Too late for the restaurants recommendations for the OP, but here they are as they might help someone else.
Fresco was very good. The place was packed when I was there inside and on their open air part in front. Very good food. They also have I don’t remember if it was a painting or tapestry, but very big on one of their walls of a drawing of a colored woman. Nice enough to take photos with that in the background. The only complaint is that the seat by the wall on the left (walking in) is quite deep and uncomfortable for eating from the table. The seat itself isn’t uncomfortable, but the length from there to the table certainly is. I fixed that by grabbing two of the throw pillows and putting them on my back which essentially filled the void and added support.
Parador Corazón de Jesús was good, not very good but good. The view from there is the best part of the restaurant. It’s quite outside of town on the road to La Vega. They have good wifi there too (one time we stop next to the restaurant on the road but didn’t went in and I was using their guest wifi from the car, lol.)
Service in both of them was very good and attentive.
Ribera Country Club was also very good, but there were hardly any people there. The place is tucked away, so unless you know it’s there, then you might never go. Maybe it was the time of day we went. It’s next to the Jimenoa River in a very attractive stretch of the River. Service was very good and attentive, but the young woman that attended us didn’t seem to be happy. Probably it was that day due to something personal. She knew the menú from heart and that’s quite a menu to remember. lol Anyway, the food was very good and the setting was the nicest open air type surrounded by nature/forest, the river, etc. I also went to the bathroom there, one of the nicest bathrooms I have seen.
I also went to the bathroom in La Locanda in Santiago (quite away from Jarabacoa, but the food there was extremely good) and not only is the bathroom nice, they have some essential oil aroma filling the bathroom. Whoa, never knew peeing could be so relaxing. lol I did find kind of annoying how who attended us tried to say things in Italian when you know she doesn’t speaks like that outside of there. Came through as a little too stuck up, nice but stuck up. The food more than made up for that.
The best would be between Ribera and La Locanda, while Parador Corazón de Jesús would be the worst of the bunch going by how good was the food alone.
The place that came through the fanciest of the bunch believe it or not would be La Locanda (they were playing classical music) and the more laid back was Parador Corazón de Jesús.
The most packed with people was Fresco and the least was Ribera. That could had been a function of when we went there.
There were a few other places too even in Puerto Plata, but quite frankly none of them were memorable. These 4 we’re the nicest. La Locanda is kind of a Dominicana chain restaurant based on Italian food (the founder is an actual Italian that moved to the DR) and based on what I saw on the table, now they expended even to other countries like Panamá and Trinidad & Tobago. I can see why they are doing well.
Definitely going back to all of them, but it’s a maybe to Parador Corazón de Jesús. Alta Vista probably offers similar spectacular panoramic views with better food, though that is almost in La Vega town.
Didn’t went to Jamaca de Dios restaurant, but a cousin and his wife did. Seems they have better food than Parador Corazón de Jesús, but with panoramic views of the Jarabacoa Valley. The one thing they definitely didn’t speak well of was the condition of the road once they were past the gate. They said it was horrible, full of holes.
