On our yearly 2024 vacation to San Juan, Puerto Rico, I scoured online reviews for the best new restaurants. Celeste kept showing up in my searches, and it was recommended to us by a foodie friend with family in Puerto Rico. We booked a dinner before leaving home, despite the menu being very seafood heavy (and us not being seafood people!). In the end, Celeste was absolutely FANTASTIC and our favorite meal in Puerto Rico! HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!

Dan at Celeste on our 7th wedding anniversary!

CELESTE

Celeste is a small wine and seafood bar located in San Juan’s Puerta de Tierra neighborhood (between Old San Juan and Condado). We walked to Celeste after drinks in Old San Juan, as it was our anniversary! The restaurant itself is quite small on a quiet street. The dining room is decorated in an airy fashion, with clean white tables and local art decorating the walls. We were given a warm welcome and promptly seated on arrival.

Celeste’s dining room.

THE MENU

Celeste’s menu is rather small and seafood heavy. That being said, I think it offers much more than would appear on first glance. The dishes, in our experience, are much more detailed and exciting than their menu description lets on (kind of like our old favorite, Jose Enrique). My recommendation, based on our experience, is to ask the serve to explain anything you are interested in. We did this and it totally made our decision.

I would also note that, per our server, dishes at Celeste are meant to be shared, and that’s exactly what we did. This would be a great place to come with a larger group and try more plates.

Celeste menu in late August 2024.

FIRST COURSE: SWORDFISH KATSU CURRY

For our first course, we ordered the Katsu Curry. After speaking with our server, we learned that the Katsu Curry is a deep fried swordfish steak served with house-made coleslaw and a katsu sauce. The dish consisted of two sword fish steaks and it was fantastic. Seriously, this dish went together really well. The swordfish, while thick, was fried nicely and it tasted great with the slaw and katsu sauce. As our served advised, the slaw was very light on seaweed, despite being described as a “seaweed slaw” on the menu, and I was very happy about this. This was almost as good as our swordfish schnitzel at our beloved (and currently closed) Jose Enrique.

The Katsu Curry.

SECOND COURSE: MONKFISH VINDALOO

We ordered the Fish Vindaloo as our “main” dish, which we split. And trust me, the Fish Vindaloo was much bigger than it looks in the photo. This was sort of a surprise order for us, as neither of us loooove fish, and Dan doesn’t really enjoy spicy food. In any case, we, again, selected the Monkfish Vindaloo after speaking with our server, who highly recommended it. It was simply incredible. The vindaloo sauce was perfect, and the monkfish was super tender. Everything went fantastically well with the garlic naan served with the dish. I LOVE Indian food, so this was a special treat that I did not expect in San Juan! Again, I cannot recommend asking your server enough – he also convinced us to order this one!

The monkfish vindaloo.

DESSERT: A DECONSTRUCTED PISTACHIO CHEESECAKE

For dessert, we opted for a deconstructed pistachio cheesecake. As it sounds, this was really, really great. The dish was also quite pretty!

Dessert!

CELESTE’S WINE

I would also point out that Celeste bills itself as a wine bar, and it does offer an interesting wine menu, especially for San Juan. We ordered a Portuguese blend (we got married in Portugal and it was our anniversary!) and a glass of a Langhe wine.  I meant to take a picture of the wine list, but apparently I forgot! While Celeste is a wine bar, it is not a place that I would stop in for just a glass of wine; it’s definitely more of a dinner restaurant.

STEAL OUR DINNER

Celeste: 100 C. Pelayo, San Juan, 00901, Puerto Rico. Open for lunch Monday – Friday 11:30 – 14:00, dinner Friday – Monday 17:00 – 10:00 all day. Reservations suggested and can be made here.