For such a small town, there are so many great restaurants in Bucerias.
Whether you’re looking for something light and healthy, something indulgent and rich, delicious seafood, or Mexican classics, there is a little bit of everything for visitors to this beautiful Riviera Nayarit town.
If you are new to the traditional Mexican food scene, have a read of our top 40+ Mexican foods to try that you may not be familiar with.
This list focuses mostly on places to have Mexican food because that is what I love to have whenever I’m back in this wonderful country.
There are a few healthy options and a few places that are playing around with Mexican flavors and modern styles. There are a few fusion places and just some more general burgers and wings restaurants on the list as well.
Bucerias is a very casual beach town. There aren’t many high-end restaurants. If you want to sample different world cuisines, you’re better off checking out the restaurants in Sayulita, about 20 minutes up the road.
The good thing about this is that you can expect to enjoy seriously delicious local Mexican food here at a reasonable price. And you never need to worry about making a reservation (at least not yet!).
Best Restaurants in Bucerias
1. Tacos Junior
For the best pastor tacos in town, get yourself to Tacos Junior. They pretty much solely focus on this marinated pork cooked on a spit. It’s one of my favorite restaurants in Bucerias and the only one on this list that I visited three times on my most recent trip to Bucerias.
If you’ve never had pastor tacos before, they are thin slices of pork that have been marinated in achiote paste and lots of other spices. They are then layers on a spit much like a shawarma (the dish was heavily influenced by Lebanese immigrants to Mexico City many years ago).
It is cooked over a high heat, usually al carbon, or over coal. Then it is thinly sliced straight into a piping hot tortilla and topped with pineapple, cilantro, and onion.
You can get a plate of tacos, have the meat inside a quesadilla, or on top of a pork or beef steak. If you don’t want pastor (well, then don’t come here), there are some vegetarian options as well as other meats to have in a taco instead.
My mouth is watering just thinking about this Pastor from Tacos Junior again.
2. Ceviche la Esquina
Ceviche La Esquina is, as the name in Spanish suggests, located on a street corner in the downtown area of Bucerias, only a few blocks from the beach.
This is a simple and delicious establishment run by a family who pretty much exclusively make ceviche. You can have fish ceviche or shrimp ceviche.
You can have an order of it which is a larger portion meant to be shared. It is served on a plate with a pile of tostadas. Or you can have an individual tostada which is a smaller portion for one.
Come early because they sell out by late afternoon. They are open for lunch from 11 am to 6 pm (closed Wednesdays).
3. Los Dorados de Villa Birria
Birria is a dish that comes from the neighboring state of Jalisco, but since Bucerias is only a few minutes from the state border, you get to enjoy the delicious local eats here as well.
Birria is traditionally made with goat, but for the most part, you’ll find it around Mexico made with beef these days unless otherwise noted on the menu.
You can get tacos dorados here, which are tortillas that have been fried to be made crispy or golden as the name translates from Spanish. These are their specialty here and they are delicious but quite greasy.
You can also simply get a normal taco with birria meat in it that hasn’t been fried. These are equally delectable.
For something a little bit lighter, get an order of birria which is a bowl of the consome or soup broth with the meat inside and a portion of tortillas on the side to make your own tacos.
The hours here are for breakfast and lunch. If you can believe it, birria is mostly a breakfast food in Mexico.
So they are open from 8:30 am until 2:30 pm and by about 1:30 most of the meat and consome have sold out, so come for an early lunch or do as the locals do and start your day with a beef taco.
There are a few great places to have seafood tacos on this list, Rincon de Ensenada is my personal favorite.
4. Mr. & Mrs. Fish
This is the first restaurant in Bucerias that I tried on my very first visit to the beach town a few years ago. It was one of the reasons I wanted to make a trip back here and it didn’t disappoint on my return visit either.
It has an extensive menu of seafood including huge grilled shrimp burritos. There are also whole snappers, plates of coconut shrimp and tuna, or simply meat dishes for the non-seafood lovers in the group.
I also like this restaurant because it’s one of the few restaurants in the area that serves delicious cooked seafood dishes for dinner as well as for lunch.
5. Mariscos Villa Real
If you are spending the day at the beach and you don’t want to go far for a delicious seafood lunch, walk up the sand to Mariscos Villa Real.
This entire street feels like one long market packed with food stalls. You can’t go too wrong with any of them, but this is my personal favorite of all that I tried here.
The restaurant is clean, the service is good, and the food tastes fresh and delicious. They have a lot of ceviche and other raw seafood options and I loved their aguachile, a type of ceviche made with shrimp and lots of green chiles.
Aguachile is one of my favorite beachside Mexican dishes to have. Spicy but light and fresh.
6. Luna Luna
If you’re looking for a place to get traditional Mexican breakfast foods, Luna Luna is one of the best restaurants in Bucerias for that.
They have Mexican eggs, chilaquiles, eggs with chorizo, huevos rancheros, and so many other options.
There are more indulgent choices as well as some healthier choices. There are also a few American classics if someone in the group doesn’t want chiles in their eggs.
7. El Rincon de Ensenada
This place is without a doubt one of the top restaurants in Bucerias. They are serving up fresh, well-cooked, and perfectly flavored seafood tacos. It must be in the name because there are also tons of amazing restaurants in Ensenada if you ever make it up that way.
This place reminded me of my favorite restaurant in Puerto Vallarta, Los Lirios. I think their shrimp taco might very well be the best shrimp taco I’ve ever had in Mexico!
They also make delicious fish tacos and octopus tacos. You can have them battered (capeado) or grilled (a la plancha). They also have ceviche, burritos, empanadas, plates of shrimp, or fillets of red snapper.
Ceviche is on every corner in Bucerias, but not all are created equal. I much prefer ceviche en cuadros as it’s called when the fish is in larger chunks rather than finely cut up, which is the Puerto Vallarta style you find all over Bucerias.
8. La Negra
If you want a spot that is a little bit more upmarket or does food in a less traditional way, La Negra is a fantastic restaurant in Bucerias to try.
I originally came here because my friend Alex of Backpacking Brunette raved about it in her Bucerias video. She said it was the best burger that she has had in Mexico (and she’s been living here for five years!).
But when I got there, I saw that in addition to nice burger options, they also had some seriously delicious-sounding tacos. Octopus in guajillo chile sauce. Duck confit. Tuna cooked in garlic, lime, and soy sauce. I couldn’t look past these delicious options and neither should you!
9. Tacos Lindas
A little late-night taco spot, Tacos Lindas is open from 6 pm to 11 pm every day except Sundays. This is the place to come for every imaginable type of meat taco in Mexico. There are vegetarian options, too!
I loved the asada tacos which were juicy pieces of steak cooked on the barbeque. They also have pork, chorizo, fish, mushrooms, panela cheese, huitlacoche (a traditional and delicious corn mushroom), and zucchini flower tacos, too.
10. Jorge’s Kitchen
For a delicious Mexican breakfast or lunch option, Jorge’s is my personal favorite in Bucerias. It feels like what it might be like if you had a Mexican grandmother and she was cooking her homemade recipes for you.
Even the inside of the restaurant feels more like someone’s home than a traditional restaurant. The chilaquiles are my weakness here. They also have a variety of healthy omelets, seafood and meat options for lunch, and freshly made smoothies.
The ceviches at Lamara are one of the most memorable meals I ate in Bucerias recently.
11. Lamara
This place has to be one of the top restaurants in Bucerias for ceviche. The only options on the menu at Lamara are ceviche or aguachile (made with shrimp). So if you don’t like seafood, this isn’t the place for you.
However, if you enjoy ceviche and aguachile, this will likely become a lunchtime staple during your trip to Bucerias.
The menu has traditional options like shrimp with chile or tilapia with carrots, tomatoes, and cucumber. But mostly it’s about the unique options like tuna with avocado, tuna with peanuts and onion and ginger, and shrimp with habanero or apple that really make this a special lunch spot.
The individual tostada sizes are pretty enormous and two or three is more than enough for two people to share.
12. Tacos El Fogoncito
This barbecue taco spot is one of the best restaurants in Bucerias for traditional Mexican tacos. They have carne asada, chistorra (a sausage similar to chorizo), pastor, chuleta (pork chop), shrimp on the barbecue, and several nice vegetarian options as well.
You can have the meat in a taco, as a burrito, a quesadilla, or a volcan which is when they crispen up the tortilla on the barbecue to make it crunchy and then top it with cheese to melt and then put the meat on top.
Enjoy delicious meat tacos at places like Fogoncito and Ontiveros.
13. Pizza California
You will be shocked to discover that this little market stall restaurant is serving up some of the best pizzas in Bucerias (maybe the best).
They have tons of different topping options like barbecue chicken, Hawaiian, pepperoni, chorizo, or vegetarian. You can also have a stromboli or a calzone which are equally delicious and so well cooked.
The menu also has some pasta options, salads, and a few burgers. The prices are incredibly reasonable with pizzas costing under $5 USD for a small and about $5 USD for a medium.
14. Cerveceria Buclas
This is a double whammy because this place is not only serving up delicious bar food, but fantastic housemade beers.
The beers are brewed on-site here and they have a nice variety. You’ll find a pale ale, IPA, stout, lager, and a few other varieties depending on the season and what they’re brewing that month.
It’s a fun place to come for live music on the weekends, especially during the high season in December-February.
They make exceptional burgers, BBQ ribs, chicken wings, and homemade sausages served hotdog style.
The beer at Buclas is delicious. If you like good pale ales and IPAs don’t miss out!
15. Taqueria Ontiveros
For some great late-night tacos, Ontiveros is one of the top restaurants in Bucerias.
One thing that they do which I haven’t seen anywhere else in Bucerias is papas rellenas. Or stuffed potatoes. These are baked potatoes which they top with a meat of your choice, melted cheese, cream, and then whatever salsas you want to put on top of it.
It’s a popular dish around Baja California and other northern states in Mexico. Sometimes also referred to as a papa asada because it is topped with carne asada, barbecued beef.
At Ontivero you can have it with beef, pork, or tripe. They also have tacos, quesadillas, and volanes which you can have with those meats as well. The Asada beef is my favorite, but for a little bit extra you can have top-quality sirloin beef instead.