4 Best Restaurants in San Jose, Costa Rica

The Hotel Grano de Oro houses one of San José's premier dining destinations: a splendid restaurant wrapped around a lovely indoor patio and bromeliad-filled garden. The garden area is a perfect spot for lunch on a warm day—choose from among a variety of light sandwiches and salads, or opt for dinner in the elegant indoor dining area for dishes like breaded sea bass with orange sauce and macadamia nuts or cerdo en salsa tamarindo (roasted pork in tamarind sauce). An impressive selection of 100-plus wines and a decadent dessert menu—the coffee-cream “Pie Grano de Oro” is the must-try option here—round out the offerings. Although elegance is the word in this grand coffee-plantation-house-turned-hotel, you’ll see everything from diners in business attire to guests in casual garb just back from the hinterlands.

The upstairs café at this corner restaurant serves meals on a porch, on a garden patio, or in two dining rooms. Try the soup of the day and fresh-baked bread to start; main courses include shrimp in a vegetable cream sauce or lomito en salsa de vino tinto (tenderloin in a red-wine sauce). Save room for the best chocolate cake in town, drizzled with homemade blackberry sauce. Café Mundo is a popular, low-key gay hangout that draws a mixed gay-straight clientele. This is one of the few center-city restaurants with its own parking lot.