CITY GUIDES | CALIFORNIA
The Best Restaurants in San Bernardino, From Killer Barbecue to Incredible Tacos
By Mei Chen
Updated May 7, 2026
The Mexico Cafe
AUTHOR BIO: Mei Chen has worked for nearly a dozen start-ups in as many years, taking her to several West Coast cities. While she’s sure her current day job is permanent, she also has her eye on Carmel.
For a while, San Bernardino meant one thing to me: an always-too-cold, always very dull data center.
I was working with a startup then, which meant driving out to check on servers,. Afterward, I’d reward myself with lunch or dinner somewhere nearby, because staring at racks of equipment for half a day has a way of making even a strip-mall restaurant feel like civilization.
That’s how this list started. Not with some grand theory about San Bernardino dining, but with repeated visits, a rental car, and the decision to try somewhere new every time I came back. Eventually, the city started to come into focus through its restaurants: the historic Mexican-American room at Mitla Cafe, the family-dinner sprawl of The Mexico Cafe, the smoke at Spirit of Texas Craft BBQ, the practical comfort of Korean barbecue bowls, fish tacos, baked pasta, Indian curries, sushi rolls, and desserts built with the architectural restraint of a county fair.
San Bernardino is not a city that asks restaurants to perform polish. Its best places tend to be useful, generous, deeply local, and often sitting in the kinds of plazas people drive past without looking twice. That’s part of the point. The good meals here are rarely announced. They’re collected over time, one return trip at a time.
These are the best restaurants right now in San Bernardino.
Alfredo’s Pizza & Pasta
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Alfredo’s Pizza & Pasta is the kind of old-school Italian-American restaurant that still understands the value of garlic butter, baked pasta, and a dining room where nobody is trying to reinvent dinner. The menu runs through pizza, lasagna, ravioli, rigatoni, and baked ziti, with the Alfredo’s 3-Way Combo piling lasagna, Italian sausage, and mostaccioli under marinara, Parmesan, and mozzarella. It fits San Bernardino well: generous, familiar, and built for people who came hungry.
Best for: Pizza, baked pasta, and old-school Italian comfort food
Baja King Fish Tacos
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Baja King Fish Tacos is a small, casual spot with the name of a place that has already told you the move. The menu stays close to Baja-style seafood and Mexican staples, with fish tacos, shrimp tacos, ceviche, asada, al pastor, and combo plates. The appeal is in the simplicity: fried fish, salsa, lime, and a room that feels made for regulars.
Best for: Fish tacos and quick seafood plates
Delhi Palace
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Delhi Palace sits comfortably in that useful category of long-running Indian restaurants. The menu covers samosas, pakoras, tandoori chicken, chicken tikka, lamb dishes, shrimp, vegetarian curries, and the familiar North Indian spread that works especially well for groups.
Best for: Tandoori dishes, curries, and garlic naan
Gorditas Estilo Aguascalientes
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Gorditas Estilo Aguascalientes sits inside the Waterman Swapmeet, which means lunch comes with the hum of families, small shops, and weekend errands. The move is obvious: gorditas filled with chicharrón rojo, chicharrón verde, deshebrada, nopales in salsa roja, rajas, bistec, or papas con chorizo. Yes, it’s a swapmeet lunch counter, but it still might be the best thing you ate in town.
Best for: Handmade gorditas inside the Waterman Swapmeet
Melting Cone
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Melting Cone’s menu moves through scoops, mangoneadas, bionicos, fresas con crema, brownie sundaes, banana splits, crepes, mini pancakes, aguas frescas, slushies, milkshakes, and ice cream nachos made with Oreos as the chips. It’s bright, casual, and built for families, teenagers, and anyone who has looked at a regular scoop of ice cream and thought it needed three more forms of sugar.
Best for: Ice cream, mangoneadas, and over-the-top desserts
Mitla Cafe
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Opened in 1937, Mitla is still family-run and still very much tied to the origin story of the American hard-shell taco. Lucia Rodriguez’s tacos dorados famously helped inspire what would become Taco Bell. But Mitla doesn’t feel like a museum to the past—it feels like a true neighborhood restaurant, with Mexican-American plates, history in the walls, and a reminder that San Bernardino shaped American fast food.
Best for: Historic hard-shell tacos and San Bernardino history
Miyagi Sushi
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Miyagi Sushi is an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant, which means it should be judged by the correct set of expectations. The menu is large, with rolls, sashimi, tempura, teriyaki, udon, lunch boxes, and party platters, and the room works best for a casual group dinner rather than a quiet, reverent sushi experience. In San Bernardino terms, that’s part of the appeal: easy parking, big portions, plenty of choices, and no one pretending the California roll needs a dissertation.
Best for: All-you-can-eat sushi and casual Japanese plates
The Mexico Cafe
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The Mexico Cafe has been around long enough to feel part of San Bernardino history, with a menu that’s broad in the classic Mexican-American way, with fajitas, green enchiladas, carne asada fries, flautas, ceviche, combination plates, and plenty of margarita energy. This is not a delicate little taco counter; it’s a loud, generous, sit-down restaurant for birthdays, visiting relatives, and tables that somehow end up needing one more basket of chips.
Best for: Big Mexican-American plates and group dinners
Spirit of Texas Craft BBQ
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Spirit of Texas brings Central Texas barbecue into San Bernardino with brisket, ribs, pork belly burnt ends, sausage, pulled pork, and beef ribs smoked over white oak. The room is casual and counter-service, with the focus where it should be: smoke, bark, fat, sides, and banana pudding for those who somehow saved room. In a city with plenty of practical eating, this is one of the list’s more destination-worthy stops,.
Best for: Brisket, ribs, and serious barbecue plates
Tacos de Cabrito y Machito El Lagunero
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The reward for a short road trip to Muscoy is cabrito al pastor, the spit-roasted baby goat of Mexico’s Comarca Lagunera region, served in a setting that’s closer to roadside ritual than restaurant theater. The dish is rare in the States, and that alone would make it notable; what makes it worth the trip is that the whole thing feels rooted in place, from the semirural edge of Muscoy to the smoke, tortillas, consomé, and chopped goat landing on the plate. The setup from Francisco Salinas and Vanessa Sánchez is open only on weekends, but the good new is that the tacos are available starting at 8 in the morning.
Best for: Tacos with spit-roasted cabrito
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