5 Best Palm Beach Aruba Restaurants: From Beach Shacks to Upscale Dining 

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Most tourists will be staying in either Palm Beach or Eagle Beach.

When comparing the two, there’s a much larger concentration of restaurants within easy walking distance of most hotels in the Palm Beach area.

If you do not have a car, then you may want to take this into consideration. Being able to walk to dinner, dine, have a few drinks, and walk back to your hotel is incredibly convenient.

We stayed at the Boardwalk Boutique Hotel in Palm Beach. It was slightly off the main strip but still within 20 minutes walking distance of most restaurants.   

Aruba boasts a wide range of international cuisine including Dutch, Italian, Asian fusion, South American, and local cuisine. It truly is multicultural.

The more touristy places seem to have similar menus, so my husband and I purposely sought out restaurants in Palm Beach that offered some unique house specialty.

Here are our top 5 in no particular order!

I could eat at this incredibly delicious family-owned beach shack every day, and I did!  

Eduardo’s started as a smoothie shack in 2007. Now many years later it has evolved into much more offering healthy fruit bowls, juices, gourmet breakfast dishes, fruity cocktails, and delicious plant-based lunch and dinner items at three different locations.

Wait, what? 3 locations?

You may have only seen two options on GoogleMaps: Eduardo’s Beach Shack near Playa Linda Beach Resort and Eduardo’s Hideaway near the Noord Supermarket.

Where’s the 3rd location?

The Boardwalk Boutique Hotel!

Here is an example of the quality of food you can expect from one of my favorite Palm Beach Aruba Restaurants:

A fantastic casual dining option is getting takeout at Marhaba Lebanese Cuisine. It’s a little off the tourist path but still in the Palm Beach area.

We ordered online and had it delivered to our casita at the Boardwalk.

This little gem serves delicious authentic Lebanese food.

The menu is pretty extensive and serves all the classics like hummus, babaganoush, lamb rack, kebabs, cabbage leaves, falafel, lahme basin (thin meat pie), and kibbeh (beef croquette).

We got a little bit of everything. They have platters that serve an assortment of the most popular dishes, so you can sample it all.

I love going out, but it’s sometimes nice to enjoy a great meal and your own cocktails at your place. If you’re feeling like it’s one of those nights, order from Marhaba!  

This vibrant place was easy to love.

Lola’s makes their own corn tortillas fresh daily and offers a great selection of gourmet tacos including baja fish, carnitas, lobster, al pastor, carne asada, shrimp, and several more.

Go there on Taco Tuesday if you can. All tacos are $1.

No Cheesecake Factory menu here.

I love that there’s a one-page menu, and all they serve is tacos (and just a few appetizers).

They are delicious and quite filling. As we usually do, we ordered more than we could eat because they all looked so good.

Lola’s is right next to their sister establishment called Craft. Craft serves coffee and breakfast by day and then turns into a cocktail bar at night. Bottomless mimosas are served on Sundays for brunch

We ordered a few pitchers of their delicious “Craft Sangria,” made of Absolut pear, peach liqueur, triple sec, oj, red wine, apples, and blueberries.

The ambiance was fun and lively and all outdoors. Love those Aruba breezes.

Gianni’s has been on the island for decades (since 1984!), and there’s a reason why. Fantastic authentic Italian food!

Restaurants don’t last this long unless they are superb.

The restaurant is owned by the Ferrara family, who came from a small Italian city on the Napoli coast.

Almost all the ingredients they use are imported from Italy, which includes items like flour from Molino Caputo, wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano, Pomodoro San Marzano PDO (high-quality tomatoes only grown in Agro Nocerino-Sarnese in southern Italy), and Grana Padano PDO (Italian cheese made from raw cow’s milk).

Remember, Aruba is a little island in the Caribbean. To be able to get all these specific authentic ingredients can be difficult and expensive.

But Gianni’s focus is to deliver the best for their customers and that means sourcing high-quality products.  

Gianni’s also owns the Gelatissimo next door, which offers some mouthwatering gelato flavors.

We loved the Black Hawaii flavor, which is dark chocolate with coconut.

Yes, it’s really that black in color, and it’s SO delicious!

Great food is just one part of the formula for having a great dining experience.

The second part is the service.

From the front of the house to the back end, the staff members at Gianni’s were incredible and very attentive to our needs without being obtrusive.

I later found out the Ferrara family takes the staff members to Italy every year to attend the top food fairs. Pretty remarkable and it shows the dedication of this team to deliver the best dining experience possible.

Poffertjes are mini Dutch pancakes made with yeast and buckwheat flour.

They are a MUST-TRY food when in Aruba, and the Poffertjes van Pofferdorie Food Truck serves the island’s best.

These delicious bite-sized treats are fluffy and spongy on the inside and just a little crispy on the edges. They can be topped with anything sweet such as Nutella, strawberries, whipped cream, powdered sugar, salted caramel, cinnamon … you name it!

The very friendly staff will make them fresh to order right in front of you. Eat them while they are hot.

You get 10 for $4.50-$6.50 depending on your toppings. 10 may sound like a lot, but they are small.

Trust me, they go down quickly. If I was 20 again, I would have placed 2 orders.  They are that good.

Aruba is casual.

I mean, don’t wear a bathing suit to dinner, but I felt very comfortable wearing white shorts and a nice sleeveless top to both Lolas and Gianni’s.

Some ladies wore sundresses, and some men wore shorts and polo shirts or a button-down.

I would say the range is casual to smart casual.

Now if I was dining at some of the 5-8 course tasting menu restaurants like the Fred or The Kitchen Table, I would have definitely worn a sundress.

I would strongly advise making dinner reservations for any of the sit-down restaurants on the main strip.

We did not make reservations for the first evening we arrived. We waited in front of Gianni’s for about an hour before being seated.

We learned from our mistake and made reservations for Lola’s later that week. The restaurants on the main strip are packed during the dinner rush.

I would strongly make reservations a few WEEKS in advance for most sit-down dining establishments.

For some of the more exclusive restaurants, you will likely have to make dinner reservations MONTHS in advance.

Caribbean islands usually are not known for spectacular food (except St. Martin). I would say Aruba was an exception and offered many delicious choices in a variety of dining settings.

From the food trucks to the beach shacks to the sit-down dining, you are bound to find something you like. Enjoy!  

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Questions about our dining experiences at our favorite Palm Beach, Aruba restaurants?

Let me know in the comments below!