Panama City: Where to Actually Eat
Panama City: Where to Actually Eat
The best food in Panama City is rarely at the table with the best view. This is a guide to what’s actually worth ordering and where, sorted by budget rather than neighborhood, since the cheap option here is frequently the better one.
The market, not the restaurant
Mercado de Mariscos, the seafood market near Casco Viejo, sells ceviche made from corvina (sea bass) for $3-8, fresher than almost anything a sit-down restaurant will charge three times as much for. Go around midday while the boats are still unloading the day’s catch. It’s one of the few places in this city where skipping the restaurant entirely is the upgrade, not the compromise.
Casco Viejo: eat two blocks inland
Casco Viejo’s plaza-front restaurants charge a premium for the view, and the food is rarely better for it. A fonda tucked off Plaza Herrera or Plaza de Francia runs $5-8 for a full lunch: sancocho, the national chicken-and-root stew, or patacones, twice-fried plantain, done properly. Sancocho alone is worth seeking out; it’s the dish Panamanians actually cook at home, not a tourist-menu addition. Ropa vieja, shredded stewed beef, shows up on most of these same menus for a similar price.
Marbella and El Cangrejo: where the city eats dinner
Once Casco Viejo’s restaurants are covered, cross over to Marbella or El Cangrejo, the modern, residential neighborhoods where Panama City’s professional class actually lives and eats. Prices run noticeably lower than the old town’s tourist zone, and the food skews toward what people order on a Tuesday rather than what photographs well. It’s less a sightseeing stop than a reset, worth doing at least once to see how the city eats outside the colonial peninsula.
Breakfast and street snacks
Hojaldras, fried breakfast dough somewhere between a doughnut and flatbread, and carimañolas, stuffed yuca fritters, are the two street snacks worth flagging down a cart for. Both run a dollar or two and hold up fine as a walking breakfast between Casco Viejo’s sights.
The splurge night
If a tasting-menu dinner is part of the trip, Donde José and Maito are the two names worth knowing; both are small, chef-driven, and book out weeks ahead on weekends, so reach out well before you land rather than trying for a same-week table. Expect $60-100 per person for either.
Drinks worth trying
Seco Herrerano, the national sugarcane spirit, and Ron Abuelo rum are both worth ordering over an imported spirit. Balboa and Panamá are the two domestic beer brands you’ll see on nearly every menu, light lagers built for the humidity rather than a craft-beer crowd.
Before you order
Panama uses the US dollar as everyday cash; tipping around 10% is standard at sit-down restaurants, less expected at street stalls. Our things worth doing in Panama City guide covers the rest of the city alongside these food stops, and our Panama City travel tips page has the etiquette details worth knowing before your first meal.