The Ultimate Food & Restaurant Guide for Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

🏝️ After visiting and living in Puerto Vallarta, I've eaten at hundreds of restaurants from fine dining to street tacos and I'm sharing my 50+ favorites (and a few that I avoid)!

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Puerto Vallarta is My Favorite Place in Mexico

I’ve been wanting to write this guide for YEARS. I’ve finally done it. It’s been a labor of love writing, thinking through it all, linking to every restaurant, giving tips and favorite things to order, and going back through all my old photos which have brought back so many incredible memories. I hope you love it!

Apart from beautiful beaches, fantastic weather, a very walkable and charming old town, and a vibe that honors the old world but embraces change, diversity, and progressive culture, Puerto Vallarta is home hundreds of top shelf restaurants!

I I lived in Puerto Vallarta during the Pandemic, I have investment property in Puerto Vallarta, and I know the city like the back of my hand!

Puerto Vallarta isn’t the sleepy fishing village it was just 30 years ago. It’s the third most popular city with tourists behind Cancun and Cabo San Lucas. But if I’m being honest, the food (and everything else) is so much better in Vallarta!

And I have so many restaurant and dining recommendations for you in case you have a trip planned or maybe this will convince you to take that trip you’ve been thinking about! Pro Tip: If you’re on the fence between a beachy trip to Cabo, Cancun, and Vallarta, just book that trip to Vallarta and thank me later. It’s a completely different vibe than Mexico City, Guadalajara, or Monterey of course.

Puerto Vallarta Is a Foodie’s Paradise

I live in San Diego and have all the world class dining and casual restaurant options that San Diego, Orange County, and Los Angeles have to offer at my fingertips. But in a heartbeat, when people ask me where I like to go out to eat, I don’t hesitate in saying that it’s not in SoCal. Because Puerto Vallarta is where it’s at!

We’re talking everything from fine dining in Elizabeth Taylor’s home that Richard Burton bought her in the 1960s which has been converted into a stunning restaurant with mariachis in white gloves to the best al pastor and birria tacos on the street that Jalisco has to offer.

From fine dining to plates with plastic, you'll find it all.

There’s of course classic Mexican, ceviche, tacos, Thai, sushi, French fusion, Peruvian, Spanish, Italian, and more. A true melting pot and it gets better every year!

My guide is concentrated for Puerto Vallarta and specifically the Zona Romantica area with a few outliers in Centro and Versailles. Nuevo Vallarta, Riviera Nayarit, Punta Mita, the South Shore towards Mismaloya and areas beyond are for another day.

Pro Tip: Driving from one end of PV to the other will take you at least 90 minutes these days so keep that in mind! And a trip from PV to Punta Mita is 2 hours, give or take. Traffic can be brutal but if you’re staying in Zona Romantica then you can walk to nearly every single restaurant on my list!

I’m broke my 50+ Restaurant Guide down into:

• Beachfront with a direct ocean view for happy hours that turn into sunset dinners

• Casual winners

• Upscale and sit-down suitable for family dinners and memorable meals

• Fine dining for anniversaries, proposals, date nights, or special occasions like Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve or for a splurgeworthy Tuesday on vacation

• Elevated Mexican done so well

• Tacos

• Breakfast & brunch

• A little bit of everything else that’s just so good you won’t want to miss it

• Avoid (and why!)

Want to dine among orchids? I do! And I’m sharing where.

Beachfront