Costa Rica has recently experienced a vibrant surge in culinary creativity, driven by global trends in cooking that have kickstarted a search for unique ingredients and brought a fresh emphasis on authentic, local cuisine.
Costa Rica, with its welcoming lifestyle, incredible biodiversity, and rise to prominence on the global stage, provides the perfect playground for chefs taking part in this culinary renaissance. Its seas, mountains, plains, and forests are brimming with fascinating fruits, herbs, and ingredients, offering a wealth of flavors that inspire innovative dining experiences.
Yet, as Costa Rica experiences a rapid culinary evolution, there’s a fascinating contrast emerging within Costa Rican cuisine.
Despite a burgeoning fine dining scene primarily aimed at attracting global foodies, many of the country’s culinary traditions are deeply rooted in its working-class history. Traditional Costa Rican dishes often reflect the country’s humble origins and are grounded in the experiences of hard-working, everyday people.
In this article, we’ll delve into the history of Costa Rican staples, tracing their evolution from humble beginnings to their current interpretations. We'll also explore the different ways that top chefs in Costa Rica are weaving this rich history into modern dining experiences.
Costa Rican cuisine has its roots deeply embedded in working-class practicality.
Traditional dishes had to be affordable and easily produced with local ingredients, reflecting the realities of the time: limited wealth and challenging travel.
Meals also needed to be nutritious, providing essential calories and micronutrients for those engaged in manual labor, and they had to be satisfying, helping keep those hard workers full and satisfied for long hours.
Add in the challenges of making a meal with so many constraints enjoyable as well, and you have a recipe for the staple Costa Rican foods, which balance affordability, accessibility, nutrition, and taste.
When you understand the key influences, it’s easy to understand how Costa Rica’s staples came to be. Take, for example, the casado, perhaps the most well-known traditional Costa Rican meal. Nicknamed for being the “married man’s lunch,” the casado is a cornerstone of the country’s culinary heritage.
Originally served wrapped in a banana leaf so it could be brought to the fields or work sites, this meal is a hearty, balanced combination of rice, beans, fried ripe plantains, fresh veggies, and a modest portion of protein, often with a touch of spicy, pickled chile.
This simple yet satisfying dish provided essential nutrition for a full day’s work, all with easily affordable ingredients found locally in Costa Rica. And with casados as a regular part of life, you had to figure out what to do with the leftovers, leading to another Costa Rican staple.
The desayuno típico, sometimes shortened to just típico, evolved from the casado and became the second pillar of Costa Rican home-cooked meals. Leftover rice and beans from the casado are transformed into gallo pinto by frying them together, creating a flavorful, savory dish.
Accompanying fruits, vegetables, eggs from local chickens, natilla (a dairy product from goats and cows raised nearby), and tortillas made from local corn rounded out the desayuno típico, and to this day, you’ll find this meal served in millions of homes around Costa Rica.
And with good reason! This combination covers all the nutritional bases — proteins, fruits, vegetables, dairy, and whole grains — while keeping the meal free from unnecessary additives. If you’re getting ready for a long day at work, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better meal than desayuno típico.
Caribbean Rice and Beans is a regional variant of the traditional Costa Rican dish that adds red beans in place of black beans and introduces the rich flavors of coconut milk, chiles, and spices. This variation, influenced by Caribbean and Afro-Caribbean cultures, reflects the local ingredients found there (namely coconuts), as well as the vibrant flavors brought by traders and cultural exchanges from the Caribbean region.
Despite these new ingredients, Caribbean Rice and Beans remains rooted in the same principles as the original casado: delivering maximum nutrition and maximum flavor at minimal cost.
In Costa Rica, sodas are small, family-run restaurants that serve typical, homestyle Costa Rican classics like casados, desayuno típico, rice and beans (if you’re near the Caribbean), and other typical meals.
Through decades of change — including eras of rising inflation, various economic hardships, and a massive influx of international investment — these cherished local restaurants have remained a fixture of Costa Rican culture, ensuring that customers leave with full bellies without spending a fortune.
Sodas are more than just dining spots; they are social institutions deeply woven into the fabric of Costa Rican life. Their welcoming atmosphere, affordable prices, and consistent quality make them a natural choice for locals who value genuine, home-cooked meals. In fact, most sodas have a loyal customer base that eats there multiple times a week.
The enduring presence of sodas highlights the continued prevalence of Costa Rica’s working-class roots in modern society, and as we return to the topic of fine dining and evolving cuisine, sodas offer a metaphorical challenge to these higher-end restaurants:
“If we can do delicious, nutritious meals steeped in Costa Rican tradition at a price everyone can afford, what do you have to offer?”
In the next section, we’ll explore how restaurateurs are answering that challenge.
With such a dominant culinary tradition at the heart of Costa Rican culture, the most successful chefs and restaurateurs have typically taken one of two approaches to Costa Rican fine dining.
The first interpretation usually involves offering an elegant experience where cuisine becomes an art form. Using hand-foraged ingredients, hyperlocal products, and techniques like molecular gastronomy, these meals are crafted to dazzle both the eyes and palate.
They are premium experiences, with no expense spared, high-quality pairing options, and are designed to create a memorable, once-in-a-lifetime dining experience.
The second interpretation of Costa Rican craft cuisine focuses on honoring the working-class, approachable roots of the national cuisine, and elevating those concepts to the highest level of quality and care. Visual beauty, culinary creativity, and mind-opening flavors can still be on display, but these are eateries designed for everyday enjoyment.
This interpretation, found in our restaurant Nectandra, maintains a welcoming, easygoing atmosphere and offers simple, delicious meals with an upscale touch. The primary goal is to emphasize high-quality ingredients and create a cared-for, beautiful space in which to enjoy them while keeping the essence of satisfying, delicious food, and a welcoming atmosphere.
Although we’ve laid out two differing perspectives on Costa Rican cuisine and its future, there’s no need to argue about which is better or more enjoyable, since each brings something different to the table.
There’s room in Costa Rica for both stunning culinary experiences and elevated meals rooted deeply in Costa Rica’s hard-working roots, and the real winners here are those who get to enjoy these delicious meals.
From the Ocotea perspective, we’ve chosen for Nectandra a more grounded interpretation of fine dining due to our own roots in the down-to-earth working class, but our chefs still make sure to deliver a visual experience with every plate!
As a whole, we’re simply thrilled to be located in Monteverde, one of the major centers where this Costa Rican culinary evolution is happening. We invite you to come sample a little bit of every interpretation when you visit us next!