10 Best Restaurants in Mazatlan, Mexico

With its fresh flowers, cream-and-beige color scheme, and small rooms flickering with candlelight, this Italian restaurant is truly elegant. A piano-accompanied singer stirs up the romance Thursday through Sunday after 7 pm. Try the veal scaloppine with mushrooms or the capellini with pesto and grilled scallops. The service is impeccable.

This small restaurant and gallery in an old building behind the Posada Freeman in the Centro Histórico lets you drink and dine, listen and talk so unhurriedly that it's almost meditative. The kitchen, which specializes in grilled meats and fish, serves until about 10:30 pm, but the bar is open long into the night. You're encouraged to listen to the music (nightly after 8 pm), consider the paintings, maybe read something in the small library, and engage in the lost art of conversation.

The Tunnel—named for its long, narrow entrance across from the exit of the Teatro Angela Peralta—has been in business since 1945, and black-and-white photos of classic Mexican stars line the yellow-and-lavender-trimmed walls. You can taste its experience with faithful renditions of such famed regional snacks as gorditas (fried rounds of cornmeal topped with garnish), tostadas, meat or potato tacos and pozole (pork-and-hominy stew), and its specialty, asada de la plaza de res (chopped beef and cubed potatoes, spiced and smothered in lettuce, carrots, and onions).

The waiters that dance at night and the faux-rustic Western scheme can come across as a little too Disney, but the Mexican dishes from the kitchen's firewood grill are authentic and excellent. The arrachera (skirt steak) and other regional cuts arrive with kettle beans, quesadilla, and guacamole; the rib eye and American cuts have sides of corn on the cob and baked potato. Fresh-fruit margaritas and piña coladas are served by the pitcher. During the day, clowns come and go, offering children balloons.

It's a waterside palapa as large as a palace, but the character doesn't overshadow the menu: fish, beef, and pasta dishes are exquisitely prepared. A few old favorites come with a Mexican twist, perhaps a hint of cilantro or a spark of chili. There's an occasional outright adventure, such as stingray with black butter or calamari in its ink. Breakfast and lunch are served, too. The water views are hard to beat, especially at sunset.

The excellent seafood, reasonable prices, and tremendous beachfront view keep this family-owned spot thriving year-round with a clientele that's equal parts visitors and locals. Try the Sinaloa specialty pescado zarandeado, in which an entire fish is smothered with vegetables and spices, wrapped, and cooked slowly over a fire until you can strip the meat with a touch of your fork. Request a song and maybe buy a CD from the singing waiter. Turn away the time-share sales pitch with a smile.

It's one of the newer restaurants around the Plazuela Machado, with some of the most comfortable outdoor-fanned seating as well as air-conditioning inside. The menu is loaded with meat dishes, including a carne rellena de champinones y queso (beef stuffed with mushrooms and cheese), and the salsas and Spanish wines truly complement all the fare. After a meal, head to the small café on the corner and grab a piece of cake and a coffee.

It's only a block from the beach near the heart of the Golden Zone, but this chic and reasonably priced hotel restaurant provides a serene alternative to the ear-splitting beach-bar scene. There's a pleasant patio—if you don't mind looking at busy Avenida Playa Gaviotas—or a slightly mod dining room with wood-beam ceilings, polished stone floors, minimally dressed dark-wood tables, and a few red-and-white accents. At lunch you'll find simple, filling fare like ceviche, hamburgers, and fish tacos; at dinner the Mexican-Mediterranean menu is heavy on fresh fish specialties, like dorado in a honey glaze.

You can dine upstairs or down, inside or out, and sometimes even at tables on the sand at this bustling waterfront restaurant. Seafood is the specialty, and portions are as delicious as they are large. But the savvy come here for breakfast, when prices are lower, crowds are thinner, and the combination of coffee, chilaquiles verdes con huevos (tortilla chips sautéed with spices and served with green tomatillo sauce and eggs), and the crashing surf is an unbeatable way to start a day.

Memorializing two local kids who became Mexican legends—movie star Pedro Infante and ranchera singer Lola Beltrán—Pedro y Lola is the most upscale of several fine restaurants that ring the romantic Plazuela Machado. Its seafood dishes are as authentic and creative as the restored 19th-century building it inhabits. Shrimp is the specialty, but try the papillot, the day's catch cooked in foil with white wine, shrimp, and mushrooms. Music is also on the menu. There's a piano bar inside and sometimes a harmless rock combo; a guitar soloist serenades diners outside.