Food

Eating in Ixtapa

Be honest with yourself about where you are: Ixtapa’s food is resort food. The hotel-zone restaurants are polished, priced for tourists, and fine — but the coast’s best eating is the cheap, fresh seafood that Guerrero does so well, and you find more of it once you drift off the main strip or head to Zihuatanejo.

What to eat

This is Pacific seafood country. Look for:

• Pescado a la talla — whole fish butterflied, slathered in chile and grilled over coals. The signature dish of this coast.
• Ceviche and aguachile — raw fish and shrimp cured in lime and chile, ordered by the cup or the plate.
• Tiritas — a Zihuatanejo specialty of thin raw fish strips in lime, onion and chile. Simple and excellent.
• Grilled shrimp and pulpo at a beach palapa with your feet near the sand.

Where to go

• Marina Ixtapa has a cluster of waterfront restaurants — the nicer end of the resort dining, good for a relaxed lunch. Expect mid-range to higher prices.
• Playa Linda, north of the hotels, has casual palapa seafood at more honest prices and a local weekend crowd.
• The hotel-zone boulevard covers the international-menu bases — pizza, steaks, familiar stuff — if the kids need a break from fish.

Rough prices (approximate)

A palapa seafood plate runs roughly 150 to 300 pesos; a sit-down marina lunch with drinks, more. Tacos and street snacks are a fraction of that. Real bargains and the market halls are over in Zihuatanejo — for the price of a strip dinner you eat far better there.