Where should I eat in Panama City, and which local food or drink is worth trying?

Panama City eats at three altitudes, and a first visit should try all of them. At street level is the Mercado de Mariscos, the seafood market at the end of the Cinta Costera, where the stalls outside sell Panamanian ceviche — mostly corvina (sea bass) cured in lime with red onion and ají chombo chile — in paper cups to eat standing, and the upstairs restaurant fries the day's catch for a crowd that is half dock workers, half office staff. At fonda level, El Trapiche (serving since 1983) is the standard-bearer for the national kitchen: its sancocho — a golden chicken soup built on ñame yam and culantro — is the dish Panamanians themselves name as the national plate, served with carimañolas (yuca fritters stuffed with seasoned beef), patacones and arroz con pollo.

At the top end the city has become a dining destination in its own right. Maito, chef Mario Castrellón's restaurant in Coco del Mar, pioneered modern Panamanian cooking and is a fixture on the Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants list; its tasting menus rework Afro-Panamanian and indigenous ingredients — the "Chombasia" idea, Afro meets Asia, is the house style. In the Casco Viejo, Fonda Lo Que Hay ("whatever there is") runs the same philosophy at fonda prices and queues, while Cantina del Tigre in San Francisco has turned the ceviche bar into an art form. Order the Caribbean side too where it appears: patí, the spiced meat turnover of Afro-Panamanian Colón, and rondón, the coconut seafood soup, both signal the country's second, Atlantic kitchen.

Then drink the headline. Panama's Geisha coffee, grown on the slopes of Volcán Barú around Boquete and made famous when Hacienda La Esmeralda's lot stunned the Best of Panama competition in 2004, now holds the world auction record: at the August 2025 Best of Panama auction a washed Esmeralda Geisha sold for US$30,204 per kilogram, scored at 98 points. You do not need a Dubai budget to taste it — Casco Viejo cafés such as Bajareque Coffee House pour Boquete Geisha by the cup. For the stronger stuff, Panama's own spirits are seco, the sugarcane liquor of Herrera (mixed with milk in the country style), and Ron Abuelo, aged in oak in Pesé by the Varela family since 1908.

Late afternoon at the seafood market: fishing boats tied below the Cinta Costera, gulls over the sorting tables, and a line of taxi drivers and executives eating ceviche from cups with soda crackers, arguing about the corvina.

The city's Christmas drink arrives in October: chicha de saril — a deep-red brew of sorrel (roselle) flowers, ginger and clove — starts appearing in bottles in bakeries and fondas weeks before the holidays, and market vendors will sell you the dried flowers to make it. Visitors in December who order "chicha" expecting the corn drink of the Andes get a delicious surprise of a different color.

• Ceviche at the market, noon — Eat at the Mercado de Mariscos when the boats' catch is freshest and the upstairs room is fullest
• One tasting menu, booked ahead — Reserve Maito or a Casco table early in the trip; weekend slots go first
• Geisha as the souvenir — Buy beans from a Casco or San Francisco specialty café rather than paying airport markups

The top tables are small and the city's business-dining culture books them out midweek as much as weekends; Fonda Lo Que Hay takes no reservations and the queue is the price. During Carnival and the November holidays many fondas close while their staff head to the interior. And Geisha by the cup varies hugely — an unnamed "Geisha" on a diner menu is rarely the Boquete estate coffee the records are made of.

Put the market lunch and one tasting menu on the calendar today, and leave a Casco afternoon free for a slow Geisha pour-over.