Puerto Vallarta doesn’t have the deep culinary traditions that places such as Puebla and Oaxaca famously draw on, but it does have access to impeccably fresh seafood and an increasingly lengthy roster of creative chefs. The city’s list of notable restaurants keeps expanding; we didn’t have time to try even half of the places that looked appealing. In addition to the three options below, I would have loved to review D’ Cortés, La Fina Cocina de Barrio, Icú, La Leche and Makal, for example. At all of these options, advance reservations are strongly recommended or required.

Café des Artistes

Since this 30-year-old establishment in Centro is Puerto Vallarta’s most famous gourmet bastion, I felt compelled to try it. Chef Thierry Blouet, who also helms the beachside Tuna Blanca in Punta Mita, presents a Mexican-French fusion menu. When we arrived, the hostess informed us in a practiced tone that there would be an hour wait for a table in the garden, and would we prefer to sit indoors? We did. After this rather chilly start, service proved to be comically disorganized. Multiple waiters took and retook our food and drink orders, and both we and guests at a nearby table were served the wrong cocktails.

However, the food was deceptively simple and delicious. My appetizer of an “inverted kampachi tostada” was beautifully composed: a crispy corn disk dusted with charred tortilla sat atop fresh fish in lime juice. The creaminess of some avocado purée balanced its acidity. And as an excuse to sip a glass of Casa Madero Gran Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon, I ordered beef filet and short rib with silky Camembert-chipotle sauce and shallot confit. The tender short rib came atop a slice of rich terrine composed of paper-thin potato slices layered with bacon and butter.