  Recent consensus on the $N_f=2+1$ equation of state at vanishing chemical
potential from different lattice-QCD groups has spoiled the previous agreement
with the outcome from the mean-field Polyakov-Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. In this
letter we review the thermodynamics of the PNJL model introducing two important
aspects needed to describe the pressure computed in the lattice QCD. First, we
consider the thermodynamics of the model beyond the mean-field approach to
include pseudoscalar and scalar mesonic-like fluctuations into the
grand-canonical potential. This accounts for the hadronic pressure of the
system below the critical temperature. On the other hand we also implement the
back reaction of quarks into the Polyakov-loop effective potential bringing a
reduction of the pressure above $T_c$ from the Stefan-Boltzmann limit. We get a
good agreement with lattice-QCD data at low and moderate temperatures, opening
the door to a straightforward extension to finite chemical potential.
