Eating your way through Quito, Ecuador

Quito’s dining scene is defined not by quality, but choice. Set high in the Andes, the city draws from all of Ecuador’s regions – the coast, the Amazon, the Highlands, and the country’s Galapagos Islands – offering everything from elegant fine dining restaurants to savory budget spots.

Here, market street stalls sit alongside refined tasting-menu restaurants, each with its own version of the same story. In the street stalls, you’ll find smoke and heat, while the fine-dining rooms are noted for their precision and creativity. But what unites them is the chance to get a taste of a country still revealing itself …one plate at a time.

Adding to our previous “Best Restaurants in Ecuador” list we’ve surveyed our expert sales team for their top places to dine in our home city. Here are ten of our recommended Quito eating spots for 2026. 

Nuum: A leap of faith, well executed

For travelers seeking something new, Nuum is the perfect fit. This is a place where the diner takes a calculated risk, but where the usual payoff is high.

At Nuum, you first tell the chef what you prefer, and they later bring you food according to the daily catch their own inspiration. On a good night (and most are), you’re served up punchy ceviche, smart textures, fine wine, and cocktails with edge. But on those rare “less than perfect” evenings, when the communication between server and customer isn’t so clear, execution slips.

It’s not cheap, the chef controls the speed at which the dishes arrive, the portions are small, and the prices are shown only at the end. But for serious eaters seeking precision and surprise rather than predictable dishes, it’s a real treat.

Clara: The beauty of simplicity

There’s nothing flashy about Clara, and that’s the point. It’s about serious cooking – without theatrics. The room hums, the plates speak. Ecuadorian ingredients arrive familiar, then veer sideways. Tomatoes sharpened, textures pushed, pork ear crisped into submission, vegetables carrying real weight, and sauces that are confident, not decorative. Your comfort is disrupted just enough to wake you up. This is not nostalgia cuisine; it’s memory rewritten by chefs who know when to stop.

As for the space, it feels lived-in, conversations overlap, and the kitchen keeps its head down and works. At the same time, the service is relaxed but alert, like a good host who reads the table.

Clara is the kind of restaurant travelers remember because it feels honest; rooted yet contemporary, and uninterested in proving anything beyond what’s on the plate. Clara doesn’t chase trends. It refines them, calmly, plate by plate.

Osaka: Where Japan and Peru meet in Quito

This Quito outpost of a respected Nikkei brand operates with discipline: fish impeccably fresh, sauces sharp, and plating intentional. The fusion narrative isn’t surface deep. It’s in the way ingredients converse, sometimes compellingly so. Think ceviche with disciplined acidity, rolls that break from the usual, and seafood that shows up with real presence.

Osaka’s reputation rests on a kitchen that respects technique and isn’t afraid to push flavor boundaries. Service aims to guide rather than hover, with wine and cocktail pairings that match the subtle tang and heat of the menu.

The space can feel brisk and busy — this isn’t hushed luxury — but what lands on the plate reflects intention and craft. For the upscale traveler who wants thoughtful fusion without pretension, Osaka hits its mark. It’s not fine dining in formality, but it’s exacting in execution.

Meaning “the mountain,” the URKO restaurant takes diners on an amazing journey through the various regions of Ecuador: the Amazon, the coast, the highlands, and the Galapagos Islands. Its owners call it a “seasonal restaurant” by because the menu changes entirely every three months.

They believe in respecting the Earth’s natural seasons, as harvesting, sowing, fertility, and blossoming mark the meaning of each celebration, which remains fundamental to the worldview of Andean peoples.

Currently, URKO’s unique eleven-course tasting menu includes trout, mashua, tzintzo, chillangua, pork, black soursop, cachama (an Amazonian fish), and many more dishes. They also offer beverage pairings and tastings of Ecuadorian chocolates with specialty coffee and local liqueurs.

Twice recognized by the World Culinary Awards as the “Best Restaurant in Ecuador,” URKO reservations are made up to six months in advance – a sure sign of the demand for this unique dining locale. 

Banh Mi: From Hanoi to the Andes

Forget sanitized fusion. At Banh Mi, you get unapologetic Asian flavors in a city that rarely attempts them with this much grit. The namesake sandwiches crack with texture, herbs, and pickles hitting hard against smoky pork or tempura shrimp, riffing on tradition with confidence.

For travelers craving honest food foreign to the Andes, this is one of Quito’s more rewarding stops. The menu draws freely from Southeast Asia with a Quito sensibility: bold, unfiltered, and generous. Portions are substantial without being sloppy. Forget beer and soda. The drinks here are built with purpose, meant to stand shoulder to shoulder with the food.

In a dining scene infatuated with white linens and empty ceremony, this place opts for honesty. The room stays alive with locals, visitors, and voices overlapping over another round. It’s relaxed, noisy, a bit rough—and quietly unforgettable.

Pez Bela: Quito’s seafood statement

Walk into Pez Bela and you feel like you’ve hit a seam of pure marine intent. The concept at Pez Bela is straightforward: respect the ingredients and push them just beyond expectation.

No one comes here for performance. You come because Chef Isabella Chiriboga takes Ecuador’s ceviche tradition and wrings every ounce of possibility from it. Simple seafood turns sophisticated without pretension, from salmon kissed by passion fruit to oysters with tiger’s milk and lemon. Then too, the tuna ceviche with coconut and avocado might just reset your standards. There’s also a terrace for afternoon wine, surrounded by a constant hum of real tables, real people eating real flavors.

Quito has seafood spots, but few push it this far inland with this level of craft.

Nuema: A new language of Ecuadorian cuisine

Nuema is a confluence of everything unique about Ecuador. This is a kitchen obsessed with the country’s striking biodiversity, pushing forgotten local products into high-impact tasting courses.

Naturally, it’s become a flagbearer for the country’s culinary scene. It’s a restaurant where they serve a seven-course tasting menu blending local ingredients in surprising ways, like bone marrow with black clam fudge, while master chef Salazar crafts desserts using Ecuadorian herbs, flowers, and unique ingredients like sacha inchi, and u’kuisi, an Amazonian fruit they use as natural food coloring.

In 2020, Nuema, Quito, duly became Ecuador’s first-ever entry on Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants, and a year after that, Nuema was recognized on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list for the first time.
In the world’s ever-evolving culinary landscape, Ecuador may be “a hidden gem in Latin America dining,” but through Nuema, it’s entering the spotlight.

3500 restaurant: “The taste of memory”

Opening in 2017, 3500 was named for the altitude where the restaurant was first located, high in the foothills of a Quito-area volcano. From that very beginning, the restaurant’s cuisine has been in reverence to ancestral Ecuadorian highland cooking: austere and deeply personal.

Today, the restaurant, with about 30 people team, offers its signature cuisine based on local ingredients and collective memory. They don’t aim to duplicate the traditional recipes but to honor them.

The menu is called ‘The Taste of Memory,’ alluding to what Ecuadorians tasted: as kids. What they do at 3500 is deconstruct the recipes of the past and then reassemble with a contemporary perspective,” explained the chef and owner Alejandro Huertas.

An example of this philosophy is his ceviche with clams, cherimoya, and pangora tostadas. Similarly, their drinks draw from native botanicals, wine pairs with purpose, and presentation respecting substance. None of this is just kitsch: they’re fearless reinterpretations of regional staples.

For travelers who equate authenticity with rigor, this is one of Quito’s boldest destinations.

Shibumi: Quito’s study in modern Japanese cuisine

Shibumi is that kind of spot where you might not even notice if casually passing by, but that unassuming simplicity is part of the reason to go there.

Unassuming, warm and inviting, the intimate dining area that strongly makes a compelling case for savoring refreshing sushi in the capital city. The place is ruled by the hand of chef Junior Córdova Galarza, who spent two decades under the tutelage of a Japanese sushi master in Denmark. Now, running his own restaurant, Junior is literally fanatical about the quality of the fish and other ingredients that go into his sushi.

The selection of dishes is not at all restricted; in fact, it’s quite broad and includes panko-covered prawns and seared tuna with mango, finely sliced nigiri and sashimi, of course, mixed rolls such as Shibumi kaburimaki consisting of red tuna, crab, and cucumber, with no superfluous distractions.

Preparations that appear simple yet are simultaneously complex, honoring the restaurant’s name, which comes from a Japanese word meaning “beauty in simplicity.” Experience a side of Quito dining that values restraint, clarity, and craft above all else. 

El Ventanal: Quito’s skyline served with dinner

Imagine a restaurant floating between the earth and sky. This is the El Ventanal (the “Picture window,” in Spanish).
Sitting high on the edge of a dormant volcano, with the city down below, the restaurant provides its patrons with an unrivalled bird’s-eye vista of Quito’s historic “Old Town” district. One a clear day, the guests can even make out the chain of other volcanoes in the distance.

But the El Ventanal Restaurant’s not only about its breathtaking view; it’s been the stronghold of international gourmet cuisine in Quito since 2009. The restaurant boasts dishes created from South American ingredients prepared using both European and Ecuadorian techniques. Yet, even in the case of Latin American food, the Ventanal dishes outshine. The restaurant’s Ecuadorean ceviche is said to be “even juicier” than that of world-famous Peruvian ceviche.

The Ventanal is determined to offer a dining experience that includes the best of world cuisine and the visual beauty of Ecuador’s capital city to all its guests. It’s a dining paradise where all the senses are catered to; a setting where you’re given not only the opportunity to experience wonderful tastes but also amazing natural beauty.

The last course: Quito’s restaurants worth remembering

Quito’s best restaurants tell a story far richer than trends or technique.

The three elements of the city — high altitude, rich biodiversity, and collective memory — are revealed through the new creations of the chefs, inspired by ancient Peruvian and the modern gastronomic styles. This is not only a city that’s finding its culinary voice but one that’s also deeply rooted in the place and finally ready to be heard.