Deaverdura

Deaverdura is such a gem in Old San Juan! The food is full of authentic Puerto Rican flavor and feels homemade with love. We tried a mix of everything—fried plantains, sausages, and mofongo—and it was all delicious. Portions are generous and perfect for sharing with family or friends. The restaurant itself has a cozy, colorful vibe that makes you feel right at home. Service was friendly and welcoming, which made the experience even better. It’s the kind of place where you can sit back, enjoy amazing food, and soak in the local culture. Definitely a must-visit if you want a true Puerto Rican meal in a relaxed, fun atmosphere!

The food was amazing. Everything was spot on full of flavor. It’s a small space so wait times can be brutal especially if you’re having to wait outside in the heat BUT it is totally worth the wait. The sampler platter alone was enough for three people to eat and be full.

Food was incredible! Best food we had on the island. and we could see the food being made fresh! Service was quick for us because we went between 1-2 PM but I can tell that it is a busy place to try to eat. Limited menu which is good because it means the food is made authentic and better service.

A quick Google search for Puerto Rican food within walking distance from Castillo del Morro lead us to Deaverdura. We also ended up with the sampler as other reviewers suggested. Thought it was good value and most of the items were good. The blood sausage …. It tasted exactly like the Korean version called sundae. The shredded pork, fried plantains/rice, and mini empanadas were good. The rest seemed a bit bland. Pineapple and tamarind juice hit the spot after walking in the humid but quaint cobblestone streets of old San Juan. Servers were nice but didn’t get much attention after the food arrived.

Worth the wait! We went twice, and both times there was a line out the door—and for good reason. The place isn’t fancy, but the atmosphere is lively and full of local charm. The first time, we ordered the sampler and got a taste of everything: pork, rice, morcillas, tostones—it was all delicious. A true local gem we were happy to return to.

When you arrive there is a sign outside the restaurant telling you to wait for service. This can be anywhere from 10-30 minutes. Servers spend time with customers and provide good service and to do that they manage the amount of people coming in. Be respectful and wait for them to invite you in. The food was incredible. I got a coconut with rum as my drink and my wife got passion fruit juice. We got the chicken with garlic, white rice, and beans as well as the arroz con gandules and pernil. As is customary in Puerto Rico, each of our plates came with salad dressed with olive oil and vinegar. I wish we had more people with us so we could have ordered the appetizer sampler. This was easily one of the best meals we had in Viejo San Juan. This is a local spot where most of the customers were Boricua.

The chicken empanadas were excellent, while the sampler platter was average. It was a good way to try various items. The drinks were also good, but there was a bit of a wait outside. The service was excellent, with a friendly waiter.

Best Puerto Rican spot we ate at during our stay. Food was delicious. The service was great, our waitress/waiter were helpful and friendly. The jugos naturales are good!! My husband said it was the best pineapple jugo he had! Make this place one of your stops! (Ppl complaining about waiting outside in the reviews are just cry babies!)

This was hands down the best meal my wife and I had on our Puerto Rico trip. The restaurant serves authentic Puerto Rican food. The menu is written on a blackboard in Spanish, but the servers are very helpful in explaining all the dishes on the menu in detail. For appetizers had the Bacalaito (codfish fritters), Alcapurria (yuca fritters stuffed with beef), Longaniza (Chicken sausage). All were delicious, but Bacalaito was so good that we ordered it again. For the main course we ordered the shrimp plate which comes with rice cooked with pigeon peas and some salad. The shrimp were cooked to perfection and the rice was wonderfully flavored. We also ordered a berry drink which was refreshing. Sometimes they do carry fresh coconut water, but we were out of luck. This place should be a must visit for every tourist visiting Old San Juan. We surely are going there on our next visit.

I've been here twice with Spoon Tours. They have wonderful arroz con habichuelas y pernil. Additionally, their fruit juices are yummy too. Tamarindo is sour but so refreshing. Lorna served us our dishes and explained each sauce. I didn't use sauce on my pernil. Instead, I mixed everything together and ate it that way. YUM! Deaverdura has a mix of locals and tourists. Typically, Old San Juan has more tourists eating out but inside was filled with a mix that night. It had a great vibe! Check it out for authentic Puerto Rican food.

We were hungry and stopped in for dinner after our first day in old San Juan. We first noticed the smell in the street of the food cooking, and upon looking inside saw many locals eating. A good sign! The staff spoke decent English so ordering was simple enough. We ordered the sampler- it would have been more enjoyable if the food came out hot, despite waiting over 45 minutes for the food to come out. None of the dishes were explained to us, so it took us the rest of our trip in Puerto Rico to get a good understanding of this sampler! I would have rated this a 3.5 star, however the food got me pretty sick.

Small, cozier restaurant in busy Old San Juan. Typical Puerto Rican food you could get almost everywhere else but they do a sampler board with a little bit of everything. If you are in Old San Juan, definitely an above average place to go to get traditional Puerto Rican food.

Service was good, drinks are good. We ordered the chicken sausage and it was super dry. This location was recommended by a tour guide we had the day before.

Words do not exist to express how good this food was. I wish I still had the other 80% of my stomach. Then I could have finished it in its entirety and also ate the giant chicharron/pork chop the gentleman at the next table was eating. I loved everything about this meal! They didn't tell me what was on my platter. However, when they delivered it to the next table (who ordered it because they saw my plate) I heard the description which honestly didn't matter because deliciousness is a universal language. The homemade sausages were all so flavorful. The rice was cooked perfectly, the pork was so moist , and I even enjoyed the blood sausage. The staff was friendly and the food came out fast. It's definitely a popular place. The decor is nice. I will be back for sure.

We were looking for piononos in OSJ and this place was recommended to us by a friendly bartender at Monostereo. We enjoyed the Puerto Rican sampler which included morcilla, alcapurrias (small ones), tostones, piononos, and other yummy fried items and drank ice cold Medallas. Service was quick and very kind and friendly. This place is not fancy or hipster but a good value for traditional Puerto Rican food. Portions were very generous. The three of us ordered a plate for three and had to take a good portion home.

We had to wait outside for a little bit. This place seems to be very popular with locals and visitors so be prepared to wait during lunch time. The menu is extensive and offers a variety of local cuisine wonders. The AC was a bit too cold for me but the vibrant ambiance makes it a great place to experience a great PR lunch.

Keep in mind the wait for this restaurant is verrryyyy long. We got in really fast but it took an hour for us to get our orders in because I believe there is one waiter for the entire restaurant. This is similar timing to other restaurants in PR as well; I noticed that they all take a while to serve. I got the sampler and I loved being able to try the different appetizers alongside our choice of meat and yellow rice with plantains. How it works is the waiter will tell you the entire menu for the day and what comes in the sampler, etc. You have a choice of choosing a sampler for individual, two, three ... to however big you want it. It is about $15 per person for the sampler and I felt that the portions were perfect to make all of us full. It was delicious! Was not a fan of the pork sausage, but everything else was a hit in my opinion. I do not recommend the margarita here, though. Stop by the cafe next door for your bev for happy hour and come in here to eat (my friends did that and their drinks were so tasty).

We were stopping in during a port stop with a cruise and due to a recommendation from a local bartender. I want to say the sampler food platter we tried was so delicious yet too much for us. The food was great but my 3 stars is because I was not impressed with the service or environment as was not welcoming, appeared dismissive and as if burdened by staff. This was observed by pointing at wall when asked for menu, body language, no attentiveness (had to repeatedly ask for bill or a drink while they talked amongst themselves, but was no language barrier), and facial expressions.

Found this small spot on the corner of a building. Not familiar with the area, but there wasn't available parking very close. The place was quant. Staff was friendly. Food was good. They had a bar inside. All the food was very flavorful. Their sauces also topped off their plates with a lot of flavor. Only thing was they had a small menu that was written on a chalk board. No pictures and not a lot of information about the items they had. I like to be able to see pictures of the food on menus but that wasn't the case, along with no descriptions of what each item was, just simply a name.

Amazing authentic food! After hiking Castillo San Cristobal I was starving and walked up right at 11am as they were opening. Daily menu is written in the wall but the server also comes up and lists their options for the day, no printed menus just a "listen up here's what we got today" vibe makes for an exciting dining experience. We ordered the sampler which had pork, chicken sausage (and one other type of sausage I'm not sure exactly the variety), corn fritters, rice and beans, sweet plantains (and plantain chips), green banana. All for $30 and plenty of food for two hungry people. Maybe even serve 3 small people if you aren't starving but everything came in 4s so I'd recommend 2-4 people sharing. Such a great recommendation I'm so glad I went here, the most authentic meal I had in PR by far!

I'm taking some stars away because first they took ten minutes to take a takeout order. Then after they take our order they asked us to wait outside, now with me I don't care but I have a 80 year old with a cane that they asked to wait outside in the heat. Otherwise I would've given them three stars

Cozy hole in the wall eatery with authentic Puerto Rican cuisine, tasty cocktails and staff with character. The food was fresh and flavorful, a pleasing experience for diners new to the region/culture.

Excellent lunch spot to get authentic Puerto Rican food in old San Juan, within walking distance from the forts or the cruise port. Service is slow but food came out FAST. Quality was excellent. Seems like they change their menu slightly based on what's available but you could always expect an authentic experience.

This place is disgusting! I have no idea why it has any good reviews because there is no food or drink menu, they have like 5 food items and only aguas de sabor they can put rum in. I regret coming here! I had the churrasco steak and the breaded shrimp. The steak was ok but the shrimp was horrible it was so oily and the shrimp tasted like ocean. I will never ever come back to this place, it was the worst thing I ever had, please save your money.

We both got the ropa vieja with congri and platanos maduros. We enjoyed it. This place is a bit pricey but good. I was a bit sad they don't have pernil because I was looking forward to some traditional Puerto Rican food but it felt like they had more Cuban-like dishes than anything.

Stopped by again tonight for the 3rd time and the food was once again very good. The wait was a little longer than expected. It appeared they were short staffed. But once they got going everything came out delicious. Definitely a staple of Old San Juan Puerto Rico.

A little gem in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This small restaurant shines with great local atmosphere and offers a magical blend of natural island charm and delicious food. It was quite busy when we walked in but after only a few minutes we got a table and got to enjoy some really yummy food. We choose the sampler since it had all kind of different meats, plantain and other delicious goodies.

This place always has a line and wait. The food comes quick as they have limited menu. All ingredients tasted freshly made. Word of caution. Drinks came after but they hVs some good options with passion fruit rum and sour sop rum. They are generous with rum. We paid abt 70$ for 3 main dishes and 2 alcoholic drinks and 2 non alcoholic juices.

Horrendous service. Took forever to seat us and even longer for us to leave. As if they completely did not want anything to do with us. We also didn't get a few items we ordered. I didn't even want to leave a tip but because it was that awful. The server held onto the device the entire time--he read my mind. Food was mediocre.

TLDR: Would probably pass on this place. The long wait isn't worth the okay food. Don't be fooled by the long lines. It's not that good. Coconut ($4.50?) - was just okay. They don't cut the coconut open in half so you can eat the inside unfortunately. Puerto Rican sampler ($36) - was just okay. There were a few things that were tasty, and some were just underwhelming. I would say almost everyone got it, and almost everyone didn't finish theirs... the coolest part of this dish was that they serve it on a wooden plank that has a map of Puerto Rico! There are 2 sauces. One of them is a stereotypical green hot sauce that is mildly spicy (went well with the meats that were underflavored), and the creamy sauce was like a yum yum sauce you get at Japanese steakhouses. One annoying thing is that our green sauce was in a Heinz ketchup bottle so it didn't come out well. Service was very slow. I would expect a long wait to get in and also to get any service. But I think they're vastly understaffed.

Slow as shit. Took us forever to get seated. One of the waiters is too busy flirting with dudes, and they gave the order to people that came later than us. A fucking scam.

Lovely place to eat and have a tropical treat. Barkeep is full of surprises! Great food and very affordability priced for the area!!

One of the better places in Old San Juan. Great, authentic food in a very welcoming environment. Everyone loved all that we were served, would definitely return.

We loved our food here! So sad we only ate here once on our trip. Definitely recommend eating here! They were out of some items. Place is really cute inside. Staff was nice, friendly and helpful. Fried chicken was the star. Everything we ate, though, was delicious!

So, for those who want a local priced, local taste, local ambience, friendly local service you must try Deaverdura. Fast service and good comfort local food. The chicharron de pollo with gandules and the Pernil de Puerco with gandules very good and fast service. We assumed it was ready made, but good. Chicharron de pollo is cut Caribbean style which means using bone crushing scissors, so just be careful on how you bite on the chicken cuts. But other than that very good flavors for the tastes buds . To drink have the red juice virgin or with rum, very good. Or a passion fruit or maraculla drink virgin or with alcohol are very good. You can't beat the price, including tip! So for a real local culinary experience, for comfort local meat meal visit Deaverdura! If you are looking for fancy look this is not your place! Enjoy.

So I heard they do coconut rum but sadly they had run out by the time I went for dinner. They don't have a written menu so you have to wait for the server to come to you. The service is slow but the home-y ambiance and food is worth it. They do have a Spanish menu on the wall. I got the fish of the day and passionfruit cocktail. Everything was delicious. The salad had a tamarind dressing which was refreshing. I'll be back for the hunt of the coconut!

Delicious and authentic. We ordered the Alfredo chicken pasta (for the kids), they destroyed it. And we ordered the sampler for two. Plenty of food, fresh, and full of flavor.

Ok for the price point for the area. I paid $14 for garlic shrimp and rice, came with some lettuce and tomato. Portion size perfect for one person. For vegetarians, I asked, and a lot of the sides/appetizers that I thought wouldn't have meat in them did (maybe they use lard). I went on a Monday, got there around 11 and they opened 10 minutes later. No line.

I went to Puerto Rico with some friends this last month, and this was one of the best tasting and best looking food we ate. We ordered a general "sampler" plate, which just included a selection of Puerto Rican food with some of our favorites like fried plantains, and fried pork. All of this food was very good, though I struggle to be able to define what each is called specifically. We also tried some beers, which were pretty good. The ambiance and service of the restaurant is also very nice, though I will say if you are used to American service, things take much longer here, as far as the time it takes to get seated, get your orders in, get the food out, etc. Though we are quite sure everything is made fresh with how long it took for the food to come out. Also, there is no menu so the waiter has to recite everything to you without prices, and it's a little confusing but it's otherwise a smooth experience.

I came across this place just walking around from the cruise I was one. I was alone and walked in. It was very busy with I think only 2 servers. They were moving good. People still seemed pleased. Although it was very busy, the food came out quickly and they were still very polite with great service. It is a small authentic Puerto Rican vibe. The chicken was maybe a little too fried and salty, for me. However I really liked how crispy it was. I think the agua fresca was guava and that was delicious!

Walking around Old San Juan we thought this place, with a wait, was a good sign. It was! There seems to be a huge demand for the sampler, so several large groups were there, but also couples and locals. The service was great, very friendly. We ordered a coconut water and they literally chopped it right in front of us. Definitely fresh! The menu is on a chalkboard-- pretty easy. They were out of the ceviche with was a bummer, but they suggested the stuffed avocado with shrimp, which was very nice. They had a bunch of sauces at the table-- GREAT-- including the basics like catsup and castup/mayo sauce, and a cilantro sauce and a more spicy sauce. Great location, nice staff, busy fun vibe. Definitely recommend!

Amazing fresh seafood, juices, and meals. I got the fresh catch fish of the day (I think it was pargo at the time) and the fish tasted fresh, cooked well, and the sauces were really good. PR food can be really heavy so it's not something I can eat every meal, except when it comes to the fish. The fish is amazing and I can eat these all the time!

My sister and I were excited to visit Deaverdura on our trip to San Juan because of the great reviews on Yelp and other sites. Unfortunately, we didn't have a great dining experience. The service was incredibly slow even though there were many open tables when we arrived. The wait staff was disorganized - we had three different staff members help us throughout our visit. We ordered two drinks, one entree and a side. We only received the entree and one drink even after repeat requests for the other two items. The food also took nearly 45 minutes to come out after we ordered. The drink and food we were able to try was a passion fruit rum cocktail and a Puerto Rican sampler. The drink was ok - nothing special. Most of the food on the sampler came out hot, except the steak which was lukewarm. Our sampler seemed to be missing some items when compared to other pictures online - there was only one protein (steak). The majority of the fried items were under-seasoned and soaked in oil. The rice was seasoned well but dry. Overall, not food or service we would come back for.

We stumbled upon this gem thanks to Yelp while wandering the charming brick streets of Old San Juan. Despite its unassuming appearance, the bustling crowd hinted at its popularity.Service was prompt and remarkably friendly, with attentive staff catering to our needs. My wife opted for the quintessential Puerto Rican dish: rice with gandules and succulent lechon (pork), while I indulged in a breaded biftec accompanied by rice and chickpeas.Both dishes left us thoroughly satisfied and eager for more, making for a delightful dining experience. At around $20 per person, it's a budget-friendly option, especially considering its location in a tourist hub.

I came here with my family they did not have a menu so our server was a friendly man I believe he was a foreigner he was very nice and recommend some Frituras that included some plantains and like sausage and small patties. Our waiter recommended some sangria and local beers. Food was served family style which was good because we were a party of 7 with children. It was reasonable and delicious for pricing in San Juan. Place was very cute nothing fancy but we left happy and full.

Stopped here on a food tour. We had a nice plate of food including pork, and rice & beans. The food was tasty. We also enjoyed a rum cocktail with our choice of tropical juice. I chose the sour sop and it was delicious! Would definitely return for some solid local food!

This was my favorite restaurant while vacationing in PR. After our walking tour of San Juan and visiting the forts we were starving and our tour guide had recommended this restaurant to us for authentic food. The waiting in line in the hot sun sucked but it was all worth it in the end, my only recommendation would be to get more waiters. It wasn't fair that there were only 2 waiters in the restaurant cleaning the tables, seating everyone down, and bringing out the food. Some of the customers weren't so nice to them because the tables were dirty and they had to wait in the hot sun for the waiter to be available to address them.

Deaverdura was recommended to us as an authentic lunch spot and we couldn't have been happier! The menu is written on a chalkboard because it changes daily depending on what they can get fresh. I started with coconut water... out of a coconut! So delicious! We had pernil (my favorite!!), grilled chicken, bisteca, sweet plantains, tostones, rice and beans. We are still talking about it! Highly recommend if you're in San Juan!!

Food was ok, I wouldn't say it was amazing. The chicken was under seasoned, same with the pork. The rice was not bad. Service was decent. Maybe we ordered the wrong thing due to the language barrier. The sampler platter looked pretty good - it may be a better option.

Deaverdura has my soul. Head and shoulders the best food we had while in Puerto Rico. A local hole in the wall spot where the only menu is written in chalk on the wall which adds to the authentic aura. We went 3 times in 7 days and tried damn near everything on the menu. By the end of our trip, the staff recognized us and began hyping us up..."Back again?!?!?!" You're damn right we in this thang! The sampler plate was a fantastic place to start, but you will be making a critical error if you leave without getting the fried shrimp appetizer. They also cut the coconuts with a machete right here in front of you which was a crazy thing to see. It's been a long day and this writers block is setting in, but Deaverdura was my favorite restaurant in Puerto Rico. IG @jnov_ Tiktok @jnov__

My old San Juan walking tour guide recommended Deaverdura to me a few years back and it was excellent, so I had to visit again when I was back in San Juan recently. Their PR sampler platter is something I thought about more often than I should have in the years that passed since I had been here. The pork is extremely moist and tender, the sweet plantains are cooked perfectly, and the corn fritter? Things or the fried things with stuff inside are delicious. My palette may not be advanced enough for blood sausage though lol and one of the other items I didn't like but I don't even know what it was. I think this place would also be great for juices, a fresh coconut, and other items they had, but the platter is so filling there was no chance I was getting anything else! Make sure to get there around opening time for lunch or a line will most likely form.

Before we get into the food session. I wanna talk about the line. Due to their short staff situation, they will have you wait in a long line even though some people already came out, so the wait line is at least 30 mins and up. One thing tho, there seemed to have a local guy, and he just went in and talked to the staff, and they just cut the line and went in. Maybe the only way to avoid the wait is to know someone?! Because they def don't take reservations for tourists... It's really hard to give a high rating due to the wait line and the slow service. I would highly recommend for people to go somewhere else if there is a long line. There is only a board of Spanish menu on the wall, no QR code or hard copy. The food was just okay...you kinda need sauces to make it more interesting...overall, if you don't wanna wait in line, def check other places out!

We're trying for the first time Deaverdura because we wanted typical Puertorican food. This spot is nice and open And breezy. Wow!!! The food here was incredible. We took some friends with us and really wanted them to have a good authentic experience. Deaverdura did not let us down. We decided to do a family style setup which our hostess recommended. We ordered a churrasco place, grouper place and a sampler plate of amazing Puertorican cuisine. The place consisted of Sorullitos, tostones, pernil, fried ham, arroz con gandules, acupurrillas, blood sausage, traditional sausage, habichuelas, and salad. We ordered natural juices pf passion fruit, ganabana and amazing desert called tembleque which was a perfect finish to a fine meal. Every dish was very tasteful, well seasoned and perfectly cooked. Needless to our friends want to go again. It was that good.

Busy and for good reason. Felt so authentic from their menu only being listed on a chalkboard to the options and even the service. The food was delicious and I loved the garlic shrimp. Came heavily recommended for authentic Puerto Rican food and definitely lived up to it!

Food was delicious. When we arrived there was a crowd by the door but half were waiting to leave out in the rain while 3 other groups including mine were waiting to be seated. A waitress seated us with the group ahead of us which I didn't mind at first but it was a little awkward. There are no paper menus so we had to wait for the waitress to come and tell us the menu. We ordered what she recommended and it was all delicious. The cilantro sauce is popular but ask for the hot sauce it's so much more flavorful. We ordered 2 alcoholic drinks but honestly they didn't taste like they had alcohol in them at all. I tried the cherry flavored one- wasn't horrible but it didn't have much flavor.

Definitely try the Puerto Rico Sampler! Food came out quick and juices were delicious. Everyone is super kind at this spot.

I was excited to come to this establishment cause it had good reviews. However, it was a let down. Before you walk in there's a big chalk sign written big "Wait to be seated". I did but then saw that there was bar seating. Since I'm dining solo, I made eye contact and pointed to bar and sat. Now, I'm very familiar and accustomed to Caribbean time and service so I didn't expect to be attended to right away. However, the lady who manning the bar and a few tables was constantly complaining. There were only two managing the customers. Her and some guy. The guy came to and asked me what I wanted to order. When I asked for the menu he said "we don't have a menu. We have the menu on the chalkboard." So I got up to look and then found it. After I ordered my dinner and was served. I was disappointed by the food. You can tell it wasn't made at that moment. It was warmed up and it wasn't even properly heated. Then, I saw the waiter clearing the table and throwing food out. However, the sampler wasn't fully eaten and one of the kitchen helpers said no, don't throw it out. Put in the window(kitchen to take back). Now, I don't usually have concerns over partially eaten food being reused, but this time I had a strong feeling that it was. I wouldn't recommend this place as it is not authentic at all.