Where to Eat in Rinconada & Carrizalillo

Order: Vegan plates + lattes; health-food store next door

Order: Pastries and breakfast

Order: Mariscos; the coconut shrimp

Order: Empanadas

The restaurant Puerto recommends when it only gets to recommend one. Under a big palapa on the Rinconada boulevard (a newer, larger location down the same street), El Nene runs seafood and grill in parallel — fresh fish, tuna, tasajo, proper steaks — behind a bar built around one of the better mezcal selections in town.

Order: Catch of the day or the tuna tostadas; steak-leaning eaters get the grill cuts, and the mezcal list rewards asking for a pour

Best for: The trip’s "good dinner" that still feels like Puerto; carnivore-and-pescatarian tables that can’t agree.

Order: Rooftop dinner — upscale, worth it for the occasion night

Order: Argentine steaks

Order: Anything — residents insist you cannot order wrong here

Order: Carbonara pizza, spicy pepperoni

The coast’s serious kitchen, full stop. Chefs Quetzalcóatl Zurita and Shalxaly Macías have run this husband-and-wife cocina de autor since 2013, cooking Oaxacan at the core with the technique and plating of a big-city tasting room — and it’s now a MICHELIN Guide entry, which for a town this size is remarkable.

Order: The signature tasting menu — trust the kitchen. À la carte, the corn tostada with confit pork jowl and chapulines is the dish people remember

Best for: The one splurge dinner of the trip; anyone who wants to taste what modern Oaxacan cooking is doing.

Order: Reliable burgers; three locations around town

A tiny two-person operation across from El Cafecito — he builds the cocktails, she cooks a short taco menu — that has quietly become one of Rinconada’s warmest rooms. Head up to the little balcony with a happy-hour cocktail and you’ll see why regulars worry about the word getting out.

Order: Sunday quesabirrias if you time it right; otherwise fish tacos or tacos gobernador with a mezcalina de maracuyá

Best for: A low-key cocktail-and-tacos evening; Sundays, when much of town goes dark.

An open-air terrace inside the Villas Carrizalillo hotel, perched directly above the town’s prettiest swimming cove. The gourmet-Oaxacan menu (mole negro, ceviches, catch of the day) is genuinely good — but the reason everyone comes is the hour before sunset, drink in hand, with the whole cove going gold below.

Order: Sunset cocktails or a mezcal flight over the cove; if you stay to eat, the mole and the day’s fish are the menu’s case for itself

Best for: The occasion sundowner; a celebration dinner where the view is the gift.