The Avenida de las Playas has restaurants of every nationality — Italian, Indian, Chinese, English, German, Irish — most of them indistinguishable in quality and aimed squarely at the package-tour trade. The honest local food is in two places: the row of seafood restaurants around the old harbour at Varadero, and a handful of small family-run Canarian taverns in the back streets of the resort.
For genuinely local cooking, look for papas arrugadas con mojo (Canarian wrinkled potatoes with red and green pepper sauce), pulpo a la gallega (octopus on potato), vieja (parrotfish — the local catch of the day), and cabra (Lanzarote goat stew). The Canarian wines from the volcanic vineyards of La Geria — particularly the dry whites of the Malvasía grape — are well worth ordering and often cheaper than the imported Spanish options.
A few names that consistently get it right: La Cañada in the old town for traditional Canarian, La Bodega de Santiago in Yaiza (worth the short drive) for the same, and Casa Roja at the old harbour for seafood. Avoid the avenue places with English-language menu pictures and street touts; they are reliably worse than they look.