Plan Your Trip
Eat & Drink Like a Local
Traditional Costa Rican fare, for the most part, is comfort food, consisting largely of beans and rice, fried plantains, and the occasional slab of chicken, fish or beef. Recently, locals have started to experiment more with the country’s fresh, exotic and plentiful produce. The results have been inspiring and delicious.
The Year in Food
Food festivals are concentrated at the end of the rainy season, but the tropical Eden that is Costa Rica produces exotic and incredible fruits and vegetables and vends them in farmers markets year-round.
Rainy season (October & November)
Deliciously ripe mangoes and mamon chino (rambutan), plus agricultural celebrations such as the Fiesta del Maíz (Festival of Corn) and the Feria Nacional de Pejibaye (National Peach Palm Market).
Christmas (December)
Tamales, prepared with masa (corn meal soaked in lime), pork, potatoes and garlic and steamed in banana leaves, become a very big deal at this time of year.
Coffee harvest (September to January)
Many seasonal laborers from Nicaragua head down to pick grano de oro (the golden grain).
Food Experiences
Cheap Treats
Guanabana Also known as soursop, this sweet and sticky fruit should be purchased wherever you find it, and eaten with your hands.
Patí A flaky, Caribbean-style turnover filled with meat, onions, garlic and spicy goodness.
Street mango Sold in plastic bags with salt, lime juice and sometimes chili powder, this is the ultimate refreshment.
Pipa fría Find a vendor with a machete and an ice chest and they’ll hack off the top of a coconut, stick a straw in it, and you’re good to go, with a frosty, sweet treat.
Pejivalle The roasted peach-palm fruit is a roadside standard, delicious warm and salted, although Ticos like to add a dab of mayonnaise.
Dare to Try
Museo de Insectos This bug museum has its own kitchen, where guests are served meal worms and crickets with lots of salt and oregano.
Mondongo Tripe intestines are a campesino (farmers) favorite in Costa Rica, and they are served surprisingly spicy.
Meat on a stick Is it pork? Chicken? Beef? Who cares. On roadsides and at local fiestas, this mysterious Tico delicacy is just as good as it smells, even after the vendor uses a paintbrush to apply spicy sauce.
Green Treats
Sibu Chocolate In San Isidro de Heredia, the history of chocolate illuminates and satisfies.
Feria Verde de Aranjuez San José’s ‘green market,’ and an all-around winner for breakfast, produce, smoothies, everything.
Punta Mona The sprawling garden at this secluded eco-retreat near Manzanillo has one of the world’s largest collections of edible tropical plants.
Costa Rica Cooking Help to whip up your own meal in La Fortuna, based on local and almost entirely organic produce.
Local Specialties
Breakfast for Ticos is usually gallo pinto (literally ‘painted rooster’), a stir-fry of last night’s rice and beans. When combined, the rice gets colored by the beans, and the mix obtains a speckled appearance. Served with eggs, cheese or natilla (sour cream), gallo pinto is generally cheap, filling and sometimes downright tasty. If you plan to spend the whole day surfing or hiking, you’ll find that gallo pinto is great energy food.
Considering the extent of the coastline, it’s no surprise that seafood is plentiful, and fish dishes are usually fresh and delicious. While it’s not traditional Tico fare, ceviche is on most menus, usually made from pargo (red snapper), dorado (mahi-mahi), octopus or tilapia. The fish is marinated in lime juice with some combination of chilis, onions, tomatoes and herbs. Served chilled, it is a delectable way to enjoy fresh seafood. Emphasis is on ‘fresh’ here – it’s raw fish, so if you have reason to believe it’s not fresh, don’t risk eating it. Sushi is also finding a place in many towns.
Food is not heavily spiced, unless you’re having traditional Caribbean-style cuisine. Most local restaurants will lay out a bottle of Tabasco-style sauce, homemade salsa or Salsa Lizano, the Tico version of Worcestershire sauce and the ‘secret’ ingredient of gallo pinto. Some lay out a tempting jar of pickled hot peppers as well.
Most bars also offer the country’s most popular boca (snack), chifrijo, which derives its name from two main ingredients: chicharrón (fried pork) and frijoles (beans). Diced tomatoes, spices, rice, tortilla chips and avocado are also thrown in for good measure. Fun fact about chifrijo: in 2014 a restaurant owner named Miguel Cordero claimed he officially invented it. He brought lawsuits against 49 businesses and demanded a cool US$15 million in damages. So far he has not been able to collect.
Caribbean cuisine is the most distinctive in Costa Rica, having been steeped in indigenous, criollo (Creole) and Afro-Caribbean flavors. It’s a welcome cultural change of pace after seemingly endless casados. Regional specialties include rondón (whose moniker comes from ‘rundown,’ meaning whatever the chef can run down), a spicy seafood gumbo; Caribbean-style rice and beans, made with red beans, coconut milk and curry spices; and patí, the Caribbean version of an empanada (savory turnover), the best street food, bus-ride snack and picnic treat.
How to Eat & Drink
When to Eat
Breakfast for Ticos is taken in the early morning, usually from 6am to 8am, and consists of gallo pinto. Many hotels offer a tropical-style continental breakfast, usually consisting of toast with butter and jam, accompanied by fresh fruit. American-style breakfasts are also available in many eateries and are, needless to say, heavy on the fried foods and fatty meats.
A midday lunch (served between 11:30am and 2:30pm) at most sodas (lunch counters) usually involves a casado (set meal; literally, ‘married’), a cheap, well-balanced plate of rice, beans, meat, salad and sometimes plátanos maduros (fried sweet plantains) or patacones (twice-fried plantains), which taste something like french fries.
For dinner (6pm to 9pm), a casado is on offer at most restaurants. Upscale Tico establishments may serve lomito (a lean cut of steak) and dishes like pescado en salsa palmito (fish in heart-of-palm sauce). Some of the more forward-thinking eateries in San José may drop an experimental vegetable plate in front of you.
Where to Eat
The most popular eating establishment in Costa Rica is the soda. These are small, informal lunch counters dishing up a few daily casados. Other popular cheapies include the omnipresent fried- and rotisserie-chicken stands.
A regular restaurante is usually higher on the price scale and has slightly more atmosphere. Many restaurantes serve casados, while the fancier places refer to the set lunch as the almuerzo ejecutivo (literally ‘executive lunch’).
For something smaller, pastelerías and panaderías are shops that sell pastries and bread, while many bars serve bocas (‘mouthfuls’; snack-sized portions of main meals).
Vegetarians & Vegans
Costa Rica is a relatively comfortable place for vegetarians to travel. Rice and beans, as well as fresh fruit juices, are ubiquitous, but there’s a lot more than that. The Happy Cow has a handy list of veggie restaurants nationwide (www.happycow.net/north_america/costa_rica). Visit farmers markets to sample what’s in season: Costa Rica is a growers’ paradise.
Most restaurants will make veggie casados on request and many places are now including them on the menu. These set meals usually include rice and beans, cabbage salad and one or two selections of variously prepared vegetables or legumes.
With the high influx of tourism, there are also many specialty vegetarian restaurants or restaurants with a veggie menu in San José and tourist towns. Lodges in remote areas that offer all-inclusive meal plans can accommodate vegetarians with advance notice.
Vegans, macrobiotic and raw-food-only travelers will have a tougher time, as there are fewer outlets accommodating those diets, although this is slowly changing. If you intend to keep to your diet, it’s best to choose a lodging where you can prepare food yourself. Many towns have macrobióticas (health-food stores), but the selection varies. Fresh vegetables can be hard to come by in isolated areas and will often be quite expensive, although farmers markets are cropping up throughout the country.
Habits & Customs
When you sit down to eat in a restaurant, it is polite to say buenos días (good morning), buenas tardes (good afternoon) or buenas noches (good evening) to the waitstaff and any people you might be sharing a table with – and it’s generally good form to acknowledge everyone in the room this way. It is also polite to say buen provecho, which is the equivalent of bon appetit, at the start of the meal.
THE GALLO PINTO CONTROVERSY
No other dish in Costa Rica inspires Ticos quite like their national dish of gallo pinto, that ubiquitous medley of rice, beans and spices. You might even hear Costa Ricans refer to themselves as ‘más Tico que gallo pinto’ (literally, ‘more Costa Rican than gallo pinto’). Exactly what type and amount of this holy trinity makes up authentic gallo pinto is the subject of intense debate, especially since it is also the national dish of neighboring Nicaragua.
Both countries claim that gallo pinto originated on their soil. Costa Rican lore holds that the dish and its iconic name were coined in 1930 in the neighborhood of San Sebastián, on the southern outskirts of San José. Nicaraguans claim that it was brought to the Caribbean coast of their country by Afro-Latinos long before it graced the palate of any Costa Rican.
The battle for the rights to this humble dish doesn’t stop here, especially since the two countries can’t even agree on the standard recipe. Nicaraguans traditionally prepare it with small red beans, whereas Costa Ricans swear by black beans. And let’s not even get into the subtle complexities of balancing cilantro, salt and pepper.
Nicaragua officially holds the world record for making the biggest-ever pot of gallo pinto. On September 15, 2007, a seething vat of it fed 22,000 people, which firmly entrenched Nicaragua’s name next to gallo pinto in the Guinness Book of World Records. Costa Rica responded in 2009 by cooking an even more massive avalanche of the stuff, feeding a small crowd of 50,000. Though the event was not officially recognized as setting any records, that day’s vat of gallo pinto warmed the hearts and bellies of many a proud Tico.
