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Commune in the department of Nord, Haiti
Photo: Awiseman, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Cap-Haïtien is the second largest city in Haiti with a population of 275,000 in 2015. It lies along a bay on the northern coast of the country.
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Cathédrale Notre-Dame de l’Assomption
Historic cathedral, the current building dates back to 1670 AD.
Probably the best restaurant in Cap-Haitien, Lakay has good Haitian food, some American and French food, and also pretty decent pizza. They have live music sometimes as well. Definitely worth a visit if you're in town. Mostly outdoor seating but they do have umbrellas.
A tasty French bakery that also sells pizza and sandwiches. Really good pastries.
Good Haitian restaurant and bar with outdoor seating. Good lunch too, though a little slow.
Deny's
Affectionately known as Deny's, after the owner, this is a roadside, no-frills barbecue spot. Deny's specialty is a plate of barbecued chicken with a tangy sauce, fried plantains with pikliz (spicy coleslaw), avocado (in season), macaroni salad and sometimes other sides. It's tasty and inexpensive, something like G100-150. He also makes other things if you ask him, and can also do the plate to go. Deny keeps upgrading as more people visit, he has tables and chairs and has some Ikea plates too. He has lots of inexpensive Prestige beer, and if you want some klerin (Haitian moonshine) there's a stand next door. All System is an experience and Deny is super nice. He speaks Spanish, French and some English.
The restaurant at this nice little hotel has good seafood, a tasty good steak sandwich (which is only on the lunch menu, but they'll make it at dinner too) and good pastas. The pikliz is super spicy and the rum sours are fantastic. If you stay at the hotel, breakfast is included.
The Hotel Roi Christophe has a nice restaurant and a cozy bar on its large campus near the center of town. The restaurant is in a nice older wood building with art and plants and is open on two sides. Lots of Haitian and French specialties, plus pizza and burgers.
A nice little seafood restaurant up on a hill overlooking the ocean.
Above the market is a relaxed restaurant and bar with a water view serving American Creole and Haitian food.
Small cafe for coffee and pastries; air-conditioned
A small, fun, standing-room-only bar located near the Hotel Roi Christophe. Nice staff, fun dance music. No sign, just look for the open door and loud music. We never knew what the place was called so we asked the owner -- it's her name, Rita, with her favorite brand, Armani. Thus Riarmanita.
A noisy, fun disco.
Nice, Old World style hotel in a former colonial mansion relatively near the center of town. Lush grounds surrounded by a big wall. Rooms start at c. $75/night with some in the mansion and others in outlying houses. Wireless internet. With bar and hotel restaurant.
Hotet Montjoly
A nice hotel with a nicely stocked gift shop, a bar and restaurant.
A very nice small hotel on the water on the Boulevard du Carénage. The restaurant is good and rum sours are fantastic. Breakfast is included in the bill. It's located down the street from Lakay, a nice restaurant, and Kokiyaj, a restaurant and small market with American and European items. Also near Deco Bar, a disco.
A decent hotel in a big old house. Visitors say it's a bit more rustic than Auberge du Picolet. Faces the bay.
A very nice and new boutique hotel located in the hills above the city. Really nice view over the bay. The bar, Lime Bar, gets good reviews too.
A nice beach resort, Cormier Plage is on a white, secluded beach. There's a big restaurant and tiki bar and lots of rooms that face the ocean. You can hear the waves roll in. Very relaxing, and the bar has great rum sours. The restaurant has a lot of really fresh seafood -- the conch is great, as is the lobster salad. The price includes breakfast.
An affordable alternative for foreign visitors with meal-provided option. Special rates for volunteers, short-term or long-term.
Renovated in early 2016.
Decent hotel overlooking the city, with air-conditioning turned on at night. Has a restaurant and bar, and large jug in the lobby for filling water bottles. Can organize taxis around the city and to the border. Takes credit cards.
A tourist market is open with a number of stalls with a lot of vendors who sell arts, crafts and souvenirs, some of better quality than others. The metalwork is pretty nice, and there's also a lot of jewelry, woodwork, clothing and paintings. The vendors are nice and it's worth a visit. A worthwhile endeavor for the city.
A small supermarket on the first floor and a bar and grill upstairs, the market has all the necessities -- food, toiletries, water, alcohol and so on.
The city is small and compact enough that you can walk most places. There are, however, many taxis and motor-taxis available. Most restaurants and bars are in the central, gridded part of the city.
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Articles and travel topics about Cap-Haïtien and Haiti.
Travel tipsChristopher Columbus (Italian: Cristoforo Colombo; Spanish: Cristóbal Colón) made four voyages from Spain to the Caribbean from 1492 to 1503.
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Travel tipsLasting from the 1500s to the 1800s, the Atlantic slave trade was a crime against humanity of extraordinary proportions, leaving a huge mark on four continents and irreversibly changing world history and geopolitics.
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InspirationSome hotels have a heritage from the golden age of steam railways and ocean liners, before the Second World War, in the 19th or early 20th centuries. These hotels were where the rich and the famous of the day would stay.
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Nature & adventureAs of 2023 the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves is made up of 738 reserves in 134 countries of which 22 are transboundary.
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