7 Best Restaurants in Cafayate, The Northwest

Good food and great music roll together at this peña, located in a traditional 19th-century casona that attracts cafayenteños and visitors. Start with tiny beef empanadas and lashings of spicy llajua tomato sauce then follow up with entraña steak with quinoa salad. Once the live music starts, the conversation stops flowing. 

Although the all-female restaurant team caters breakfast for El Porvenir Wine Lodge’s guests, Pausa really comes to life over long lunches held next to the trellis vineyards and at dinner within the colonial-style salon. Salta-born chef Guadalupe Blanco naturally prepares excellent hen and beef empanadas, but also puts a spin on regional classics. Order tortilla, black sausage with free-range eggs, or lamb pie à la carte, or choose the five-course menu; regardless, kick back and savor the moment in this privileged location. The wine list is solely derived from the estate.  

Stop by for a tasting of easy-drinking whites and reds at Bodega Colomé’s sister winery just outside Cafayate, and stay for lunch with beautiful valley views from the foot of Cerro San Isidro. The spacious restaurant and wine bar opened in 2023, a refreshing and contemporary addition to the winery scene, and the solid menu provides several short, paired tasting menus that might include lamb casserole. It’s one of the few wineries to also open for dinner (on weekends). Wine tastings from 10,000 pesos. 

Facing the main plaza, this big barn of a restaurant serves regional specialties (like tamales and cabrito al horno), as well as pastas and classic Argentine steaks. Expect generous portions, a bustling atmosphere, live folk music, and wines from the owner's Bodega Río Colorado, just a block away.

For wine-tasting with a difference, stop at Heladería Miranda in Cafayate. In 1994, at the age of 60, Ricardo Miranda decided that he wasn't going to succeed as a painter. So he turned his creative energy to making wine sorbets, taking two years to perfect the recipe. Sweet yet tangy Torrontés arguably makes sense as a sorbet; the Cabernet makes a good match for his fruit-flavored ice creams. All are made organically on the premises. 

A 102-year-old converted school building houses one of Cafayate's more ambitious regional food restaurants. Overseen by the friendly owner Matías, it has three dining rooms themed after the Nanni, Domingo Hermanos, and Etchart bodegas, with wine displays and special cutlery. The decoration is from all around the world, but the food is strictly local—llama, quinoa, rabbit, kid, and Andean potatoes lead the menu. A convivial wine bar stays open late to serve vino from every bodega in town. There's live music and dancing some weekends.

This place makes the list for its music rather than its food—though the barbecued meats and empanadas are good deals. Singers, musicians, and sometimes dancers bring Peña y Parrillada de la Plaza to life each night.