Aruba for first-time visitors

Best restaurants

Aruba's dining scene is small enough to walk end to end in a week and varied enough to reward the effort. The island runs on a handful of registers: fish shacks on the leeward coast where the boats tie up in the afternoon, French and Swiss dining rooms in the colonial townhouses of Oranjestad, Italian and international kitchens strung along the Palm Beach hotel strip, and a handful of chef-driven rooms in the interior where the cooking is more interesting than the address suggests. The twelve below are chosen to spread across those registers and across the island: Savaneta in the south, Oranjestad in the middle, Palm Beach and Noord in the north, and the quieter inland villages of Santa Cruz and Paradera in between. The list favours places that argue for themselves in the food and the room, and skips the interchangeable resort buffets. Prices are not given because the bundle does not carry them; hours and phone numbers are the ones on the record and will get you in the door.