If you really want to understand Panama, don't spend your entire trip eating in polished restaurants designed for tourists. Follow the smell of fried dough in the morning, look for the little roadside kitchens filled with locals at lunchtime and pay attention to the handwritten menu taped beside the counter. This is where Panama gets interesting.
The humble fonda is one of the best places for a traveler to experience everyday Panamanian food. Fondas are generally simple, informal eateries where the food is cooked for workers, families and people who simply want a filling meal without spending restaurant prices. A typical lunch might cost around $4 to $6, although prices vary considerably by location and ingredients. Recent reporting on Panama's fondas puts many standard lunch plates around $4.50 to $5, with seafood often costing more.
There is usually nothing fancy about the setting. You might get a plastic chair, a counter, a television playing in the background and a refrigerated display filled with drinks. But that is exactly the point. You are not paying for atmosphere. You are paying for a plate of food that tastes like someone's grandmother might have made it.
What Exactly Is a Fonda?
A fonda is difficult to define with one perfect English translation. It is somewhere between a tiny neighborhood restaurant, a family kitchen and a cafeteria serving traditional food. Some are permanent little restaurants, while others can be extremely modest roadside establishments with only a handful of tables.
The format is wonderfully simple. You walk in, look at the food available that day and choose your protein and sides. There may be chicken, beef, pork or fish, accompanied by rice, beans, plantains, salad, yuca or another local side dish. Some places have a printed menu, but many simply display the day's dishes in trays behind the counter.
One of the easiest ways to find a good fonda is to look for the places filled with Panamanians around lunchtime. If construction workers, office employees, taxi drivers and families are all eating there, you are probably onto something.
Panama City: Leave the Tourist Streets Behind
Panama City has some excellent restaurants, but you don't need to spend $20 or $30 to discover traditional Panamanian food. Some of the city's most satisfying meals can be found in modest neighborhood fondas, markets and cafeterias.
Around busy commercial areas and working-class neighborhoods, lunchtime is when fondas really come alive. Workers arrive hungry, orders move quickly and enormous plates of rice, beans, meat and salad start leaving the kitchen. In some areas, the best strategy is simply to walk away from the polished tourist streets and look for somewhere busy with local customers.
Even in the middle of Panama City, you can find traditional dishes such as sancocho, arroz con pollo, ropa vieja, patacones, tamales and various combinations of rice, beans and meat.
The Mercado de Mariscos: Cheap Seafood and Serious Local Flavor
For seafood lovers, Panama City's Mercado de Mariscos is an obvious stop. This is where you can experience one of the country's most famous inexpensive seafood traditions: ceviche.
Panamanian ceviche is commonly made with white fish such as corvina, shrimp or a mixture of seafood, combined with lime juice, onion and herbs. It is often served in a cup or glass and makes an excellent snack when you want something fresh rather than another enormous plate of rice.
The market is particularly interesting because you can turn the visit into a full food adventure. Start with ceviche, look around at the day's seafood and then find something else nearby. It is much more memorable than simply sitting in a hotel restaurant ordering the safest thing on the menu.
Sancocho: The Dish You Should Not Miss
If there is one Panamanian dish that belongs on almost every traveler's food list, it is sancocho.
Sancocho is a comforting soup traditionally made with chicken, ñame, culantro and other ingredients. It is hearty, aromatic and particularly satisfying after a long day of traveling, hiking or exploring. It is often described as one of the defining dishes of Panamanian cuisine.
The beauty of sancocho is that it doesn't need to be complicated. You sit down with a bowl of steaming broth, chicken and soft pieces of ñame, and suddenly the idea of spending $25 on dinner seems completely unnecessary.
In many fondas, sancocho appears as a daily option, and some places serve a smaller "sancochito" alongside other dishes.
Arroz con Pollo: Panama's Comfort Food
Another dish you are likely to encounter everywhere is arroz con pollo, essentially chicken and rice prepared in the Panamanian style. It is one of those dishes that sounds incredibly simple until you eat a genuinely good version.
The rice absorbs the flavor of the chicken, vegetables and seasonings, creating something much more satisfying than the description suggests. It is a classic family-style dish and one of the easiest introductions to traditional Panamanian cooking.
If you see arroz con pollo on a fonda menu, don't automatically dismiss it because it sounds ordinary. In Panama, ordinary food is often exactly what you should be looking for.
Ropa Vieja: Slow-Cooked Beef With Big Flavor
Ropa vieja is another classic. The name literally means "old clothes," but there is nothing particularly old-fashioned about the flavor. It consists of shredded beef cooked slowly with vegetables and a savory sauce.
It is commonly served with rice, plantains, yuca or salad. Traditional restaurant menus in Panama regularly pair ropa vieja with these kinds of sides.
For a hungry backpacker, it is difficult to go wrong with a plate of ropa vieja, rice and fried plantains. It is filling, inexpensive and unmistakably Latin American.
Patacones: The Side Dish That Deserves Its Own Spotlight
You will see patacones everywhere in Panama. They are made from green plantains that are sliced, fried, flattened and fried again until crisp.
They are salty, crunchy and dangerously easy to keep eating.
Patacones appear alongside everything from chicken and beef to fried fish and seafood. They are also an excellent way to soak up sauces or accompany ceviche and other dishes.
If you are traveling through Panama and haven't eaten patacones yet, you probably haven't been paying attention.
Hojaldres: The Backpacker's Breakfast
One of the best cheap breakfasts in Panama is the humble hojaldre, a piece of fried dough that is crispy on the outside and soft inside.
It is often eaten in the morning with coffee and can be paired with eggs, cheese or meat. Some modern restaurants have become much more creative with hojaldres, but the simplest versions found in local eateries are often the most satisfying.
They are also cheap. A current traditional Panamanian menu lists individual hojaldres for under a dollar, illustrating just how affordable some local breakfast foods can be.
For a backpacker watching their budget, a hojaldre and coffee can be a much better start to the day than an expensive hotel breakfast.
Carimañolas: Crispy Yuca With a Surprise Inside
Another food worth hunting down is the carimañola. It is made from yuca dough and traditionally filled with seasoned meat before being fried.
The outside becomes golden and crisp while the inside remains soft and savory.
Carimañolas are perfect when you want something small rather than a full meal. Grab one from a local eatery, add a drink and keep walking. They are the sort of snack that makes wandering around a Panamanian town considerably more enjoyable.
Tamales and Tamal de Olla
Panama also has its own versions of tamales, and you will encounter them in different forms depending on the region.
Tamal de olla is particularly interesting because it is prepared as a sort of corn-based casserole rather than being individually wrapped like a traditional tamal. Versions can contain shredded chicken, olives and raisins and are often served with rice, plantains or yuca.
It is exactly the sort of dish worth ordering when you see something on the menu that you don't immediately recognize.
That's one of the secrets to eating well while backpacking.
Don't just order what you already know.
Order the thing you have never heard of.
Rice and Beans Can Mean Something Completely Different on the Caribbean Coast
Traveling around Panama is also a lesson in how dramatically the country's food changes from region to region.
On the Caribbean coast and in areas influenced by Afro-Caribbean culture, coconut becomes much more prominent. You may encounter arroz con coco, coconut rice, alongside fried fish, seafood, beans or plantains.
You may also encounter dishes such as rondón, a rich Caribbean-style seafood stew traditionally prepared with coconut milk and other ingredients. These flavors are particularly associated with Panama's Caribbean communities and provide a completely different experience from the food found in many inland fondas.
If you are heading to Bocas del Toro, don't eat exactly the same food you would order in Panama City. The Caribbean influence is one of the best parts of the region's food culture.
Fried Fish: Follow the Coast
When you're near the ocean, keep an eye out for pescado frito, or whole fried fish.
A typical Caribbean-style plate might arrive with crispy fried fish, coconut rice, patacones and salad. It is simple food, but when the fish is fresh and the plantains are properly fried, it is exactly what you want after a day at the beach.
The portions can also be enormous.
This is not the kind of food designed around tiny plates and complicated presentations. It is designed to make you full.
And that's precisely why it works so well for backpackers.
Don't Forget the Chicharrón
If you eat meat, you will probably encounter chicharrón, crispy fried pork that appears in various forms throughout Panama.
It can be served as part of a mixed plate, alongside patacones or incorporated into larger traditional dishes. Some Panamanian restaurants offer combinations containing chicharrón, carimañolas, hojaldres, yuca, tortillas and other local specialties.
For someone who wants to sample a little bit of everything, look for a mixed traditional platter. It can be a great introduction to several Panamanian foods at once.
Head Into the Interior for Even More Local Food
Some of the most interesting food experiences happen outside Panama City.
As you travel through the interior, small roadside restaurants and family-run fondas become increasingly important. These places may not appear in travel guides and may have no Instagram presence whatsoever.
That can actually be a good sign.
You might see a handwritten menu, a few plastic tables and somebody cooking enormous quantities of food in the back. There may be no English menu and nobody trying to convince you to come inside.
That's when you should probably stop.
The food might be arroz con pollo, stewed beef, fried pork, chicken, beans, yuca, plantains or whatever the cook happened to prepare that morning.
Chiriquí: Look for Local Plates Rather Than Tourist Menus
Chiriquí is an especially rewarding region for travelers who want to eat locally. In towns and villages away from the major tourist centers, you can find inexpensive lunch spots serving combinations of rice, beans, meat, chicken, plantains and salads.
The food can change from one establishment to the next, and that is part of the fun.
One day you might have chicken with rice and beans. The next day the special could be beef with yuca. The following day there might be fresh fish.
Don't expect the menu to remain identical every day.
A fonda isn't necessarily trying to give you a carefully designed culinary experience. It is feeding people with whatever is fresh, available and popular that day.
The Secret to Finding a Great Fonda
There is a simple rule that works remarkably well.
Eat where local people eat.
If you walk past a tiny restaurant at 11:30 in the morning and there are three empty tables, keep walking.
If you pass another place at noon and every table is full, workers are standing around waiting for food and the kitchen looks like controlled chaos, stop and investigate.
A queue can tell you more than a five-page tourist review.
Look for a menu del día or menú ejecutivo. This is often a fixed-price lunch consisting of a protein, rice, beans or another side, salad and sometimes soup or a drink. In Panama, these meals are one of the easiest ways to eat a substantial traditional lunch without spending much money.
What Might a Typical Fonda Plate Look Like?
Imagine walking into a small restaurant around noon.
Behind the counter are several large trays. One contains white rice. Another has stewed chicken. There is a tray of beans, a bowl of salad and perhaps fried plantains or yuca.
You point at the chicken.
"¿Arroz?"
Sí.
"¿Menestra?"
Sí.
"¿Ensalada?"
Sí.
A few seconds later, someone hands you a plate piled high with food.
That could be your lunch.
No reservations.
No dress code.
No elaborate presentation.
Just a hot plate of food that will probably keep you full for hours.
Panama Is Surprisingly Good for the Budget Traveler Who Eats Locally
Panama has a reputation for being relatively expensive compared with some neighboring Central American countries, particularly in tourist areas. But that doesn't mean you need a huge food budget.
The trick is understanding where the price difference comes from.
Eat breakfast at a trendy café, lunch in a tourist restaurant and dinner at an upscale establishment, and your daily food bill can climb quickly.
Eat breakfast at a local bakery or fonda, grab a menu del día for lunch and choose a simple neighborhood restaurant for dinner, and you can experience a completely different side of Panama while keeping costs under control.
Recent guides and local reporting put many traditional fonda lunches in roughly the $4 to $6 range, with seafood and more elaborate dishes often costing more.
The Best Food Experiences Are Often the Least Fancy
There is something wonderful about eating a plate of food at a tiny Panamanian fonda while a bus passes outside and somebody's radio is playing in the background.
You don't have to dress up.
Nobody cares whether you took a photograph.
Nobody is explaining the chef's philosophy.
You're simply eating what people in the neighborhood eat.
And after a few days of doing this, you start to notice something.
Panamanian food isn't necessarily about complicated techniques or spectacular presentation.
It is about comfort, generosity, strong flavors and food that fills you up.
Rice, beans, plantains, yuca, corn, chicken, beef, pork, seafood, coconut and herbs appear again and again, but they change character depending on where you are.
Eat Like a Local and Panama Starts Tasting Different
The best way to experience Panama's food culture is to stop looking for the "best restaurant" and start looking for the best local meal.
Find the fonda packed with workers.
Order the dish you can't pronounce.
Try the soup.
Get the patacones.
Have a hojaldre in the morning.
Eat ceviche beside the ocean.
Try coconut rice in the Caribbean.
Order something you've never seen before.
And don't worry if the restaurant looks like it belongs in another decade.
Sometimes the faded sign, plastic chairs and handwritten menu are exactly what you're looking for.
Because when you're backpacking through Panama, some of your best meals may not happen in a famous restaurant at all.
They may happen at a tiny fonda on a street you've never heard of, where the cook doesn't speak much English, the menu changes every day and a plate of steaming local food costs only a few dollars.
That's not just eating cheaply in Panama. That's eating Panama.