Desperately needing a bit of break from what’s turning out to be a pretty nasty winter here in the Boston area, my wife and I spent some time this past week in San Juan. Mid-80s felt a touch too hot for me, winter acclimatized as I currently am, but I certainly shouldn’t complain given the impending blizzard! Anyway, lots of good food and drink; San Juan is a fun place to visit, and I thought I’d share some of the highlights.
We stayed at the Condado Vanderbilt, a hotel dating back to 1919. Condado is a bit more of an upscale neighborhood, but also perhaps a touch boring. (Previously we’ve visited and stayed in Isla Verde, which has more going on but also a grittier feel.) Condado is, however, very centrally located; just a $6 Uber to either Old San Juan or Santurce. The Vanderbilt itself is a nice property and has a very good food and beverage program (see below), but lacks direct beach access: Its bit of the ocean is quite rocky and rough, which does provide much prettier scenery; and the hotel next door – La Concha – makes its beach available to Vanderbilt guests. I wasn’t too annoyed by the five minute walk, but we overhead some other guests complaining about it.
On to the food and beverage! We had many good experiences and a few not-so-good experiences, but I’ll just stick to the better bits for this report.
Tour of Ron del Barrilito rum
From a rum perspective Puerto Rico is most famous for Bacardi, but there are a couple of smaller producers as well. Ron del Barrilito has an interesting and unique product that is made using a “secret” maceration of spices and fruit. The factory tour includes a 30-minute walking tour of the grounds, aging, and bottling areas, followed by a 30-minute tasting including the full range of expressions. And, to top it off, a free cocktail at the in-house bar.
The tour was quite interesting and well done, led by a guide who was very knowledgeable about rum production. I was slightly annoyed to learn that we’d see neither fermenting nor distilling apparatus, as it turns out that no fermentation or distillation is done any longer by Ron del Barrilito; these steps are now contracted out to Bacardi. The distilled spirit comes back to the Barrilito plant where it is macerated, aged, and bottled.
The tasting part was enjoyable but not worthy of much discussion. It was fun to try the upper end (i.e. pricey – ~$400-$700) expressions, but I wasn’t impressed enough to walk away with a bottle. The 3* (about $35 here in the mainland US) is the sweet spot; an excellent mixing rum. The best part? The cocktail at the end was extremely well done and probably the best drink I had while in Puerto Rico. (I opted for an old fashioned variant that used the 3* rum in conjunction with cinnamon syrup and a large coconut water ice cube.) Unfortunately I have no photo of the drink but here’s one from the barrel room.
Santurce and Santaella
We spent a nice afternoon walking around the Santurce neighborhood, which is home to a large number of bars, restaurants, and nightclubs. There is also a lot of street art, which is one of the things that brought us here. Starting on Calle Cerra and walking around, you’ll see massive and very impressive murals on many of the buildings, as well as a fair bit of urban decay. The neighborhood is definitely safe during the day but wouldn’t be my first choice for an evening stroll.
None of the murals were especially food-oriented, but we did stop into the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, a tiny contemporary art museum ($6 entry fee for the single gallery, which took us 30 minutes or so to walk through). Its current exhibit happens to be all about food industrialization, so here’s a shot from there.
Once evening hit we spent a bit of time walking around Placita Santurce, an open area with bars, food stalls, and music. It was a Wednesday night and it felt a bit dead, but apparently it’s quite a party atmosphere during the weekend. Nonetheless we enjoyed a couple of questionable street-vendor margaritas and some surprisingly good live salsa music performed solo by a guy with a great voice and what looked (and sounded) like a bottom-end Casio keyboard.
Just outside of Placita Santurce is Santaella, a very popular restaurant where we had dinner that evening. Reservations absolutely required for this one! The place was completely packed from when we arrived just before 8:00 to our departure around 10:00. It’s a fairly casual place but more on the “smart casual” or “business casual” end of the equation.
We started with some excellent cocktails…which I unfortunately failed to document. Followed by a few starters (we were quite hungry after our day of walking): A salad of cherry tomatoes and parmesan ice cream; banana root fritters topped with crab; and roasted hen of the woods mushroom with goat cheese and a couple of vinaigrettes. The tomato salad was the winner here; I was dubious about the ice cream going in but it ended up being absolutely delicious. The fritters were also good – fried stuff! – and the mushroom was slightly overwhelmed by the goat cheese which turned out to be extremely tart.
For our mains we enjoyed seabass over sweet potato puree, and shrimp served with trifongo – which I’m still not especially certain I can explain, except that it’s a variation on mofongo (mashed plantains) with some additional ingredients. I think. In any case, the seabass was absolutely perfectly executed; amazing dish. And the trifongo was a tasty and very filling accompaniment to the shrimp.
Overall a great experience here. Service was on point, pacing was relaxed, and we thoroughly enjoyed the meal.
Old San Juan, La Factoria, and Princesa
Another day we spent time in Old San Juan. There are a number of guided walking tours and I highly recommend taking one. We had walked around a lot on our own on our last visit to San Juan, and even visited a couple of the forts, but hearing the history from the guide filled in a ton of blanks. There’s a lot to it, and the city has a colorful and interesting back story. Our guide was a PhD and history professor at one of the local universities so he certainly knew his stuff.
After the walking tour we visited a few establishments for drinks, most notably a cocktail bar called La Factoria, that I highly recommend. Alas, I have no photos to share. But the drinks are creative and top notch.
Our thirst sated, we headed to dinner at Princesa, a Puerto Rican restaurant in Old San Juan. Princesa is a fun and buzzy spot and reservations are recommended but probably not required. The space is fairly casual (lots of people in t-shirts and shorts) and loud. I especially liked the look of its outdoor rum bar:
Food-wise we started with fish croquettes (foreground below) and coconut fritters topped with roast pork and some sort of jam (background). I should have taken better notes, and the restaurant’s web site seems to be down at the moment so I can’t confirm. In any case both starters were tasty if a bit small, portion-wise.
For our mains – which I failed to photograph – we had a roast [white fish that I can’t recall] atop yellow rice with pigeon peas, and a chickpea stew with roast cod and bacon rice. The roast fish and yellow pea rice were both very well executed, and the chickpea stew was amazing, well spiced and deeply comforting. However, the “bacon rice” – white rice with diced chunks of bacon fat mixed in and somehow zero seasoning – was not something I’d personally recommend. My wife on a whim asked the waiter if they had some hot sauce and it turned out they did have a housemade one featuring pineapple and habanero. This paired really well with the chickpea stew.
Overall another great choice. Service was friendly and pacing felt just a bit slow, but we were in no rush and the food (other than the bacon rice) was really tasty. As we departed around 9:30 or 10:00 the room was starting to clear out, so this is probably not a good late-night destination.
Vanderbilt Hotel, 1919
For our final day in San Juan we decided to try to stay as local to the hotel as possible and relaxed at the pool and beach. The breakfast and lunch options at the hotel’s restaurants are both pretty good, if not really worth going into full detail about. The pool bar also makes an excellent pina colada. But what I want to delve into here was dinner at the hotel’s fine dining restaurant, 1919. This restaurant is often listed among the best in San Juan, so it seemed like a perfect choice.
The room is quiet and has a refined and upscale feel, and service was top notch. The only real issue I had on the hospitality front was the wine list, presented before the food menus and on an iPad. In addition to having no idea how to reasonably select a bottle of wine without understanding what I might be eating, the iPad’s interface was awful. Kind of a bad first impression.
Upon receiving our food menus – paper, thankfully – we opted for the five-course chef’s tasting (and a bottle of tempranillo, which I felt would adequately pair with everything we were told we’d receive). After an amuse bouche of vichyssoise with black truffle served in a demitasse cup (no photo) and bread service (a really cool brioche with caramelized onions, rolled up like a cinnamon roll…again, no photo, ugh!), we received the following savory courses: Tuna tartare with guava gel, avocado, and basil (microgreens + oil); watermelon, cucumber, and caviar; taro gnocchi with parmesan crisps and black truffle; chestnut-crusted venison loin paired with a chunky chestnut puree. The tuna was tasty…it was tuna tartare; tough to go wrong there. The guava was really a nice touch and elevated the dish a bit with some acidic pops. The watermelon course was interesting but I felt that a bit more could have been done, e.g. compression of the melon using a vacuum. The melon part of the dish was literally just sliced melon. The gnocchi were excellent, with a satisfying chew and a slight sweetness. I had no idea that they could be made with taro. This was for me the most successful savory course by far. And finally, the venison: While well-seasoned, the meat was unfortunately cooked to a medium+ doneness; I think venison is far better served medium rare. The chestnut puree, however, was really nice.
Following the savory courses we received a palate cleanser (raspberry sorbet over yogurt panna cotta; very nice…and another no photo), and dessert: Lemon olive oil cake topped with lemon ice cream and pistachio foam. I’m not a lemon dessert guy, at all, but this was absolutely killer. And finally, some petit fours, from left to right: A fancy looking but utterly forgettable cookie; some sort of lemon merengue (very good); a mini canele (decent); a tres leches truffle (good).
This was certainly not an inexpensive meal and the food quality perhaps wasn’t quite there, but none the less we left feeling satisfied especially thanks to the stellar service. I hope they’ll continue to refine and improve and overall I would recommend (with some reservations) visiting this restaurant if you’re in the area and in the mood for a fine dining experience.
Overall Impressions
My second trip to San Juan, and it certainly did not disappoint! I think there’s more than enough going on here to make it a solid food-oriented destination, in addition to its wealth of natural beauty and interesting cultural options. If you enjoy visiting Caribbean destinations, PR should definitely go onto your list.
And now that I’ve finished writing, off to the gas station to fuel my snowblower. I have just enough of a sunburn that I’ll feel a nostalgic touch of Puerto Rico as I’m cleaning up my driveway tomorrow.
