What to eat & drink San Juan
A few of our favorite spots to hit in the delightful Puerto Rico
Travel guides are baaack
It’s been a minute since we whipped these out, but Mat Spade, who is our travel editor and a master curator of good vibes, has just come back from San Juan with the rundown on what’s good to eat & drink there, so we need to share that with you.
He has a colorful eye for design, strong personal taste, building a home, and how to travel well.
If you want to get to know Mat better, here’s an interview I did with him last year. Also, please give Mat a follow for more zinger content.
Last, here are the guides we’ve done on:
Got a city we should cover next? Drop it in the comments!
El Vino Crudo
One of the places I was most pumped to visit in the city was El Vino Crudo; a recently opened wine bar and restaurant in the Old Town. You know when you get a sense of a place even though you’ve only seen snippets online? Felt like my kind of place from the off.
Nestled up one of the many tiny side streets in the area, this darkly lit restaurant was far more than I wanted it to be.
We drank chilled red wine + freshly made limoncello, while sitting on the neatly formed red bunkette just facing the bar. The music flicked from soft jazz house to Spanish guitar renditions of the Super Mario Bros theme, random but it worked. B
oth food and service was excellent; homemade dipping breads and thinly sliced beetroot, deep fried local vegetables, catch of the day and a dessert of orange cake with strawberries.
Very memorable.
Spiga
Music to my ears when we discover that one of the most highly recommended bakeries in the city is 2 mins from the hotel. Buzzing.
Local bakers Spiga, a snug rectangle of a place, with every corner filled with an aroma of cardamom, cinnamon and fresh coffee.
Our curveball order of grilled cheese (brie and cranberry sauce) with an added fried egg was met with a “yeah sounds good to me”.
Expect to get chatting to locals and tourists alike, both inside and out front.
Deaverdur
It’s nice to feel familiar when visiting a new place, but if you stick to all you know you probably won’t get a real sense of a place. Local joints need to be experienced, right?
Deaverdur - a local cafe serving a huge selection of colourful authentic Puerto Rico food - fit the bill perfectly. Affordable, lovely staff and probably the largest selection of lunch and dinner sharing bits we came across.
Cafe Regina
A little venture away from the old town led us to Cafe Regina; a speciality coffee shop and cafe that comes highly recommended by locals. Turns out this is where everyone is hanging out (the city was fairly quiet when we visited).
One step into this open-plan sun-trap, I instantly felt a sense of familiarity and at home. The softest coat of matcha green paint with the oak wooden bar, pleasing selection of warm light fixtures and mint green Martino Gamper stools felt very unique for these parts.
On the menu; pour over coffee, a flat white, cookies and more orange cake. So good we came back for breakfast the next day — the overnight oats were faultless. Even took a sandwich away for our flight.
Cafe Mallorca
Post-run breakfast stop was one we happened upon the day before. A quick Google search told us it was one of the oldest cafes in the city, authentic as it comes, a local diner serving diner food. It’s shabby inside, no doubt, don’t expect anything fancy, but all the waiters wore bow-ties and waistcoats, and had that “we’re in safe hands” aura.
We ordered a mixture of buttermilk pancakes and the cafe’s speciality, the Mallorca; what I could only describe as a grilled cheese with powdered sugar on top.
Cafe Caleta
Honestly, I can't recall hanging out at a cafe with such picturesque surroundings. Neighbourhood outpost located on the west side of Old Town San Juan, right in the middle of a bustling market square.
If people watching was a competition you’d be on the podium in 5 minutes. Local speciality coffee, in-house bakes and elevated lunch options, riffing off locally sourced produce.
Limbers
The stuff of local legends, to break it down Limbers is a small hatch window frozen ice business run by a sweet older lady.
Ring the bell on this Old Town side street, give it a minute, and you’ll be greeting all smile, asking you which flavour you’d like. There’s about 20, so I just went with her favourite; coconut. Cash only, costs around $1 per cone.
Go sit by the sea, just up the road for one of those “nice, this is really something??” moments.
Celeste
We only stopped in for a drink after a pizza around the corner but we both agreed having dinner here would have been a vibe.
We were visiting San Juan within the city’s Art Week, with lots of stores, bars, cafes and restaurants housing art from local designers as a way to integrate art as part of the experience; this place felt like a hub.
Celeste had its own thing going on - a grand off-white drenched space with fingers on the pulse of the design community.
Custom mechanic shirt uniforms, powder blue neon signs, silverware to complement to white tablecloth situation, but nothing felt stuffy or high brow.
We grabbed a negroni at the bar, listened to early 90s hip hop, watched the staff feeling at home with each other and just chilled. The perfect end to our week in the city.
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Will be going soon and I am most excited about Cafe Mallorca