The 21 Best Restaurants in San José, Costa Rica
"Chef Pablo Bonilla has diligently studied Indigenous Costa Rican cooking to refute critics who doubt the country’s historical gastronomy is equal to that of its Latin American neighbors. At internationally acclaimed Sikwa, he uses local ingredients and provincial techniques in a warm, casual atmosphere. The menu is filled with spectacular displays of Costa Rica’s ancestral Indigenous cuisine: Several dishes are prepared with native annatto seeds, the pastel de pejibaye (peach palm) fruit is filled with pork marinated in vino de coyol and served over tamarind sauce, and grilled bone marrow topped with beef tartare comes with tortillas made with native maiz pujagua. Through grilled jumbo shrimp over arroz de maíz (porridge) — a play on shrimp and grits — and sweet corn yoltamales for dessert, Bonilla finds connection with pre-Hispanic maize cultures all the way north to the American South." - Bill Esparza
