Paraguayan food is South America's least-copied cuisine: corn, cassava and cheese from Guaraní kitchens, beef from the Chaco, and tereré drunk from a guampa all day. Asunción serves it in market stalls, century-old bars and grill houses where nothing is styled for outsiders.
Asunción's sprawling street market covers dozens of blocks around Pettirossi and Perú. Come early for chipá from basket vendors (Gs. 3.000–5.000), mbeju cooked on flat pans, cocido quemado, and stalls piled with mandioca, locote and Chaco beef.
The market's tin-roofed comedor rows serve working lunches: bori bori (chicken broth with cornmeal-cheese dumplings), so'o josopy (pounded beef soup), guiso de fideo and vori vori de pollo, ladled from vats onto oilcloth tables shared with vendors.
Yuyeras sit behind mortars grinding fresh medicinal herbs — menta'i, cedrón, burrito, koku — sold by the handful to pound into your tereré water. Point at a bunch, they crush it in a wooden pilón and tip it into your thermos.
The riverfront promenade fills at dusk with circles passing a guampa: yerba mate packed in a horn cup, iced herb water poured from a shared thermos, one bombilla for everyone. Vendors sell chipá and cocido from bicycle carts along the walkway.
A 1953 horseshoe-counter diner opposite the Panteón, staffed by waitresses in white uniforms. Late breakfast is caldo de pescado, empanadas, milanesa sandwiches and the house surubí fish soup — no tables, only the curved bar with 40-odd stools.
Open since 1960 and still Asunción's business-lunch fixture. Order sopa paraguaya (the cheese-and-cornmeal cake, never a soup) alongside chipa guasu, bife koygua or the surubí a la plancha; the wood-panelled dining room runs to midnight.
Paraguay's beef reputation in rodizio form: waiters circulate with skewers of tapa de cuadril, vacío, chorizo and Chaco-raised picanha until you flip the card to red. Salad bar carries mandioca, chipa guasu and palmito.
The city's long-standing fine-dining name, now in a glass pavilion above the Paraguay River. Kitchen works local ingredients hard — surubí and pacú from the river, Chaco beef, dorado, with a cellar heavy on Argentine and Chilean bottles.
Chipa is Paraguay's breakfast: cassava starch, Paraguayan cheese, egg and anise, baked in a tatakua clay oven. Villa Morra's chiperías and the roadside stands on Av. Mariscal López sell chipa argolla, chipa so'o and mbeju hot from 06:00.
The wholesale market where the city's produce and river fish land before dawn. Comedores at the edge fry surubí milanesa and serve chupín de pescado to truckers and stallholders on plastic chairs, at a fraction of downtown restaurant prices.
The craft arcade beside Plaza de los Héroes stocks the drinking kit: carved cow-horn guampas, silver-plated bombillas, ñandutí-trimmed thermos covers, plus jars of dulce de mamón, arrope and honeyed batiburrillo condiments.
A converted 1900s house in the centre, running since 1992 and the city's traditional first stop for a night out. Draught Paraguayan beer, caña with lime, and picadas of chorizo, chipa guasu and empanadas served in the leafy courtyard.