Cozumel Restaurants & Food

Dining

Food

Pepe's Grill

Café Del Puerto

Cafe Del Puerto at the plaza is one of Cozumel's best spots for lobster and crab. You'll be entertained with
live guitar music. ? 2-03-16.

El Portal

El Portal offers fabulous Mexican-style spicy breakfasts. ? 2-03-16.

Carlos and Charlies and Jimmy's Kitchen

Carlos' N Charlies and Jimmy's Kitchen, on Ave. Rafael Melgar 11, is a divers' favorite for Mexican
steaks and seafood. ? 2-01-91.

La Palmeras

La Palmeras, at the pier (27 Rafael Melgar), is a good spot for breakfast and lunch. ? 2- 05-32.

La Laguna

Pizza Rolandi

Pizza Rolandi, on Ave. Melgar 22, specializes in Italian favorites.

Cozumel  - Best Places To Eat

 
For a resort destination, Cozumel's dining prices are quite reasonable, inexpensive even. The same fine food, service and ambiance in a metropolitan area of the United States would cost significantly more. There are plenty of places on Cozumel where you can get a good meal for a bargain price. If you're low on funds, the absolute cheapest places to eat are the small, limited-menu fast food loncherias near the mercado and the central plaza.
In the afternoon, the lunch crowd - which includes cruise passengers - spreads down the south coast where a series of Mexican restaurants dot idyllic white sand beaches. They serve up cold beers, fresh seafood and tasty Mexican dishes, while you swim or sun or stroll the beach. In some, you can eat under individual palapa umbrellas right on the beach.

If you're looking for good food at a good price, we've selected a number of sit- down restaurants that are well worth visiting. Many of the nightlife places in Cozumel are a restaurant with a bar on the side - or vice versa - so check in the nightlife section for additional eateries of note. ¡ Buen apetito!

Alive Price Scale
(per person, not including beverage)
Inexpensive less than US $6
Moderate US $7-$13
Expensive over US $14

El Moro
75 Bis Norte #124, between Calle 2 & 4
% 987/2-30-29
Inexpensive
El Moro is impossible to find for most tourists. Get a cab or go west past the circle on Av. Juárez until you get to the large new Pemex station on the left. Make a left just before, then make the first right and the first left. You'll find El Moro, or 'The Moor,' on a bumpy dirt street in a residential area. It's a very popular place with diners in the know, offering an extensive menu (in both English and Spanish) of Mexican regional dishes and fresh seafood. Once you try any of the varied menu choices, you'll wonder why you bothered to eat anywhere else on the island. Giant drinks, excellent food - it's an unbeatable value. Closed Thursday.

 
La Choza
Calle Rosado Salas at Av. 10 Sur
% 987/20958
Inexpensive/Moderate
La Choza has a big palapa roof over its corner dining area with large windows. It has the reputation for the best comida tipica (typical Yucatecan-Mexican food) on the island. Our pork stew and beefsteak in pepper sauce was very well prepared and very tasty.

Casa Denis
Calle 1 Sur
% 987/20067
Inexpensive/Moderate
The yellow wooden house on the right as you walk up Calle Uno is Casa Denis. A few tables are set out front in the pedestrian-only street, but there are two small dining parlors inside and some more tables in the shady back garden patio. It offers tasty light or full Mexican and Yucatecan home-style meals - as well as fresh seafood. Been there, doing that, since 1945.

Las Palmeras
At the ferry pier
% 987/21-38-6
Moderate
When it comes to location, location, location, Las Palmeras has got it, got it, got it. Certainly not the cheapest nor even the best restaurant on Cozumel, this cool and breezy palm-planted open-air corner spot is nevertheless very tempting. Its decor is appealing, it's right at the ferry dock and the food smells good. We find it awfully hard to get off the ferry hungry and pass by without at least a look at their menu. Sea breezes and oversized awnings keep it cool inside. Best time is off hours.

Morgan's
Av. Juárez on the north side of the plaza
% 987/20-88-4
Moderate
There is enough polished wood in this Caribbean-styled restaurant to make a another ship for the pirate Henry Morgan, who once used Cozumel's protected waters to hide from the English and Spanish navies. The distinguished building, with a large wrap- around porch for dining, is the harbor town's former Customs house. The international and seafood menu, impeccable service and nautical ambiance make Morgan's the place for a refined night out or a celebratory lunch after striking good shopping bargains in the mercado nearby. Live music in the evening. Open 11 to 11.

Hooks
Av. Adolfo Rosado Salas
 
% 987/25757
Moderate
This is one of Cozumel's newest large restaurants. It almost seems to be an outdoor restaurant because the dining area is under a high translucent roof and is filled with growing plants. They claim it has the atmosphere of a pirate's den - always boisterous and happy.  Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of tequila! Good Mexican food, a friendly bar and strong drinks have given Hooks a reputation as a fun place to eat and party. Open 10:30 am - 3 am, no cover.

Los Almendros
Calle 2 North No. 101
% 987/26071
Moderate
Cozumel hosts the newest branch (1998) of the traditional Yucatecan restaurant chain that had its beginnings in the market town of Ticul in the 1960s. The chef created a dish called poc chuc (made from thin fillets of pork marinated in sour orange and grilled with onions), which has now become synonymous with Yucatecan cuisine. This location doesn't use the photo menus you'll see in other branches, and its ambiance is much more pleasing. Dining is on checkered cotton tablecloths with attractive china. There is seating on a pretty garden terrace as well as in pleasant indoor dining rooms. This restaurant has very high standards. We love the Maya anchiote paste that gives the regional food its distinctive flavor.

Pancho's Backyard
Av. Melgar and Calle 8
% 987/22057
Moderate/Expensive
In the rear of Los Cinco Soles, Cozumel's most famous shopping store, is Pancho's Backyard, a lovely courtyard restaurant under Colonial arches and loads of greenery. In the early 1900s the building was a warehouse that stored bales of dried resin from the zapote tree, the basic ingredient of chewing gum and Quintana Roo's main export. 

In 1960 it became a hotel. In 1990, after four years of extensive renovation, it opened as a large store, art gallery and restaurant. The charming atmosphere is matched by delicious food - generous servings of Mexican dishes and seafood, cappuccino and expresso coffees and awesome margaritas. Try the bananas Susana dessert with a café Maya expresso. Yum!  

'The Lobster House'
Northern Coastal Rd., Km 4
% 987/20795
Expensive
Follow the coast road north, past the airport and marina, until you find an incongruous red British telephone booth. Cross a wooden footbridge and discover the best lobster dinner on the island. The Lobster House, a Cozumel fixture since 1983, is located in a Maya- style hut beneath a traditional thatched roof. Hidden back from the road among banana trees and jungle vegetation, the lobster-tail-only restaurant is a small, dark, intimate eatery with a nautical decor and screened windows overlooking the thick jungle. They've served dinner the same way since their inception: You choose a locally caught, fresh lobster - usually a Caribbean spiney - from a tray. The tail is then grilled to order. Meals come with all-you-can-eat rice and steamed vegetables. Prices change daily, depending on the market and weight, but the average dinner price is around US $20. No credit cards. Open from 6 pm to 10:30 pm.

 
El Guacamayo
Northern Coastal Rd., Km 4
% 987/68703
Moderate/Expensive
Connected to the Lobster House by a wooden footbridge over a mini-lagoon and the jungle floor is the Guacamayo, which advertises itself as the 'King Crab House.' The restaurant is a candlelit palapa building with a nautical decor of lobster pots and hanging nets and floats, red tiled floors and tiled tables - all in a jungle setting.  Soft music plays in the background.  The photo menu features local king crab, seafood and steaks. A delicious experience.  No credit cards. Open seven days a week from 6 pm - 10:30 pm. 

Playa Paso del Cedral
Southern Coastal Rd., opposite the turn for the Cedral Maya ruins
No telephone
Moderate
There are a series of lunch restaurants stretching down the southern coast's little beaches. They're all good, but this very rustic one is unique. A little palapa restaurant with a sand floor and plastic tables, it is known for seafood so fresh the local fishermen pull their boats up in front to unload their catch. Located in a public park with palm trees and a nice white sand beach perfect for swimming and snorkeling, you can spend hours of an afternoon here, watching the dive boats motoring past. Or practicing your Spanish with the agreeable cook. This is one of the most 'primitive' in a series of intriguing beachfront restaurants that attract day-trippers and cruise ship crowds for long pleasurable lunches.

La Veranda
Calle 4, 11/2 blocks in from the seafront
% 987/24132
Moderate/Expensive
La Veranda is a Caribbean-style eatery with a relaxed atmosphere, classy ambiance and fine fusion cooking. Tucked on a side street in a typical Caribbean house behind a small front garden and long porch, its wooden beams and trim dominate the air- conditioned interior dining and bar area. The menu is creative and appetizing, a pleasant change. Seafood dishes are the specialty. Their signature dinner is a mixed platter of fish, shrimp, octopus, lobster and squid (US $36 for two).  More to our tastes was the jerked chicken, a spicy hot chicken with rice. For the most romantic setting, try the back porch - la veranda - where tables are set up to overlook a softly lighted tropical garden patio. A few wrought iron tables are also available in the garden, which boasts a fountain and antique lamp post. Opens at 6 pm.

Prima
Av. Adolfo Rosado Salas No. 109
% 987/2-42- 42
Moderate/Expensive
Breezy terrace dining upstairs is primo at Prima, an Italian restaurant specializing in Northern Italian seafood dishes, brick-oven pizzas, calzones and handmade pastas. You'd think with the proliferation of Italian restaurants in Cancún and across the water in Playa del Carmen that there would be many more Italian restaurants on Cozumel. Fortunately, Prima's rooftop garden dining is good enough to satisfy our desperate need for excellent Italian food. Very popular. They take credit cards and offer a non-smoking area. Open from 4 pm - 11 pm.

Esquisse Art Café
Av. Adolfo Rosado Salas
% 987/2-57-47
Inexpensive
The Esquisse Art Café joins a growing number of tucked-away Cozumel coffee houses that cater to European and cosmopolitan American tastes. Opened in October 1997, the Café serves several exotic coffees and teas, breakfast, quiches and light snacks, tarts, cakes, ice creams and sorbets. Seating is on a mixed bag of comfortable furniture which, with original art and posters on the walls, provides that satisfying homey ambiance. Features a coffee bean gift shop.

Jeanie's Waffle House
Oceanfront in Hotel Vista del Mar
% 987/2-05-45
Inexpensive 
We could only love an eatery with a name like 'Waffle House.' It's the kind of place where we can relax our 'going native' facade and chow down on what we haven't had for a while - feel-good food such as hot cakes and ice cream. Besides waffles and crêpes to crow about, owners Raul and Jeannie DeLille feature excellent steak and regional dishes. Even more to our plebeian tastes is digging into a big home-style breakfast for dinner. Open 6 am - 10 pm.

Alfalfa's Restaurant 
Calle 1, just west of pedestrian mall
Reservations not necessary
Inexpensive
Clean and neat behind large glass windows, this air-conditioned vegetarian and health food restaurant has a good reputation for tasty food at reasonable prices. 
Also serves fish and chicken dishes. Open from lunch to 8 pm. The other Alfalfa's healthy restaurant is in the B&B Caribo (see above).

More Munchies
Other restaurants that deserve a mention are Sonora Grill (Av. 15 between Juaréz & Calle 2), Western Grill (a half-block south of the plaza), Tony Rome's Steaks (Av. 5 South), Coconuts (Eastern shore), Ernesto's Fajitas (Av. Melgar), Las Tortugas (West Indian and Mexican food at Av. 10 North), El Solar (Av. 5 South), Natural (upstairs Av. Salas between 15 and 20), Muy Mexicano (all you can eat on Av. 3 South) and the little-discovered gem: Bon Appetit (Av. 30 between Hidalgo and 7 south).