Tianguez Café

Location:
Plaza de San Francisco, bajo el atrio
Centro Histórico, Quito, Ecuador

Restaurant

V!VA User‘s Description

Tianguez features some of the best traditional Ecuadorian dishes. This is a great spot to try out some of the dishes you might hesitate to eat otherwise because of sanitary concerns. Try the Plato Típico, with mote (Andean white corn), maduro frito (fried plantain), llapingacho (a type of cheesy potato pancake), fresh avocado, lettuce and tomato and your choice of chicken or fritada (fried pork bits).

Set right in the Plaza de San Francisco, this is the perfect spot to try out some traditional Ecuadorian dishes in one of the most traditional colonial plazas in the old town. Its also a great place to relax, sip a cappuccino and people-watch.

The restaurant - which is also connected to a small gift shop/museum in a cave-like structure underneath the church - is named after the Nahuatl word for market. Before the Spanish arrived, the plaza was used as a market for tribes from all over Ecuador. When the Spanish constructed the church between 1536 and 1580 over the ruins of an Inca palace, the market continued for centuries more. Today, besides the items for sale at the Tianguez café and gift shop, pretty much the only wares for purchase are shoe shines and newspapers.

Contact Information:
Phone: 593-2-2954326 and 593-2-2527240
E-mail: tianguez(at)remove-this.andinanet.net

Traveler Reviews of

Top spot for a snack in old Quito

Rating: 75%

The food is very good, especially the tamales and the bonitisimos. It is authentic and I always take foreign visitors there to rest between seeing different churches and plazas. A coffee or coke really helps with the altitude adjustment. Sanitation is apparently good at the restaurant although I still never get ice or fruit juices just to be safe.

By V!VA User from Quito, Ecuador, Jun 07, 2006

Nice juice and sandwich

Rating: 75%

I stopped off here on a city tour, and I had a chicken sandwich and juice. Both were really good, and there´s a nice little shop selling authentic souvenirs.

By Paula Newton from London, England, Dec 12, 2005