Restaurante Sabor Cruceño — Restaurant in Sololá

Cafe Sabor Cruceno is a beautiful and well-run local restaurant situated on the top floor of the yellow CECAP building on the main square in Santa Cruz.

The restaurant is run entirely by young graduates of a culinary arts program run by the nonprofit organization Amigos de Santa Cruz. All of the students are from the local community so it’s a fantastic program to support by visiting the restaurant!

They serve breakfast and lunch and they are open until 5 pm. Their menu features a variety of unique local Guatemalan dishes including the country’s national dish known as pepian. They have vegetarian options too.

The seating is on the restaurant’s rooftop balcony with incredible views overlooking Lake Atitlan, surrounding volcanoes, hillside village, and lush jungle-covered mountain peaks.

I visited the restaurant twice for lunch during my stay in Santa Cruz in November 2016. I ordered the pepian with tofu and it was scrumptious! The dish was flavourful and unique and presented beautifully. The service was friendly, professional and prompt. Their fresh fruit smoothies were amazing also. This is one of the best restaurants I ate at during my time in Guatemala.

When you eat here, you are directly supporting the educational and vocational programs run by Amigos de Santa Cruz, with the goal of improving the lives of the local people and empowering them with skills.

They have a beautiful store on the main level of the building with gorgeous handmade products from local women in the community as well. Highly recommend...

Kaq’ik de pollo y res and the Pepian de Pollo were out of this world, I’m talkin’ Michelin restaurant level dishes. So so so good. It’s not shown in the pictures, however I did have La Nancy, which was a hibiscus lemon iced tea… one of the best aguas de Jamaica I’ve had, very refreshing! El Santiago’s chicken was maybe a bit on the drier side and a bit bland, but the cheese topping was very flavorful and gave it a bit of a leg up. My boyfriend also loved the sautéed veggies that came with it and he’s not one to love veggies. They were soft, yet crunchy, peppery and tasted very fresh! He also loved the bread it came with as a side item, we’re unsure what type it was but he wanted more! 10/10, would recommend, definitely coming back on our next trip to Pana.

p.s. they’re doing amazing things for the community of Santa Cruz! Be sure to check out the little shop at the bottom of...

Definitely one of the best places I've been to on the lake. We went 3 times. The service was excellent. The food was good and the menu had some dishes I have not seen available elsewhere which was very appealing and of course the view is great.

We were also looking to book a cooking class but that was not possible on Tuesday however we were able to take a weaving class through Amigos de Santa Cruz which we booked the day before. They sent us a catalogue with some colors to choose from to make our scarves. We walked to a nearby location where we watched and learned from Paulina, a local indigenous woman who's real name we struggled to pronounce. Our Spanish level is maybe a bit more than basic but we were able to learn from her by watching and using hand signals. She was patient...