Where to Eat on Peninsula Papagayo: A Villa Host's Guide

Sixteen restaurants sit on this peninsula, spread across the Four Seasons, the Nekajui Ritz-Carlton Reserve, the Andaz, the beach clubs, and now Papagayo Park. For a place with no town, that is a remarkable amount of range, and it is more than most guests can work through in a week.

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Every guide to these restaurants online is written by the resort that owns them. We do not own any of them. We host guests who eat at all of them and tell us afterward what they thought, which puts us in a unique position to be useful.

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Here is how we actually think about dinner on the peninsula, organized by the night you are planning rather than by the hotel that happens to run the kitchen.

The One Reservation to Make First

Puna, at Nekajui. Chef Diego Muñoz's modern Peruvian restaurant is the most ambitious cooking on the peninsula, and it is not close. Prawn tempura with risoni parihuela, wagyu sirloin over charcoal with Pont Neuf potatoes. The broader culinary program at Nekajui runs under Executive Chef Lulu Elízaga, who pairs global experience with real attention to Guanacaste's own food traditions.

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If you make one reservation before you fly, make it this one. It books out.

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Paruro sits inside Puna and is a different proposition entirely: a six-seat omakase blending Asian and Peruvian flavors, chef-led, one seating nightly at 5:30 p.m. Six seats. If you are marking an occasion, this is the table, and it needs to be arranged well in advance.

The Best Steak

Nemare, at the golf clubhouse. The name comes from the Chorotega word for smoke, and the kitchen takes that literally across the menu and the cocktail list. Chef Enrique Retana works with Finca La Josefina, a third-generation local cattle ranch, and the six-course Nemare Essence tasting menu is the fullest expression of it. There is a proper vegetarian side to the menu as well, which is unusual for a steakhouse.

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It is a short golf cart ride from our villas, overlooking the Arnold Palmer course.

By the Water

This is where the peninsula is at its best, and where we send people most often.

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Niri Beach Club at Nekajui takes its name from the Chorotega word for salt. The cooking pulls from the Iberian peninsula and grounds it in Costa Rican ingredients. Getting down there is part of it: a small funicular, or a set of steep stairs.

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Virador Beach Club at the Four Seasons, under Chef Khaled Natour, works in Eastern Mediterranean and Levantine flavors. Fresh seafood, shared plates, a relaxed and slightly bohemian room designed by architect Jorge Borja. Open through the middle of the day, so it is easy to fold into a beach afternoon.

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Meso at Casa de Playa sits on Nacascolo Beach, the same stretch many of our villas look out over. The concept is Mediterranean technique meeting Mesoamerican ingredients, which sounds like a stretch and is not. It is the closest good lunch to most of our houses.

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Olas and Manglar at Prieta Beach Club round it out, with Olas leaning Baja and doing it well.

Sunset

Ámbar at Nekajui is an open-air bar suspended in the trees. It is the single best place on the peninsula to watch the sun go down, and you should plan a night around it rather than treating it as a stop before something else.

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Chao Pescao at the Andaz is the livelier version: tapas, craft cocktails, live music, and a view over Culebra Bay. Sunset Lounge at Prieta and the Surf Bar are the beach club equivalents.

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Cooper's Speakeasy is hidden behind the check-in counter at Puna, named for the late Ritz-Carlton executive Simon Cooper.

Italian, Two Ways

Pesce at the Four Seasons is the elegant version. Classic Italian, local seafood, house pasta, a serious wine list, panoramic ocean views. It is one of the better Italian rooms you will find this far from Italy.

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Gaio at the Andaz is the trattoria: shareable, comforting, noisier, and easier with a group.

Something Else Entirely

Ostra at the Andaz is a bold take on Southeast Asian cooking, drawing on Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia and running it through Costa Rican ingredients. It is the least predictable menu on the peninsula and a good answer to the fourth night of a trip, when another plate of grilled fish is not what anyone wants.

Casual, and With Kids

Patio Social at the new Papagayo Park is the most useful addition to the peninsula's dining in years. Relaxed restaurant and bar, short cocktail list, and it sits inside a park where children can occupy themselves entirely. Cono Loco, the park's ice cream and gelato counter, closes the loop.

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Palapita at the tennis centre serves Costa Rican street food with beer from Papagayo Brewery. It is exactly what you want after a round of golf or a morning on the courts, and it is the most unpretentious food on the peninsula.

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Bahia at the Four Seasons runs all day around a wood-fired open kitchen, from café chorreado in the morning to grilled prawns at night. Añejo shifts from acai bowls and green juice in the morning to a DJ, aperitifs, and tapas at night, which makes it the resort's social hub.

Coffee and Mornings

Café Rincón at Nekajui handles pastries, coffee, and grab-and-go. Coffee & Vinyls at the Andaz does specialty coffee, caffeinated cocktails, organic wine, Italian deli bites, and a record collection. Mirador, high above Nekajui, is the destination breakfast, with a tray-to-table service that inverts the buffet and a view worth the cost.

The Thing Nobody Tells You

Three practical points that will change your week.

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Reservations are not optional. The peninsula has more good restaurants than tables, and in the dry season the best of them are full days out. Some venues also open only on certain nights during the slower months, which catches people off guard. We handle this for our guests, and we would rather do it a month early rather than the afternoon of.

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You need a way to get around. These restaurants are spread across 1,400 acres. Golf carts are available to rent for all of our guests, and dinner is the reason most people are glad they took one.

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Access varies.  Most venues are open to anyone on the peninsula. Others are reserved for guests of that resort or members of the club. Which is not always posted, and it changes. This is one of the more common questions we get, and it is worth asking us before you plan a night around a specific room.

Where We Actually Send People

Three places, and you will notice what they have in common.

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Chao Pescao. Small plates, cocktails, live music, and Culebra Bay going gold behind you. It is the most reliably good evening on the peninsula and the one we recommend without qualification.

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Niri Beach Club. Worth the funicular. Iberian cooking with Costa Rican ingredients, and a setting that does not need to try.

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Virador Beach Club. The lunch we send guests to more than any other. Shared plates, ocean in front of you, no reason to be anywhere else for three hours.

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None of these are the fine-dining rooms. Puna is the most accomplished restaurant here and we still say make that reservation. But when guests come back and tell us about the meal they are still thinking about, it is almost always one they ate in a swimsuit with the ocean twenty feet away. That is what this place is for.

The Night You Should Skip All of Them

We book in-home chefs more often than almost anything else, and it is consistently the meal guests describe first when they get home.

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A chef comes to the villa. You eat on the terrace as the light goes. Nobody drives, nobody waits on a table, nobody hurries a child through a tasting menu, and the conversation runs as long as it runs. For a family with young kids, or a group celebrating something, it beats every restaurant on this list, and the restaurants on this list are very good.

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Sixteen restaurants and the best dinner of the trip is often the one on your own terrace. That tells you most of what you need to know about why we do this the way we do.

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Some places deserve more than a hotel. If you are planning a trip, reach out through thesmartvillas.com and we will sort the reservations, the chef, and the cart before you land.

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