Best Eats & Treats in Puerto Natales

We spent a week in Puerto Natales, spending the days planning, walking around town, and eating way too many sweets. I keep saying we’re going to get fat, but Peter reassures me and puts it simply, “at least we'll be fat and happy” so we keep eating. It’s a great philosophy I know haha.

Our favorite sweet treats were found at:

1. Dulce Adicción: Try the dulce de leche pastry. This was the first splurge on one of our first days in town.

2. Angelica’s: on one of our many walks, we stopped by this cute bakery/pastry shop that we had passed by several times before. We got a raspberry white chocolate donut and an apple streusel delight with whip cream. They were fabulous, but a bit more expensive than our first sweets at Dulce Adicción.

3. Aluén Gelato: we tried this lovely and very busy ice cream shop on the hunt for batidos (milkshakes) on one of our last days in Puerto Natales. Peter and I both got caramel ice cream. Mine in a cone, peters in a cup. On this special day, we had dessert before dinner. ☺️ never a bad decision!

4. Patagonia Dulce Chocolateria: we stopped by this place on one of our morning walks around town. We sat outside on a beautiful sunny day and split an espresso with milk, blueberry muffin, and a Nutella filled chocolate cookie. The sweet Nutella cookie paired so well with the bitter espresso so we didn’t need to add any sugar. (We went here twice...😎)

5. Helados Artesanales: wow this list is long haha. One cold night after dinner we wanted to get out of our hostel. We had been cooped up all day and didn’t make much progress planning out trip, so we were a little down. So what cheers Hannah up more than anything? Ice cream ☺️! So we got double scoops of cookies and cream and dulce de leche. Peter got coffee instead of our usual caramel scoop. I’d have to say, this was our least favorite sweet of Puerto Natales, but was still pretty good and decently priced for what you got!

Going on so many walks allowed us not only to get a little exercise, but also see a lot of the town! We walked past countless electronic/kitchen/hardware/camping stores (all in one store), cafes, markets, souvenir shops, fresh fruit stores, and restaurants.

Our favorite restaurants were:

1. Masay, where you can get very large sandwiches and hamburgers for $13 USD. Good for a quick eat. We got a hamburger with lettuce, tomato, cheese, and avocado. We had to eat it with a fork and knife it was so big!

2. La Guanaca Pizzeria, indulge in spicy sausage and a diablo pizza(chicken with spicy green chilies) with a goat cheese romaine salad. The best part about this pizzeria is that it is real pizza (not fake Chilean pizza) and there were seasonings on the table that enhanced the flavors so well. We don’t know what they were, but it smelled a little like bbq. So good!! You can get a good sized pizza for around $15. The second best thing about La Guanaca is that they had crepes. Nutella crepes, with banana and caramel sauce. Needless to say we partook in that dessert. 💃

2.1 La Guanaca Pizzeria, also indulge in a salami pizza and caesar salad with chicken.

2.2 La Guanaca Pizzeria, and then get a caesar salad again for a second time like we did... no regrets!

3. Baguales Brewery & Restaurant, we went here for a late dinner with Peter’s parents and got tacos carnitas with some delicious creamy sauce and a piano sour. I had been hearing all about these pisco sours, the Chilean drink of choice, so I decided to try one! Pisco is a type of alcoholic that resembles tequila. It was very refreshing and I can see why people could easily get drunk on them. Careful with these though, a few pisco sours go down like Jon Snow in a cave.

4. Santolla, the outside of this restaurant is made out of 5 shipping containers! There were a total of 8 tables and specialties included anything seafood. Peter got a seafood pasta and I ordered a seafood stew. Peter's pasta was very flavorful and delicious. Mine was kind of bland, but full of fresh seafood. It was pretty expensive, and for me was a let down.

We really began to love Puerto Natales, however 2-4 days in the town would be plenty of time to see everything you wanted to see! It is a very small town with everything in walking distance. So it is super easy to get around. And if you don’t want to walk, taxis have a standard rate of $1,500 CLP to go anywhere in town, which makes it less stressful taking them and worrying about getting ripped off. 👌🏻 We stayed at two hostels and an Airbnb while in town and liked different things about all of them! Wild Hostel was our favorite. Here is a link to check out their place.

At our first hostel we planned the next few weeks of our trip and made some hard decisions about where we were and weren’t going to go. We got more done on the blog and began to worry a little less and enjoy a little more. Puerto Natales is a great stop in Chile, either to see Torres Del Paine or to walk around the town. We went to “the three o’clock talk” at Erratic Rock which is a must do if you are heading to the park! They give a talk everyday at 3pm and give you tips and tricks about Torres Del Paine. Here’s a link!

^ Also, go to the wine market near the water on Manuel Senoret and buy a bottle of vino for a night in.