Hitting restaurants is definitely a fun thing to do in Guatemala. I have mentioned before how small Antigua Guatemala is. But for those who don’t know, it is a teeny tiny colonial city with only 10 square blocks. Sometimes people think that because of that Antigua has nothing to do or see but old buildings. Well, that is not the case at all. It is filled with tons of hotels, restaurants, bars, stores, and anything you might need. What we have explored the most with my family are the restaurants and after visiting many of them I came up with a list of the best restaurants in Antigua, take a look:
Antigua is definitely one of the best places to visit in Guatemala, you can find a vast variety of fun and family-friendly activities to do here in Antigua.
There are some honorable mentions, like Sobremesa Antigua, and Meson Panza Verde. Also, if you want a truly local food experience head to Comedores or go on and try Guatemalan street food.
Casual Restaurants
El Comalote
I found this incredible restaurant, but it’s not just a place to eat, it’s a hands-on experience. You just don’t eat but you learn about the traditional food of Guatemala. It really focuses on corn, which is the backbone of the Mayan cuisine.
All products are natural and truly organic, you’ll have a ton of different types of corn: Red, black, yellow, white, and so on.
It’s a five-course dish, but first, someone talks to you about the history, and you also get to make your own tortillas.
You could have the vegetarian experience or the regular experience.
It is an actual restaurant, you can go in just for the regular food or just to buy tortillas or their very fresh homemade nachos.
Related Read: Guatemalan Cuisine and Cooking Experience – El Comalote Restaurant
Ta’Cool
If you ever feel like eating tacos, don’t worry, you can find a great place in Antigua. It’s called Ta’Cool Taco Shop, a fun place to get tacos and not just tacos, they took the whole taco game to another level.
You can find two locations in Antigua, one a couple blocks away from each other. The Menu is big, offering a wide range of different tacos and drinks suitable to all tastes. It doesn’t matter if you’re vegan or a meat lover, there’s a taco for you in this place!
Cerveceria 14
If you’re looking for live music and a vibrant place, this popular restaurant and bar outside of Antigua is perfect. Cerveceria 14 is an actual brewery, and you can find different types of locally crafted beers. The area is pretty big and offers tons of amenities including live music, there are bars all over the place and several restaurants. The place has a huge stage where you can watch different shows.
In the main restaurant or dining area, the food is good. Also, from time to time, they host a ton of food trucks too.
Hobbitenango
Another restaurant located on top of a mountain, the main draw about Hobbitenango is its theme, the place is based on The Hobbit houses and Lord of the Rings, it’s really cool.
The restaurant is an experience, even getting there is part of that. Like Alta Mira and Hato Verde, you need to get a shuttle that brings you to their main lot, where you buy the entrance ticket. The entrance fee is like $10
Fun Fact: In Guatemala you’ll find a lot of places ending in ‘enango’ that’s a Mayan word that means “high place”.
Related Read: 23 Restaurant In Guatemala: Best Places To Eat
McDonald’s
Cataloged as one of the most beautiful McDonalds in the world, it’s situated on a typical Hacienda-like building. The entrance is nothing special, but once you go inside, a huge space welcomes you. The architecture of the courtyard gives you a colonial-style atmosphere and vibe, making it a nice experience.
The menu is the same as any other, with a few variations.
Monoloco
Monoloco is a great family restaurant during the day and a fun bar at night.
All over Antigua, this restaurant is known for having great food but my kid’s choice is the nachos. They serve a big plate filled with nachos, lots of cheese guacamole, beans, and beef or chicken. The second best thing about this place according to my son is their pizza.
Related Read: Monoloco Restaurant, Antigua: Best Sports Bar and Party Place
Hotel Porta Antigua’s Restaurant
This hotel is just a 3 block walk away from Antigua’s Central Park and here you can have a great meal in a garden and a great playground. Also, for a small extra fee, you can use their pool.
The food is delicious and the menu is quite complete
On Sundays, you can also take your kid to their kid’s club. it is a dream world for kids because it’s filled with toys and fun things.
Related Read: Porta Hotel Antigua, Guatemala: Most Complete Option
Luna de Miel
Luna de Miel is well known in Antigua for its crêpes, which makes them one of the most popular restaurants in Antigua. It’s a French restaurant that mainly focuses on crêpes. A pro about this place is the restaurant is a huge two-floor building with a stunning terrace.
They offer nice salads and a ton of different types of crêpes. You can find ones with ham and eggs or a crêpe with Nutella, whipped cream, and ice cream.
On weekends, you can expect to see a ton of people in waiting lines, many times you can spend hours in line. That’s why I highly recommended going on weekdays, there’s still people there but a lot fewer.
Chateau DeFay
This is the first and only vineyard in Guatemala. Here you can take a tour along the vineyard, spend some time playing mini-golf, or eat at their small restaurant. Before you go home you might even want to buy some of the cheese or wine that they offer. It is located 10 min away from Antigua in a tiny, old, indigenous town.
High-End Restaurants
Villa Bohek’s Restaurant
The first thing to know about this place, it’s NOT only a restaurant, it’s a luxury villa-hotel. A stunning and beautiful area from the parking lot to the outdoor areas.
Fortunately, the restaurant of Villa Bohek is fairly priced, not really expensive but has amenities that are proper of a high-end restaurant like a fantastic wine list, a cocktail, and a beer list.
Also, the food menu is quite big, you can find vegetarian food, meat or seafood.
El Hato Verde
A luxury outdoor restaurant with amazing views and dog friendly, El Hato Verde is located on the top of a mountain and when you park your car or arrive, a golf car will pick you up to take you to the restaurant.
You need to make a reservation beforehand, which will cost you like $20 per person and pay extra for the dog.
The restaurant is absolutely gorgeous, it’s outdoors in the shade of trees. The areas are incredible, lounge chairs everywhere, the bar is separate from the restaurant, and a section overlooks the volcano.
What we loved the most was you could go upstairs, it’s kind of like a treehouse to a platform That is just full-on luxury style.
The food in my opinion is regular, almost mediocre, and it is not cheap.
Alta Mira
Alta Mira is a popular restaurant that takes advantage of the hills and mountains that surrounds Antigua, the food is regular, and you won’t find anything that will blow your taste buds, but the area, in general, is stunning, you can find some good spots on the mountain for a photo with stunning views and landscapes.
One of the most noticeable downsides of the area where this restaurant is situated, it gets chaotic, and you’ll find a ton of people trying to get to the restaurants. I advise you to go there on weekdays.
You need to pay an entrance fee, which is like $4 per person, you leave your car at the bottom and need to pay for parking and pay for a shuttle to the top, to the actual restaurant.
Hotel Casa Santo Domingo’s Restaurant
The main restaurant area of this hotel is pretty formal but there is also an outside area with some plants.
This restaurant is in the middle of the ruins of what used to be a convent in the colonial days of the city. The ruins are the perfect setup for my son’s exploring adventures in fact his exact words were: I felt like an explorer. Plus the food is delicious.
Related Read: Hotel Casa Santo Domingo, Antigua: More Than Just a Hotel
International Cuisine Restaurants
Indian Accent (Indian food)
This is probably one of the best Indian restaurants in Guatemala, not only in Antigua. It is well known that Indian cuisine is not an easy one, and that’s exactly one of the biggest pros about Indian Accent, they truly know how to get the Indian food right.
The food is delicious, and the flavors are just right. They offer many options and a wide variety of vegan dishes.
I highly recommend you make reservations, since it’s usually packed, especially in the evenings.
Akai Sushi (Japanese Food)
In Antigua, a ton of sushi restaurants have come and gone, but Akai Sushi has been around for a long time now and that’s because they know how to do it. The ingredients are fresh, and offer a wide variety of sushi rolls and sake!
Not only that, a good draw about this restaurant is their special offers, on Tuesdays and Thursdays they have a two-for-one roll day offer. Not all the rolls are available for the offer but a lot of them are. You pay for a roll and you get a free veggie or California roll for free.
Kabuki (Japanese Food)
If your kids are into trying new things and if they have already developed a taste for Japanese food your family will love Kabuki. This is one of the few authentic Japanese restaurants in the city. Most of the others are US-style, which isn’t bad, but if you want to try the real thing Kabuki is where you should go. However, I recognize that this might be more for older kids.
Hector’s Bistro (French Food)
Like many of the restaurants in Antigua, Hector’s Bistro started as a tiny, french restaurant that is now situated in a stunning courtyard with a lot more space. The food is tasty and the menu has a nice variation.
The menu is still French-style food, like beef bourguignon or quiches, but added a lot of other options, like pizza, making it now a more family-friendly place.
They offer some vegan dishes too and they have a bar inside where you can try different cocktails and Guatemalan drinks.
Toko Baru (Arabic/Mediterrnean Food)
If you’re in the mood for Arabic/Mediterranean food, then, head to Toko Baru. It’s one of the oldest restaurants of this kind in Antigua, it started as a tiny place and grew all the way to a proper restaurant. The food is great, especially the falafel, which is big and costs just $5.
The food menu is decent, and the sauces are tasty, they also have a big beer menu too.
Vegan Restaurants in Antigua
Once Once
This is another amazing vegan restaurant in Antigua, it’s 100% vegan and everything is organic. The Once Once menu is incredible, the flavor is amazing and it’s varied. The building is cute and the decoration is too, also, it’s pet friendly, making it a unique experience
Everything from the appetizers and entrees to the desserts is well done and flavourful. You can find different salads, a ton of different pasta, tacos, and a nice wine and beer selection.
The way everything is made makes non-vegan enjoy the food.
Samsara Restaurant
A long time ago you could find many vegan restaurants in Antigua, Samsara was the first one and is one of the oldest vegan restaurants in the area. The food style is unique and delicious, it’s like a fusion between Indian and Arabic cuisine.
Also, they often have live music in the restaurant, which makes the experience even better. The downside is, they don’t have a lot of tables available, like six in total. So, make sure to get up early.
It’s got that Indian flair to it and even the Arabic flair to it. So it’s like a fusion. It’s not very specific, just Indian or Arabic. It’s got that fusion. Likewise, it’s a unique style, restaurant flavorful, and it’s a lovely experience.
La Bruja Restaurant
Located on the main street of Antigua, La Bruja restaurant offers vegan-style food and is probably one of the most popular restaurants of its style.
There’s this one area right on the main street in Antigua where they have about six or seven different restaurants, all one on top of next to one another, that share the courtyard. And they have their tables right there.
The main reason for this is, its food is incredibly delicious and its location. The menu is big and has a nice South American touch to it, one of the most popular dishes and a must-try is the vegan burger.
Cafes in Antigua
Cafe Condesa
This is a restaurant located in what used to be a house back when families had 10 or 12 children. You will find it right in Central Park. It is known among locals as the place where you can have the best coffee in Antigua, I think it is great!
The entrance is a bookstore with some great options. Then you get to a beautiful garden, if you keep on walking you will find 3 more rooms with tables for you to choose from.
Escalonia Cafe
The first time I visited this restaurant, I fell in love with it. The tables are in the middle of a beautiful garden. It is located on what used to be a coffee farm. But it’s not just a restaurant, in it, you will find books, ornamental plants & local handicrafts for sale. This is also one of the favorite restaurants of my son because he gets to run around as we wait for our food.
As you can see I love open places where my son can run around without bothering the rest of the people in the restaurant. Well, this is another one of those! Here the tables are in the middle of a garden, separated enough to give you some privacy with enough space for my explorer to play in.
Related Read: Escalonia Cafe, Antigua: Nursery and Coffee Shop
Starbucks Antigua
This is an excellent example of a great job implementing tradition, Starbucks Antigua is one of the most beautiful and handcrafted Starbucks I have been able to visit.
Like many of the locations in Antigua, the building for this cafe is hacienda-style, which makes it even more unique, once you enter the building you notice that it doesn’t look like a regular Starbucks. They put a lot of attention to detail to keep Antigua and Guatemalan roots present. They hired a local artist to paint stunning murals.
Also, the vast majority of their coffee comes from Guatemala and it’s delicious and high quality. The food is good too.
Artista Cafe
One of the best cafes in Antigua for digital nomads or people that just want a space to work while drinking delicious coffee. Artista Cafe is classy and elegant while its prices are the same as most of the shops around. The biggest advantage of this cafe is it offers a ton of different rooms (besides the main room), and an outdoor area for you to hang out, the seats are super comfy too.
You can rent rooms for you or up to 6 people if you want more privacy. The staff is friendly and comes to you in case you want to order coffee or food and bring it back to your room.
Also, the coffee is delicious and the food is yummy too.
Cafe Boheme
Cafe Boheme is a real and true French restaurant in Antigua and one of the few. They gained a lot of popularity due to their pastries, you can expect to enjoy top-notch French-style pastries. The ambiance is adorable, giving the whole experience a different level.
But they don’t only sell pastries. They have a whole menu, and the French motif on the food is definitely present but now it is more like a fusion cuisine.
You’ll find sandwiches, quiches and salads, the food is really good, fresh and tasty. The place is packed with fun, from the music to the ambiance and the food.
Cafe Barista
Cafe Barista is the only local Guatemalan coffee store chain, just like Starbucks. They started almost 20 years ago and by that time you couldn’t find any good coffee shop in the country, which is interesting because Guatemala is world-renowned for its coffee.
They started selling only coffee but now it has grown to have a full menu, to the extent you could even have a full meal there. The menu is big, they offer, sandwiches, breakfast, salads, and a wide variety of Guatemalan food.
Conclusion
There are many things to do in Antigua Guatemala, it might be a tiny city, but it is filled with a lot of culture & history. It is also a place filled with great restaurants & bars for all tastes & budgets. I have made it my task to explore the many restaurants it offers.
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