes, yummy salade niçoise, and tapenade. The mesquite-grilled filet mignon is just about the best around; it comes with baby vegetables, mashed potatoes, and pita bread. The pretty second-floor dining room, with the better view, is open when the bottom floor fills up, usually during the high season (November to May). During high season they also have dance classes and dancing to Latin tunes, currently on Monday, and live flamenco guitar on Thursday. This is a good spot for breakfast, too.

This restaurant is an institution among locals and visitors who know that there's more than just all-inclusive hotels in Nuevo Vallarta. Eddie’s Place is one of the few expat meeting points in the area. Go for the company, stay for the food.

Locals come here for weekend brunch. They serve truly authentic huevos rancheros and all those delicious dishes that make traditional Mexican cuisine so hard to resist. They host live music on certain days.

El Barracuda is that cool restaurant we all dream to have one day when we retire by the beach: casual and relaxed, with some tables right on the beach and others on top of a nice deck overlooking the Banderas Bay. They specialize in the kind of seafood you can find in Mexican markets, but you can also find great steaks and even some veggie options.

It's on a noisy street corner, but the seriously good food and generous portions make this a local favorite. The molcajete—a sizzling black pot of tender flank steak, grilled green onion, and soft white cheese in a delicious homemade sauce of dried red peppers—is served with a big plate of guacamole, refried beans, and made-at-the-moment corn or flour tortillas. If you're into simpler fare, the unadorned grilled fish fillet is fresh and delicious.

This Bucerías branch of El Brujo is located right on the beach but with the same food and generous portions as the original location in Puerto Vallarta. The molcajete—a sizzling black pot of tender flank steak, grilled green onion, and soft white cheese in a delicious homemade sauce of dried red peppers—is served with a big plate of guacamole, refried beans, and made-at-the-moment corn or flour tortillas. Try the breaded scallops, stuffed fish with shrimp and creamy huitlacoche (black corn fungus) sauce, or a grilled skirt steak with mushrooms and bell peppers bathed in tomato sauce. If you're into simpler fare, the unadorned grilled fish fillet is fresh and delicious, too.

Widely considered by locals as the best taco place in downtown Vallarta, El Carboncito offers the full taco experience with chairs on the sidewalk and plates covered with plastic bags. However, don't let the aesthetics and lack of amenities fool you—pretty much anything you'll try here is simply delicious. 

The ambience at this patio restaurant facing the boats and the marina is casual and festive; the crowd hums with contentment while other restaurants nearby seemingly have been drained of clientele. There is live music (mainly mariachi) most days.

"The Blacksmith" will win no awards for cuisine (or, for that matter, decoration), but it's often filled with families of pilgrims, and the locals recommend it, too. The menu offers mainly meat dishes, including burgers with fries, plus antojitos, gorditas, and sopes (all cornmeal-based, fried concoctions stuffed with meat or beans and, in the case of the latter, topped with beans and salsa), pozole, and quesadillas. The tortillas are made fresh at the back of the restaurant. Half orders are available, and there's a bar serving national booze and beer.

El Patio de Mario serves traditional Mexican food in a clean, calm environment with a gorgeous open patio and friendly staff. Forget what you know about Mexican food; come here and try their birria or menudo, exquisite soups of pre-Hispanic origins. Open for breakfast or lunch, it also sells raicilla to go.

For an informal bite on any given evening, there's nothing like Food Park PV. Here you'll find a variety of snacks, beer, live music, and good vibes, all in a refreshing outdoor atmosphere.

Even in low season, Fredy's, next door to the Hotel Posada de Roger, is packed full of Mexican families, gringo friends, and local businesspeople. Your mug of coffee will be refilled without having to beg; service is brisk, professional, and friendly. Breakfast is the meal of choice, with pancakes and waffles, Mexican specialties, omelets, and eggs Benedict with thick slices of ham. The lunch menu is abbreviated but offers soups, salads, burgers, nachos, and quesadillas. Eat on the pretty covered patio, or inside, where big plate-glass windows let you keep an eye on busy Calle Basilio Badillo.

Ivy climbs blond, hacienda-style columns, and chandeliers bathe in a romantic light in the second-floor dining room of this stunningly restored boutique hotel and restaurant. The chef has a restrained hand when it comes to salt and spices; recipes are straightforward yet neither bland nor boring.

A mix between a sports bar and a restaurant, the food here is legendary. Big burgers, ribs, hot dogs, and of course Mexican seafood all come in generous portions. You'll often find Juan himself having fun with patrons and checking to make sure you're enjoying your meal.

Viennese entrées dominate the menu, which is modified each year when the restaurant participates in PV's culinary festival. The adjacent café has sandwiches, excellent desserts, and 20 specialty coffees—all of which are also available at the main restaurant. To avoid the stream of street peddlers off the patio, eat in the charming, European-style dining room.

Near the malecón's north end, this world-famous franchise restaurant with a fun-loving atmosphere has a bit of a sea view from its second-floor dining room and a Caribbean flavor. Like its Havana namesake, La Bodeguita sells Cuban rum and cigars, and the music (canned during the day, live at night)—like the cuisine—is pure cubano. Try the mojito, a signature Havana drink of lime juice, sugar, white rum, and muddled fresh mint leaves.

La Cascada y Bosque, simply known in town as “Cascada,” is a wonderful place for breakfast or lunch even when the waterfalls are just a water drop. The jungle setting here is spectacular and begs for a stroll before or after your meal. For breakfast you can choose typical Mexican dishes or the American-style breakfast with bacon and eggs. For lunch, you should try their fish and empanadas.

La Cevichería is one of the best seafood restaurants in the Marina Vallarta area. It's not as tasty as other places in town but definitely more stylish. Its Nayarit-based cuisine offers flavors not easily found in PV.

This restaurant, part of a small inn, might look like just another Mexican restaurant from the outside, but there is more than what meets the eye. The cuisine is mostly international, with Greek dishes like gyros.

La Dolce is the sister restaurant of La Dolce Vista located in the malecón, and although it also provides a variety of Italian dishes, it focuses on serving the best pizzas in the Hotel Zone.

During breakfast the cuisine is typically Mexican, while at lunch it goes more Mediterranean, and after 4 pm, La Duna becomes a sunset bar and social club. The atmosphere is a bit more relaxed than in other establishments inside the Costa Careyes development. La Duna is right in front of Playa Careyes. 

Shell lamps; pictures made entirely of scallops, bivalves, and starfish; shell-drenched chandeliers—every inch of wall space is decorated with different denizens of the sea. Service isn't particularly brisk (pretty much par for the course in laid-back San Blas), but the seafood, filet mignon, and fajitas are all quite good. Afterward stroll over to the main plaza a few blocks away.

Locals come for the Naples-style pizza, cooked in a brick oven and with a crust that's not too thick, not too thin. There's also great pasta and a good variety of entrées, like salmon with caviar, and lemon and broccoli with fettuccine in cream sauce served piping hot. For appetizers try the tomato-topped bruschetta toasts or steamed mussels with lemon, parsley, and butter. A new location has opened in the residential district behind Costco and the northern hotel zone.

Right on the beach just north of the pier at Playa Los Muertos, Langostinos is a great place to start the day with a helping of Mexican rock music, cranked up to a respectable volume. For lunch or dinner, the house favorite at this professional and pleasant place is surf and turf (called mar y tierra), and the three seafood combos are a good value. The kids can play on the beach while you linger over coffee.

Perched on a hill overlooking the Boca de Tomatlán little cove, Le Kliff has an extraordinary setting; couples choose to get married here because of the views. Though a bit stuffy, this is a great place to impress a date. The menu includes exotic delicacies such as oysters zarandeado style and satay shrimp with coconut and cream cheese. 

You can spend the whole day here on loungers enjoying the beach, the ocean, delicious food, and refreshing micheladas. They specialize in seafood, pescado zarandeado, ceviche, and obviously coconuts, but you can order absolutely anything and won’t be disappointed. You can also rent a kayak or play beach volleyball. The owner, Oscar, is always ready to help. No stress, no pressure.