Best Places to Eat in Panama City
Best Places to Eat in Panama City
The best food in Panama City splits cleanly into two tiers: market-fresh and cheap, or restaurant-plated and considered, and the trick is knowing which tier fits which meal.
Mercado de Mariscos: the ceviche baseline
Skip the $15 sit-down ceviche bowls and go straight to this fish market near Casco Viejo instead. The same corvina ceviche runs $3-8 here, made from whatever came off the boat that morning. Go at lunch, when the catch is freshest, and expect to eat standing up or at a communal bench.
Casco Viejo fondas
The small local eateries tucked between Casco Viejo’s boutique restaurants serve full lunch plates for $5-8: sancocho (the national chicken and root-vegetable stew, $5-10 almost anywhere), patacones ($2-4, order them with everything), and rice-and-bean plates that outcook anything twice the price a block over.
Sit-down restaurants worth the splurge
Donde José takes traditional Panamanian ingredients and plates them with real ambition; Maito Panamá does the same with a confident modern edge and is worth booking for a last-night dinner. Mesa 77 leans farm-to-table with a serious local-ingredient focus, while La Posta and The Fish Market both do seafood well in a waterfront setting. El Trapiche and La Tasca de Durán cover the honest, unfussy end: traditional plates at fair prices, no plating theatrics. Expect $25-40 at the mid-tier spots and $30-60+ for a genuine splurge night.
Rooftop bars, not just restaurants
Casco Viejo’s rooftop bars are where a lot of the city’s evening actually happens: canal views, skyline lights, and a drink menu that leans into Panama’s own spirits, Seco Herrerano (the national sugarcane spirit, usually mixed) and Ron Abuelo rum. Balboa and Panamá are the two local beers worth ordering over an imported one.
Breakfast and snacks
Hojaldras, fried dough dusted with sugar, is the standard Panamanian breakfast, sold at fondas and market stalls alike for a dollar or two. Carimañolas, yuca fritters stuffed with meat, make a solid mid-morning stop between sightseeing legs, and you’ll find both wherever locals grab something quick rather than sitting down at a table.
What to skip
Restaurants charging $15+ for ceviche that Mercado de Mariscos sells for $3-8 aren’t worth it unless the setting itself, a rooftop, a view, is what you’re paying for. Bottled water is also an unnecessary expense here: Panama City’s tap water is safe to drink straight from the tap.
Read more: Best Places to Stay in Panama City for which neighborhood puts you closest to this list.