Restaurants in La Serena

A few downtown cafes will give you a chance to take a break from your stroll. Café Morocco, Prat 566 (tel. 51/550444), serves what may well be Chile's best-decorated cortados set in a lightly Arab-themed, intimate setting of wood-inlaid tables and exposed brick walls. It also has a few sidewalk tables, as does the larger, less stylish Coffee Express on the corner of Prat and Balmaceda (tel. 51/221673). Half a block away on Balmaceda 475, Café Colonial has vegetarian dishes and offers set lunches for $5 (£3.30; tel. 51/216373). Café El Patio, in a courtyard at Prat 470 (tel. 51/210759; www.cafeelpatio.4mg.com), is actually more of a jazz bar than a cafe and offers main courses around $7 (£4.70). None of these places is open on Sundays, but for an inexpensive lunch on any day of the week, head to the Recova market, where many second-floor restaurants prepare fresh seafood and hearty Chilean stews, or cazuelas.