Driftwood Restaurant

I am shocked by the low scores for the food at this restaurant. I have been there many times over the years and the seafood is always exquisite. The owner has a fishing boat and does charters, so the catch of the day really is the catch of the day. They will prepare the fish for you just about anyway you can think of (even if it is not on the menu). The BEST barracuda I have eaten. Maybe not as fancy as some of the other restaurants on the island, but definitely some of the best seafood you will find.

We had very good seafood at Driftwood and really enjoyed our meals. The lobster was delicious, as well as the Alaskan King Crab Legs. The dessert was good, but not a big selection. The service was good but not very friendly like the other restaurants in Aruba. I would recommend it for seafood and a low key night out.

We primarily ordered seafood, two catch of the day entrees, which were both solid. Calamari was also good but seafood chowder was just so-so. But for the price, I think there are a lot better options on the island. Presentation was blah, atmosphere was dated and service was terrible. We never figured out who are actual waiter/waitress was b/c it was somebody different each time we had to ask for something (which we had to do often). We went here b/c we saw that they had been around since 1986 but if felt like there's been a deterioration since then.

Visited aruba for my honeymoon and had a great time. enjoyed te beaches and had dinner at different restaurants. But the driftwod restaurant was my favorite of all so I decided to post a review to recommend this restaurant to others going. The ambience is very differt, the service was A+ and the food was very good. My wife had surf and turf and i decided to go for the catch of the day.

We have eaten at Driftwood each of our previous trips and had a very good meal. It was one of the many places we always looked forward to returning to. This trip the food was not up to par with several other places we ate during our 2 week visit. The service was slow and not very attentive. The food rather boring. We were also put off by the way they handled a dinner special they were running. You had to ask about it specifically - it was not just offered to you.

My family dined here on our first night in Aruba. After several of the locals at our hotel recommended it at THE place to go, we went. Since this was our first stay in Aruba we were very nervous as to what good food meant. The food was very sloppy and bland. Save your money and pick one of the higher ranked restaurants.

Despite this restaurant feeling somewhat closed off, we had an excellent experience. We arrived around 6:30pm and the restaurant was not at all crowded but by 7pm the place was almost full. The wait staff was extremely helpful and attentive and the food was superb. We had the wahoo arubian style and shrimp in garlic - we highly recommend both. And we cannot leave out the corn bread - never had anything this good!The seafood chowder was amazing as well. Two thumbs up in our book!

The restaurant has a nice and somehow authentic interior decoration.
The seafood appears to be fresh however the prices are too upscale for the quality that the dishes are prepared. Beware of such tourist traps. In addition, they later told us that a special menu price with three courses and exactly the same dishes at much a lower rate available. The waiter told us that this option is available only upon request - in other words: guests that do not know about it pay much more for the same and the host is NOT willing to offer this information to you.

Not the best of choices and drifting away!!! This was our second visit to Driftwood. Our first was in 2007 and we thought the food was excellent and couldn't wait to go back. Boy were we disappointed. Our meals were overcooked, uneventful and bland. I had the Wahoo fish creole style. The fish was not moist and the creole was non-descript. My husband had the blackened Mahi Mahi and it was chewy. Our daughter had the Shrimp Creole and it was bland and the vegetables were tasteless. Our son had the Shrimp with Garlic that he enjoyed quite a bit. He had it served over linguine and ate every bite. That was our last trip to Driftwood!

In the past the value / price at Driftwood has kept it on our list. However, this year, the prices seem to have increased and the services, which has historically been prompt and efficient was sloppy and slow. Kids menu stinks and they charged $3.50 for each glass of milk!
The food was just better than average and for the price, simply not worth it. Lots of awesome restaurants for the price elsewhere in Aruba.