Restaurants & Hotels
Cuisine
Venezuela's larger cities boast a wide variety of restaurants, from Spanish tascas (casual restaurants with bars) to French bistros to Japanese sushi bars. But while you're here, you should sample Venezuela's own unique cuisine. The national dish, pabellón criollo, consists of shredded beef served with rice, black beans (caraotas negras), fried ripe plantains (tajadas), and local white cheeses such as queso de mano. Venezuelans love beef, and restaurants that specialize in grilled meats (called restaurantes de carne) are popular with locals. Stop at an arepera and try an arepa, a grilled cornmeal pocket stuffed with anything from fresh cheese to reina pepiada, or avocado-and-chicken salad. If you visit during the Christmas season, try the delicious holiday specialty called hallacas, which are a combination of chicken, almonds, olives, and pork, in a cornmeal shell wrapped in aromatic banana leaves.
Excellent fish and shellfish dominate in the coastal areas and on Isla Margarita and Los Roques. You can choose from grouper, snapper, mackerel, tuna, swordfish, lobster, crab, shrimp, and clams. In the Andean regions, treat yourself to rainbow trout.
Don't leave Venezuela without sampling at least one of these scrumptious, typical desserts: bien me sabe (coconut cake), torta de guanábana (a tart fruitcake), merengón de nispero (meringue cake), and the always popular cascos de guayaba (guava shells with white cheese). As a Caribbean nation, Venezuela excels at rum production (ron in Spanish). A small bottle of aged Santa Teresa fits nicely in your pack to take home. Venezuela also produces some surprisingly good domestic wines, such as Viña Altagracia or the sparkling Pomar from Lara State, in the northwest region of the country.
Lunch, the main meal of the day, begins around noon and lasts until about 3. A light dinner is eaten between 7 and 10 pm; don't count on being served much past 10:30 pm, except in the Las Mercedes district of Caracas, where some restaurants remain open until midnight. Some restaurants offer a prix-fixe meal at lunchtime known as the menu ejecutivo. This includes a primero (appetizer of soup or salad); a segundo, the main course; and postre (dessert). Espresso or guayoyo, a weaker drip coffee, is included.
High-end restaurants may have dress codes, so inquire when making reservations. For most other dining establishments, a woman can't go wrong in an informal dress or a man in a collared shirt with optional tie.
Accommodations
Venezuela offers lodging options to suit almost every price range and comfort level—from the resort citadels of Caracas to the colorful, three-room posadas of Los Roques. Take in a view of the Andes from the window of a restored 17th-century monastery or from the cobblestone courtyard of a renovated coffee hacienda nestled in the cloud forest above Mérida. In Los Llanos you can stay on a working cattle ranch or in the guest facilities of a biological field station. Those who seek adventure by day and comfort by night will relish the prime location and amenities offered by the Arekuna camp near Parque Nacional Canaima.
Luxury hotels rarely include meals when quoting rates, but many of the smaller lodgings in the Andes do include breakfast (and sometimes dinner) in their room rates. Remember that prices jump 10%–20% during holiday periods, particularly during Christmas, pre-Lenten Carnival, and Holy Week.
