Quito, EC

A celebrated contemporary restaurant in the new city plating refined Latin American cooking with Ecuadorian ingredients, long regarded among the country's best. The polished special-occasion dinner in Quito.

An ambitious tasting-menu restaurant in La Floresta built on hyper-local and foraged Ecuadorian ingredients, regularly ranked among Latin America's best. The city's headline culinary experience for those who want a full event.

A La Floresta restaurant championing Ecuador's diverse ecosystems on the plate, from Amazon to Andes to coast, with creative modern cooking rooted in native produce. Serious, ingredient-led food with a sense of place.

A refined restaurant on the upper floor of the historic Teatro Nacional Sucre, with a dramatic theater-balcony dining room and contemporary Ecuadorian cooking. One of the most atmospheric rooms in the city for a special dinner in Old Town.

A cafe and craft shop tucked beneath the San Francisco church with outdoor tables right on the plaza, serving Ecuadorian dishes and coffee with an unbeatable Old Town view. The classic spot for a relaxed lunch in the historic center.

A traditional Ecuadorian restaurant on an Old Town balcony serving regional classics like locro de papa, fritada, and seco de chivo in a colonial setting. The place to eat the country's heartland comfort food with history all around.

A La Floresta local favorite built around encebollado, the beloved Ecuadorian fish-and-onion soup considered a national hangover cure, with all-you-can-eat salad and gentle prices. Cheap, generous, and authentically local.

A long-standing French restaurant near La Mariscal pairing classic French technique with Ecuadorian ingredients in an elegant, intimate room. The refined Franco-Andean dinner when the table wants something beyond local fare.

A hugely popular farm-style restaurant on the edge of the city famous for hearty Ecuadorian breakfasts, fresh dairy, and country cooking with a valley view. The classic weekend-breakfast outing for Quiteño families.

A specialty-coffee cafe in La Floresta roasting and brewing high-altitude Ecuadorian beans, with good pastries and a relaxed neighborhood crowd. The reliable third-wave coffee stop in the city's most creative district.

Reputedly the oldest ice-cream parlor in the city, making helados de paila, fruit sorbets churned by hand in copper pans over ice and straw, by the same method for generations. A sweet, living piece of Old Town history.

A bright Old Town restaurant reviving traditional Ecuadorian recipes with care, from quimbolitos to regional stews, in a restored colonial space that doubles as a social project. Heartfelt heritage cooking with a conscience.

A long-running vegetarian restaurant serving cheap, wholesome set lunches and meat-free Ecuadorian and international dishes to a loyal crowd. The reliable, gentle-priced meat-free option in a country of hearty meat cooking.

One of the world's highest cable cars, lifting you to nearly 4,000 meters on the flank of Pichincha volcano, where short walks and a demanding hike lead toward the Rucu Pichincha summit. The big-altitude adventure right above the city.

The city's largest park, a vast eucalyptus forest on a ridge above the new city with walking, running, and cycling trails and sweeping views toward the valley and volcanoes. A big, breezy green escape minutes from the center.

A hilltop park just east of Old Town crowned by a glass-and-iron 'crystal palace', with easy paths, lawns, and one of the best head-on views of the historic center and El Panecillo. A relaxed, accessible green space with a great vista.

A vast, inhabited volcanic crater near Mitad del Mundo, viewed from a dramatic rim lookout or hiked down into a green geobotanical reserve of farms and forest on the crater floor. A striking, little-visited landscape on the equator.

A monumental museum-chapel dedicated to the work of Ecuador's most famous artist, Oswaldo Guayasamín, whose powerful paintings on humanity, suffering, and injustice fill the space, alongside his adjacent house-museum and pre-Columbian collection. The city's most moving cultural stop.

The country's flagship national museum, strong on pre-Columbian gold, ceramics, and the civilizations that long predate the Inca, plus colonial and republican art. The best single indoor stop for understanding Ecuador's deep past.

A beautifully curated pre-Columbian art museum in a restored colonial house in Old Town, displaying ancient Ecuadorian ceramics and figures arranged around themes of life, death, and the spirit world. Small, atmospheric, and superbly presented.

A museum in a former 16th-century hospital telling the story of Quito's daily life through the centuries with immersive, well-staged scenes. An engaging, accessible way to understand the Old Town you're walking through.

The city's grand 19th-century opera house on a restored Old Town plaza, staging opera, classical music, dance, and theater in an ornate neoclassical hall. The cultured evening option in the heart of the historic center.

A quirky open-air museum near Mitad del Mundo sitting closer to the GPS-true equator, with hands-on demonstrations of Coriolis tricks, balancing eggs on nails, and exhibits on indigenous cultures. Touristy fun the whole family enjoys.

The buzzing heart of La Mariscal's nightlife, a square ringed by bars, clubs, and restaurants that fills with a mixed crowd of locals and travelers after dark. The city's most concentrated, easygoing party district.

A guided tasting of Ecuadorian fine-flavor cacao, among the most prized in the world, from bean to bar at one of the city's chocolate makers, learning how the country's cacao shaped its history. A delicious, family-friendly hour.

A bustling covered market in Old Town where the city eats, with stalls of tropical fruit, juices, and cheap counter lunches of hornado (roast pork), seco, and fresh seafood. The most authentic, hands-on food experience in the historic center.

A botanical garden in Parque La Carolina showcasing Ecuador's astonishing plant diversity, with an orchid house, a cloud-forest greenhouse, and Andean native gardens. A calm, green, family-friendly retreat in the middle of the new city.

The most dazzling church in the city, a baroque masterpiece whose interior is sheathed almost entirely in gold leaf, earning it the name 'the Golden Church'. If you see one building in Quito's Old Town, this is it.

A vast neo-Gothic basilica whose gargoyles are carved as Ecuadorian animals, iguanas and tortoises, and whose towers you can climb on rickety ladders and walkways for one of the best city panoramas. The climb is half the thrill.

The ceremonial heart of Old Town, ringed by the presidential palace, the cathedral, and the archbishop's palace, where shoe-shiners, retirees, and street life fill the benches under palm trees. The capital's political and social center for centuries.

A wide cobbled plaza dominated by the long white facade of one of the oldest churches and monasteries in South America, with the Pichincha volcano rising behind. One of the great public spaces of the Americas and a favorite local gathering spot.

A narrow, cobbled colonial lane in Old Town lined with restored balconied houses, artisan workshops, traditional sweet shops, and music spilling out at night. The city's most atmospheric and romantic street, best after dark.

A hill rising from the middle of the city, crowned by a giant winged-Virgin statue, with a 360-degree panorama over Old Town, the new city, and the surrounding volcanoes. The classic Quito viewpoint, spectacular at sunset.

The monument north of the city marking the equatorial line, where you can straddle the two hemispheres and visit an ethnographic museum of Ecuador's indigenous cultures. A touristy but fun rite of passage on the line that gives the country its name.

A steep, bohemian neighborhood tumbling down a hillside east of the new city, with a beautiful colonial church, cobbled lanes, artist hangouts, and views into the valley below. A quiet, characterful pocket to wander and get lost in.