Quito eats at altitude: pork hornado and llapingachos in century-old market halls, encebollado for breakfast, and paila ice cream churned by hand since 1858. Three days from cheap comedor plates to Latin America's 50 Best dining rooms.
Three floors of comedores on Av. Pichincha, open 07:00–16:00. Locals queue for hornado — slow-roasted pork with mote and llapingachos — and caldo de gallina criolla. Upstairs stalls press tree-tomato and naranjilla juice to order.
A compact market behind the San Francisco arcades on Rocafuerte. Stalls sell fritada, empanadas de morocho and seco de chivo, while herbal 'limpia' healers work the same aisle. Portions cost half what the New Town charges.
Quito's produce market on the edge of La Floresta, strongest on fruit you won't find at home: taxo, chirimoya, uvilla, babaco and eight kinds of banana. The back row cooks ceviche de camarón and encebollado for late lunchers.
Running since 1858 in a colonial house on Calle Guayaquil, this is where helado de paila began — fruit pulp whipped by hand in a copper pan set over straw and ice. Order mora or guanábana with a plate of quimbolitos.
The New Town's market, later-rising than the colonial halls. Breakfast is bolón de verde with cheese, humitas, and encebollado — the tuna-and-cassava soup Quiteños swear cures a hangover. Juice bars line the north wall.
A sit-down kitchen in La Mariscal for the dishes markets do badly: locro de papa with avocado and queso fresco, seco de chivo with chicha, and a sampler plate of Ecuador's coastal ceviches. Courtyard tables fill at weekends.
Chef Daniel Maldonado cooks a páramo-to-coast menu across Ecuador's ecosystems — Andean tubers, Amazonian chontacuro grubs, Pacific fish — inside a converted La Floresta house. Tasting menus run eight or twelve courses.
Alejandra Espinoza and Pía Salazar's Guápulo dining room, a fixture on Latin America's 50 Best list, built entirely on Ecuadorian produce — nacional cacao, achotillo, Amazon herbs. Salazar's desserts are the reason to book.
A colonial-house chocolate workshop on García Moreno working with Ecuadorian nacional arriba cacao. The counter runs tastings from 65% to 100% bars and pours thick hot chocolate with a cube of cheese dropped in, Andean style.
A Quito institution on Av. Amazonas serving coastal ceviche at 2,850 metres: shrimp in tomato-and-orange broth, concha negra, and mixed platters with chifles, popcorn and toasted maize scattered over the top.
A craft brewery inside a deconsecrated 19th-century chapel on Calle Olmedo, brewing with local ingredients — cacao husk, ají, passionfruit, panela. Flights of eight let you taste the range alongside wood-fired pizza.
A candlelit warren of rooms clinging to the Guápulo ravine below the city. Canelazo — hot sugarcane aguardiente with naranjilla and cinnamon — plus wood-fired pizza, served as the lights come on across the valley.