Dining
The kitchen is very well-equipped. Like many guests, we sometimes prepare some of our dinners at the house.
For dining out, the guidebooks (Frommers and Fodors) are a good starting place. We find a significant overlap between their high-end recommendations and ours.
Our Restaurant Recommendations
For a special night out, our favorite is Marandi’s. It is about 25 minutes from the house, about 7 minutes past the airport. It is on a large dock. The ambience and servers are among the best on the island. The food is excellent. The wine list is modest but very competent. Save room for the grand dessert, a medley of taste treats that can be shared by two. It is often the little things that make an evening special. Like having a table that overlooks the water, like tossing bread crumbs to the fish, like a margarita made from fresher ingredients. For us, Marandi's is a large accumulation of many happy memories. (Mirandi's is a bit out of the way and signage is not great; so ask for directions and watch carefully for markers.)
There are a number of other fine restaurants. For those who do not mind spending about $50 per person (more with wine) some of the favorites are Driftwood, Matilde and Papiamento. During our last stay Driftwood offered a prix fixe for $25, which was quite a bargain. They also have a great waitstaff. Driftwood also has especially fresh fish. (In the nearby harbor, you will see a large fishing boat named the "Driftwood". Yes, their "catch of the day" is whatever the owner caught that day!)
Like many fine restaurants, Papiamento has a bit of attitude but otherwise excels in ambience, food, and service. Matilde is near the top of many lists, including Frommers. It rates well in ambience, food, and service.
Several places are somewhat less expensive and also offer a lovely evening. Gasparito, Que Pasa, and Matthew's Place are favorites.
Gasparito's ambience is charming, as is the hostess/proprietress, a schoolteacher by day. Like her engineer husband, she has far too much energy to stick with the day job. Their son trained as a chef in the U.S. and, after gathering experience from fine restaurants in the U.S, has returned to his parents’ restaurant. He has used a light hand in changing the menu, which is now better than ever. The genuine cunucu house next door is their home; that’s another story for another day; but maybe you can ask them to tell it.
Que Pasa, in downtown Oranjestad, is another favorite. You can be seated on a second floor balcony to enjoy well-prepared local seafood. Service is gracious and unhurried. Perhaps due to its downtown location, you may not need a reservation; but we generally call ahead. Cuba’s Cooking is another downtown restaurant that offers local flavor and serves a good meal. The Driftwood which we mentioned above also is in downtown Oranjestad.
In the "Low Rise" Eagle Beach area, Matthew's Place is a new addition and is a new favorite. A delightful dinner with attentive and good-natured service. (We were sorry to find that one of our favorite downtown lunch retreats had closed, but discovered that the owner had opened this new restaurant. -- Yes, with about fifty new places each year and a corresponding number of closures, keeping up with changes is a challenge.) Also in the Low Rise area, Mangos at the Amsterdam Manner is a quiet place with attentive but unobtrusive service and excellent food. Since Mangos is an outdoor restaurant close to the beach, you may want a light sweater, depending on the time of year. Passions, also at the Amsterdam Manor, is one of the more romantic restaurants. Tables are on the beach with live music. Salads are generous. Food is served piping hot under covers, despite having to be run from the kitchen across the street. Service was slow, but that could have been the luck of the draw.
The High Rise Hotel area has a number of good restaurants, but we find it more crowded; and parking can be a hassle. For those who don't mind the hustle, Gianni’s is a relative newcomer, which provided a delightful dinner. We first had dinner there with ex-pat friends; so it apparently is somewhat popular with the locals. Le Petite Café (located both downtown and in the High Rise Hotel area) is a standby. The food is good, but portions are, well, petite for those with bigger appetites. Meals are served on a very hot stone, which lets diners cook to taste and then remove from the stone. For one who believes that great fish has about a 30-second window between undercooked and overcooked, the hot stone affords welcome flexibility to get the cooking time exactly right. For an American standby, consider Tony Roma’s in the High Rise district.
Bingo's, on the road to Palm Beach, is a good casual option. The Bingo salad is particularly good.
A few highly rated restaurants have not inspired us, but we may not have caught them at their best. Madame Janette is one. We think the size and pace of their operation has lessened its charm, but we have enjoyed some good meals there. Le Dome is highly rated by many and probably has the best wine selection on the island (it is the only Aruban restaurant to place on Wine Spectator’s list). We found it somewhat pretentious, and we were not impressed with the food. Others love it. Flying Fishbone has a nice waterfront location, but we do not recommend it.
While we generally buy fixings for our breakfasts and lunches, there are some great lunch places in the area. The most notable is La Trattoria el Faro Blanco at the California Lighthouse. The view is spectacular and the food is very good. (We have not heard positive reviews about the dinner menu.) We also like the tapas menu at Salt and Pepper in the High Rise district. (For those going to the High Rise district for lunch, consider leaving the car at the house: Turn right as you walk out the drive, turn left at the bottom of the street, turn right. At the end of the street, a short path will take you to the northern end of the High Rise district. So all of the restaurants -- and the beach and the shops -- are about seven to ten minutes walk.)
Other Notes on Aruban Dining
Many of these restaurants have their own websites with more information. ArubaRestaurants.com is a very useful website.
For many of us, a good wine selection can make a big difference. Tastes vary, but here are some thoughts. We know of no place (other than Le Dome) that has a great wine selection, but many have good selections. Marandi’s, Matthew's Place, Papiamento, Matilde, and Madame Janette are in this category. None that we have found serves a memorable house wine by the glass.
We often buy wine at Ling & Sons, (see the "Food Tips" tab) which has a good selection including somewhat higher-end wines, and enjoy our wine before heading out. Kong Fui also has a good wine selection. Whether ordering off a wine list or buying at Lings or Kong Fui, we have found some tasty values in European wines at reasonable prices due to not having import duties. We especially have enjoyed good values among the Spanish reds.
If we just want a light dessert, we sometimes stop at Haagen Daz or Ben & Jerry’s for ice cream (both are in the High Rise district and downtown). Gelato also is available in the High Rise district.
A note on tipping: Many restaurants have started adding a 15% service charge, to compensate for some diners not tipping as generously as others. (Check your bill; some add the charge, but others do not.) Since we typically leave 20% but consider the service charge as part of the tip, we generally write, “service charge included” and add another 5%. Each diner will have to sort out how he or she wishes to accommodate the service charge.
We had several reasons for choosing Aruba for our tropical getaway. Having a fine variety of restaurants and accessible food shopping was a key consideration. While new restaurants add to the challenge of keeping up with the best dining opportunities, they certainly keep adding to the list of great places, -- and to our love for coming back.
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