Restaurants

Vieques has a wide variety of restaurants. We have tried to summarize some of our favorites here. Please note though that restaurants come and go and this list may rapidly get out of date. Also, although we like food, we are not gourmets. These are simply our personal opinions of the restaurants.

There are several local restaurants of varying type and quality within walking distance. In order of closest first there are:

Posada Vista Del Mar right opposite our house, less than one minutes walk away. This used to do basic food with some Puerto Rican specialties. In 2003 it changed hands and did a similar menu but somewhat more up-market, not entirely successfully in our view, but give them some time to work it out.

The Pizza Place, two minutes walk. It's a bakery by day, and a Pizzeria at night. Get your bread and breakfast pastries here (come early for the good wholewheat bread). Does quite good pizzas to take out.

Moving down to the sea front in Esperanza we have:

Tradewinds: on the sea front at the end of Tintilios street. The most up-market place on the sea front (though probably about the same as the newer "La Serena" down the street). Does breakfast, lunch and dinner. Very good choice of breakfasts. Evening meals of good quality and mid-price. Great location in that you are up on the 2nd floor and have a great view out over Esperanza harbor. Check out the store downstairs as well for some island clothing.

La Serena: French restaurant. Good, mid-price. Upstairs has good view out over the harbor, lunch and dinner.

Banana's: open for lunch and dinner. Very good range of basic bar food, and some slightly better lunch/evening meals. A lot cheaper than Tradewinds, though not of quite such good quality. We eat here a lot and its our favorite eating place on the island, very relaxed.

Amapalola: more of a bar, though it does do food. We avoid it mainly because they have a huge TV screen showing sports and music videos. Its noisy, and we come to a place like Vieques to avoid that sort of thing! However, if you want to keep up with sports, this is the place to come, hang out, and watch the games on TV.

There are also a couple of Puerto Rican places on the sea front which we have not tried, and a new cafe in place of the old Crabwalk Cafe near Tradewinds that we have also not tried yet.

Further afield there are some very good restaurants,some of which are accordingly more expensive.

The Inn on the Blue Horizon. About a mile west of Esperanza on the coast road. Seems to keep changing its mind about if they are a bar food place, a restaurant, or if they are just open to residents. However, in a year when you catch them open to the public, they usually do very good food, usually fairly expensive (for Vieques).

Trapper John's, which is attached to the "Crow's Nest" guest house. (You go past it on the way to Isabella by the central road). Superb view over the Isabella side of the island from the restaurant, so try and go before the sun sets so you can see it. Quality and prices on a par with Tradewinds.

Media Luna, in Isabella II which probably has the most exotic and, frankly, snobby menu on the island, and correspondingly a little pricey.

Mar Azul's on the sea front in Isabella sometimes does good basic bar food if they have a chef. Come for lunch or to watch the sun set.

Oasis, go through Isabella, past the ferry port, and stay on the roads as close to the coast as you can (winding through some back streets), you'll find it about 1/2 mile after the ferry. Right on the beach, interesting food, good quality.

Chez Shack, hidden in the hills on a back road from Esperanza to the airport. Opening times vary. Good good. Chez Shack is the current restaurant incarnation of "Duffy", the local restaurant genius who seems to have started most of the good local restaurants (Tradewinds, Bananas) and then moved on to something new a few years later.

Take a look at the information page at EnchantedIsle.com for a more up to date list of restaurants.