3 Best Restaurants in The Canal and Central Panama, Panama

After years of running one of Panama City's most popular restaurants, Lourdes Fabrega de Ward built this elegant place across from her retirement home so that she wouldn't get bored. It now seems unlikely that she'll ever retire, since old clients and a growing list of new fans pack the place on weekends, drawn by Lourdes' inventive menu and the magical ambience of her Tuscan-style casa. Meals are served on a back terrace with views of her garden and Cerro Gaital framed by high columns, arches, and an elegant pool. It is truly a house, and you enter through a spacious living room with couches, a piano, and family photos. She changes her menu frequently, but it always has a good mix of seafood and meat dishes, as well as amazing desserts. Reservations are essential on weekends.

This small Italian restaurant next to the lobby of the Anton Valley Hotel has a covered terrace where you can watch the townsfolk roll by. The food is quite good and the menu includes an ample selection of salads and pastas, half a dozen different bruschetta, corvina (sea bass), salmon, and beef tenderloin. The nicest seating is on the front terrace, which has a view of the main road and the church, and access to Wi-Fi.

This open-air restaurant, a short drive from the main road, is like something out of a fairy tale. There are stone floors, plants everywhere, goldfish ponds and a stream running between the tables; the food is pretty good, too. The ample menu ranges from traditional Panamanian dishes such as sancocho (chicken soup with tropical tubers) and corvina (sea bass) prepared various ways, to filet mignon and chicken cordon bleu—they spell it "gordon blue." There's a playground and a tiny menagerie in the back garden. They also rent rooms, but they're cramped, dark, and musty.