The quick answer
Costa Rican cooking is fresh, mild and built on rice, beans, plantain and whatever grew nearby. It is not spicy, and visitors expecting Mexican or Guatemalan heat are sometimes disappointed before they have understood what they are eating. The best value and the best everyday food is at a soda, the small family-run diner found in every town.
And there is a second cuisine in this country: the Afro-Caribbean cooking of Limón province, which uses coconut milk, chiles and spices and tastes nothing like the food of the Central Valley.
The dishes to know
Gallo pinto
Rice and beans cooked together with onion, sweet pepper and cilantro, and the national breakfast. Served with eggs, cheese, plantain and a tortilla. The Caribbean version is cooked in coconut milk and is a different and, many would say, better thing.
Casado
The everyday lunch and the single most useful word in this guide. A plate of rice, black beans, salad, fried plantain and a protein, with variations by region and by cook. Ordering a casado at a soda is how you eat well for very little in this country.
Olla de carne
A long-cooked beef and vegetable stew, heavy with yuca, plantain, chayote and corn. A weekend and family dish rather than a daily one.
Chifrijo, ceviche and bocas
Bocas are the small plates that come with drinks. Chifrijo, rice and beans layered with fried pork and pico de gallo, is the famous one. Ceviche here is usually white fish cured in lime with onion and cilantro, and is excellent on both coasts.
Tamales
Corn dough steamed in plantain leaves, made in quantity at Christmas and tied to family and to the season rather than sold year-round.
The Caribbean coast is a different cuisine
In Limón, Cahuita and Puerto Viejo the cooking descends from the West Indian communities who settled the coast, and it is one of the most distinctive regional cuisines in Central America.
- Rice and beans, cooked in coconut milk with thyme and chile panameño, and not to be confused with gallo pinto.
- Rondón, a slow seafood and root vegetable stew in coconut milk, often made to order because it takes hours.
- Pan bon, a dark spiced sweet bread, and patacones with everything.
- Jerk and curry preparations that arrived with the same communities and stayed.
Eating on this coast is one of the most rewarding things a visitor can do in Costa Rica and it is routinely skipped.
Coffee
Costa Rica grows some of the world’s best arabica, and for a long time exported nearly all of the good material and drank the rest. That has changed and specialty coffee is now widely available, particularly in the Central Valley and in the growing regions around Tarrazú, Naranjo and Monteverde. A farm visit is a genuinely interesting half-day and is available near most of the highland routes.
The traditional preparation is the chorreador, a cloth filter suspended on a wooden stand, and it makes very good coffee.
Fruit
Markets carry fruit that does not travel and that most visitors have never seen. Mamón chino, guanábana, cas, maracuyá, pejibaye and half a dozen kinds of banana. Buy small quantities of several things at a farmers market rather than a large quantity of one, and ask the seller how to eat what you have bought; they will tell you.
Eating well and eating safely
- Tap water is safe to drink in most of the country, so tap water in restaurants is generally fine. Ask locally in remote areas.
- Busy places with high turnover are the reliable ones, as everywhere.
- Vegetarians eat easily here: a casado without the meat is a normal order and beans, rice, plantain and cheese are the basis of the cuisine. Vegan is harder outside the tourist towns because of the cheese and eggs, but is manageable with a phrase or two of Spanish.
- A service charge and value-added tax are added to restaurant bills by law and appear as lines on the bill.
Planning with LABUSA Travel
We will point you at the sodas worth stopping at on your route, arrange a coffee farm visit that is a working farm rather than a show, and make sure a Caribbean itinerary includes a proper meal on that coast.
Sources
- Instituto Costarricense de Turismo: the national tourism board, including official entry guidance and protected-area visitor information. Accessed 11 August 2026.
- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Travelers’ Health, Costa Rica: vaccination, mosquito-borne illness and food and water guidance. Accessed 11 August 2026.
- Ministerio de Cultura y Juventud: the national cultural calendar, including Afro-Costa Rican heritage month and the commemorations of 31 August. Accessed 11 August 2026.