There are many great places to eat in Puerto Escondido. Like many tourist destinations, P.E. has great options because visitors expect to eat out at great businesses on holiday. We tend to enjoy affordable, non-pretentious restaurants the best.
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This article will provide some tasty options for you to drool while planning your trip to Puerto Escondido, Mexico. So crack open a Corona, bust out the guacamole, and get your taste buds ready!
And don’t forget to check out our handy visual map showing you a lot of the restaurants and other places mentioned in this series:
Smoked Fish Tacos
It’s all right there in the name! This legendary smoked fish and shrimp taco shop is located on the eastern end of Rinconada. It’s way off the beaten tourist track and super easy to miss if you don’t go there intentionally.
We honestly fantasize about returning to P.E. just for these tacos. They are the best such tacos we’ve ever had, hands down. Super fresh seafood cooked to perfection, topped with avocado, tomatoes, and lettuce, and finished off with tartar sauce and fresh lime to taste. So simple and delicious.
Even though they are a little pricey by Mexican standards, they are well worth it. A single taco cost about 40 pesos ($2 USD) as of 2017, and three tacos (120 pesos / $6 USD) were sufficient to fill up a meal. We love when restaurants focus on one thing and do it well, and Smoked Fish Tacos is a perfect example of this. Smoked Fish Tacos is our pick for the best place to eat in Puerto Escondido.
El Cafecito
El Cafecito is a Puerto Escondido tradition and is hard to miss if you spend more than a few hours in town. No doubt you’ll notice the bustle of commotion at this frequently-packed establishment: diners chatting, waiters running around, and lines out the door.
It’s packed for a reason: their great food and service. They have a lot of great options on their menu and are reliably open nearly all day long. It’s the closest you’ll get to an American diner experience south of the border. We especially liked going there for breakfast/brunch as they had great coffee and a fresh bakery on site.
Don’t forget to try the local specialty – Oaxacan chilaquiles. El Cafecito prepares a really good version. They also have two locations, one in each of the two main tourist strips: Riconada and Zicatela. And despite generally being busy, they are very efficient, so we’ve never had to wait too long to get a table. Expect to spend about 85 pesos ($4.50 USD) per person for brunch.
La Olita
Considered by many to be the overall best place to eat in Puerto Escondido, La Olita has outstanding Mexican food/tacos. They offer unique taco options such as calamari and shrimp tempura. As you can see from the photos, they are so massive that they’re hard to even fold and eat with your hands!
We spoke to their (Mexican) owner right around the time he re-opened the restaurant in 2016. He was a super nice guy who spoke perfect English and was really passionate about providing an amazing culinary experience. From reviews, it seems he and their staff speak great English, so you don’t need to worry while eating here if your Spanish is poor.
We would have liked to have visited La Olita more during our time in P.E., but there was always a giant black dog they let hang out in the place, which was at the very least off-putting (to us) and unsanitary at worst. Maybe this is not the case anymore. Expect to spend about 125 pesos ($6.50 USD) per person per meal to get enough to feel full. This is definitely higher than average for tacos in Mexico, but the quality is there.
El Sultan
Ah, El Sultan. We did not expect to find great Middle Eastern food in a tiny beach town on the Mexican coast, yet somehow we did! El Sultan was solidly one of a handful of staples in our weekly restaurant rotation when picking where to eat in Puerto Escondido.
Located on the strip in Rinconada, El Sultan adds a pleasant change for anyone taco’d out. We would always share a delicious hummus bowl as an appetizer before chowing down on an Arabic pita wrap main dish with shawarma meat and falafel. They also have a lot of good vegetarian and vegan options.
It’s also one of the better values in town in terms of the amount of quality food you get for the price. We felt very satisfied spending 80 pesos ($4.20 USD) per person, including the hummus appetizer.
Bendito’s Ristorante
Sometimes you just have to satisfy your craving for pizza. We found Bendito’s to be our favorite pizza option in town, a conclusion that must’ve been shared by the many other foreigners we saw eating there on a regular basis.
Conveniently located along Avenida Gasga in the Bahía Principal area, Bandito’s offers many size and topping options. The bread on their thin-crust pizza is deliciously soft yet crispy at the same time.
A full-size pizza for two is a bit pricier than most local food options, but it’s worth it to “splurge” occasionally. The pizza pictured below cost about 270 pesos ($14 USD) and was super tasty. We took it to go to enjoy back at our apartment, hence the cardboard box container!
