So you've landed, dropped your bags at the hotel, and now you're standing outside looking down J.E. Irausquin Boulevard with no clue where to eat. Pretty much everyone goes through this exact moment. There's a restaurant every few steps on this strip, and somehow that makes picking one harder, not easier, especially a few hours off a flight.
Palm Beach is where most of the island's hotels and restaurants are packed together, which means dinner is never far away no matter where you're staying. What's missing is any kind of guide to which places are actually worth that first night and which ones are just there because they happen to be on the strip.
So this covers the basics. How the area's laid out, what you'll actually pay for dinner, a few local dishes worth knowing by name, and some restaurants to start with instead of wandering until something looks decent. If you're trying to find the best restaurants in Aruba without burning your first two days figuring it out the hard way, this should get you there faster.
Palm Beach at a Glance
The boulevard runs the length of the whole area, hotels on one side, restaurants and shops lining the other. Most of it is walkable, and that catches a lot of first timers off guard, since plenty of people assume they'll need a rental car just to get dinner.
The mix is wider than you'd expect from one strip. Beach bars with sand under your table, a restaurant or two built right over the water on a pier, smaller local kitchens a block off the main road that don't look like much from outside, and the usual sit-down spots scattered everywhere in between. If the strip ever feels like too much going on, Eagle Beach is a short ride away and considerably quieter.
How Dining Works in Aruba
A couple things are worth knowing before you sit down anywhere. First, check your bill before you tip. A lot of restaurants here add a service charge, usually somewhere around 10 to 15 percent, and it'll show up labeled as "service" or sometimes "servicio." Not every place does this though, so don't just assume it's tacked on, actually look at the total before deciding what else to leave.
Money wise, US dollars work pretty much everywhere and cards are accepted at nearly every sit-down restaurant, so you don't need to stress about currency exchange before your first meal. Walk-ins are fine at most casual spots. If you're coming with a bigger group, or you're visiting sometime between January and April when things get busier, calling ahead isn't a bad idea.
One thing that catches people off guard is that kitchens often close earlier than the bars attached to them. You might walk into a place at 10:30 thinking it's still open, and technically it is, but the kitchen shut down an hour ago and all you're getting is a drink. And as far as what to wear, don't overthink it. Shorts and flip flops get you into nearly everything on this strip.
Eating Well Without Overspending
Let's be honest about something first. Aruba isn't a cheap place to eat. Mains on Palm Beach commonly run $25 to $45, and if you're eating out every meal for a week, that number starts adding up faster than people expect going in.
That said, there are real affordable restaurants in Aruba if you know what to look for. Happy hour is the easiest one, usually sometime in the late afternoon or early evening, and it can cut your drink costs down noticeably if you time dinner around it. Lunch tends to run cheaper than dinner at the exact same place too, so eating a bigger meal midday and something smaller later can help balance the budget out. Sharing plates works in your favor as well, and the smaller local kitchens are usually priced lower than spots built specifically to catch hotel traffic walking by.
Burgers deserve a specific mention here. They're filling, they're reasonably priced compared to a full seafood dinner, and the good burger spots on this strip aren't cutting quality just because the price tag is lower.
Where to Start: Top Restaurants in Palm Beach by Craving
If you're craving a burger, go to Drunken Burger.
Twenty one burgers on one menu sounds like a lot until you actually look at the list and realize how different they are from each other. The Jack Daniels-infused Burger gets ordered the most, but there's also a Spaghetti Bolognese Burger and a Chicken Alfredo Burger that aren't just novelty items, they're actually built around those flavors properly. The Salchipapa Burger is in there too. And if you want something thinner with crispy edges instead of a thick patty, there's a whole Smash sub-brand on the menu for that.
It's not only burgers either. Seafood, Mexican dishes, pasta, enough variety that a table full of people with completely different cravings can still eat together without anyone compromising. Open daily 11AM to 11PM with happy hour running every day, located at The Cove Mall on J.E. Irausquin Boulevard. If you're looking for the top burger restaurant Aruba has, this is probably it, and it's a solid first dinner option if you just landed and don't want to overthink anything.
If you want seafood and a later night, Drunken Fish is close by.
Seafood served in crispy cones, fried red snapper as the house specialty, and a rooftop that keeps things going until 1AM if you're not ready to call it a night yet.
A few others worth having on your radar: MooMba puts tables directly in the sand, serves wood-fired pizzas, and usually has live music going, with happy hour from 6 to 7PM. Bugaloe sits out over the water on a pier and has some of the better sunset views around, plus live entertainment on several nights each week. Wacky Wahoo is run by an actual local fisherman, so you're about as close to the source as the seafood gets around here.
Local Dishes Worth Trying
While you're on the island, there are a few dishes worth ordering even if you don't usually branch out when traveling. Keshi yena is stuffed cheese, typically filled with seasoned meat, heavier than you'd guess from the name. Pastechi are fried turnovers, cheap and quick, and it's easy to end up ordering more than you meant to. Funchi is fried cornmeal, simple, but it pairs well with almost anything else on the plate. Stobas are slow cooked stews, better suited to a cooler evening than a hot afternoon. And fresh grouper or snapper shows up on menus all over the island, usually tasting noticeably better here than it would anywhere it had to travel to reach you.
After a day of eating your way through the local stuff, a burger makes a pretty good reset. That's really the argument for not sticking to just one kind of restaurant your whole trip, it's what keeps any list of best restaurants in Aruba from looking identical no matter who's writing it.
Where to Begin
Palm Beach looks more complicated standing in the hotel lobby than it actually turns out to be once you start walking around. And none of this needs to cost a fortune if you're a little strategic about when and where you eat. Mix things up across the week. A beach lunch one day, something local the next, a burger night whenever it sounds good.
A good place to kick off the trip is a table at Drunken Burger.
Reserve your table at drunkenburger.com →
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