A German journalist requested an interview with me in 2023 to discuss my culinary tourism lectures. We ended up on Zoom for over an hour, and they turned something I pulled out of my ass into the headline: Something like, if the view is good, the food will be bad. Without Anthony Bourdain around, everyone in a certain cultural milieu has been seeking culinary-related bons mots to guide them around the world, and this was as good as any.

I stand by it. It was a tour guide in Rome who’d first alerted me to the possibility of this as a good rule of thumb, and living in San Juan, I’ve found it to be true. Cocina al Fondo looks out onto a parking lot. Vianda, an abandoned building. Places that have to pull you deep into their world through hospitality and cuisine to distract you from the shortcomings of their neighborhood are going to do so, if they’re good.

This particular bon mot might have to be updated for the TikTok age, though—something like, if there is a line of people in very obviously new outfits that they bought specifically for pictures waiting to get in, do not eat there. It does not have the same ring. No one will put that in a headline.

Locals have been making fun of the tourists lining up for places not worthy of hours spent standing in the sun. “They have no hats, no sunglasses—no protection!” someone recently said incredulously at the dog park. On an August Sunday afternoon, we walked out of our usual nondescript brunch spot, where there was no line, no wait, to find people standing in the rain for the place overlooking a big plaza. Here, my rules were proving correct: good view, big line, bad food.

Now there’s a new, very specific correlation for Old San Juan that I’ve noticed through social media: If you believe that the piña colada originated at a restaurant called Barrachina, you’ll have terrible taste in food. The rest of the restaurants you select will also be tourist traps. You have no idea how to do proper research about a city’s restaurant scene, and there’s no one around to steer you in the right direction. None of these things are crimes; I’m sure you’re a wonderful person. But they are true.

I never see anyone post about anything but Barrachina when it comes to piña coladas, even though its story (carved into a stone sign on its outer wall) is absolutely apocryphal.

On my first reporting trip to Puerto Rico, in 2015, I was tasked with finding out how nouveau bartenders felt about their national cocktail. While I was leaving one spot, a very tall man (at least in my rum-addled memory) told me, “The piña colada was first made at the Caribe Hilton with Don Q Gold.” I probably uttered an “ok” at this prophetic character who’d heard that he should tell the truth to the girl from Brooklyn writing about piña coladas for Vice. I scribbled it into my reporter’s notebook in the cab on my way to try the apparent real thing, but I didn’t need to: How could I ever forget that line?

At Barrachina, the piña coladas come out of a slushie machine and, to my memory, are made with Bacardi. These are two sins: There’s no love locally for that rum brand (Don Q is the bigger seller) and it should be shaken. If you’ve watched the episode of No Reservations in which Bourdain comes to Puerto Rico, he is miserable at being served one while sitting at the bar. (This episode is broadly very depressing, and the only time I interviewed him, I asked when he’d be going back to Puerto Rico: turned out, it was the next week, when he did his much improved visit for Parts Unknown.)

The piña colada prophet was right. Ramón “Monchito” Marrero first developed the drink at the Caribe Hilton in 1954. It was shaken. It was made with Don Q. My husband wrote about it and new variations for PUNCH last year. 

Yet the Barrachina myth persists, and it says so much about how few people care about true history when it comes to food and drink, and the fact that most are guided in travel by other tourists and trends as much as they are by pretty views. Truth and expertise: What are they worth in 2025? The good news is that this opens up tables and bar stools for the rest of us. I’ll show you where there’s no line. Bad views, great food.

If you want to know where to go when you travel, I can’t recommend the TOMATO TOMATO global restaurant map more. It has over 400 spots on it. Find the link at the members’ page. On Friday, I’ll be sending out the Monthly Menu eating and cooking roundup that includes where I’ve been going out to dine and drink. Harper’s Bazaar recently said, “I follow Kennedy’s guide to where to eat in San Juan.”