What people eat in Costa Rica: the casado, gallo pinto and the soda

What do Costa Ricans actually eat?

Rice and beans, every day, at all three meals, under different names depending on the hour. At breakfast it’s gallo pinto; at lunch it sits inside a casado; on the Caribbean coast it’s cooked in coconut milk and called rice and beans.

Costa Rican food is not spicy and doesn’t try to be. It’s pot cooking — lots of fresh produce, little sauce, and portions that are more than enough. If you arrive expecting chillies and heat you’ll be disappointed. If you arrive hungry, you won’t.

What comes on a casado?

Rice, beans, a salad — usually shredded cabbage with tomato — fried ripe plantain, and a protein you choose: chicken, beef, pork or fish. It often also comes with a picadillo, a finely chopped vegetable side that changes daily, and an egg on top if you ask.

It’s what the country eats at midday and what you’ll find in almost any kitchen outside the tourist areas. It’s also, nearly always, the cheapest thing on the menu and the largest plate. The name means “married” — everything goes together — though there are several stories about the origin and none of them are settled, so take whichever version you’re told with some salt.

Why is breakfast rice and beans?

Because gallo pinto is the national breakfast, not a novelty laid on for visitors. It’s yesterday’s rice fried up with black beans, coriander and onion, and the flavour you can’t quite place is Salsa Lizano — a slightly sweet vegetable sauce that sits on every table in the country.

It comes with eggs, natilla (a thin sour cream), a mild squeaky cheese and a tortilla. It’s savoury and it’s heavy on purpose: it was built for people starting work at five in the morning. If you’ve never had a savoury breakfast, try it on a day with a hike ahead of you rather than a day at the beach.

What is a soda?

A soda is the old neighbourhood diner: an open kitchen, four tables, a short menu on a whiteboard and local prices. The word has nothing to do with a fizzy drink, and that confusion happens daily.

In many sodas you eat better and cheaper than in any restaurant, and the signal is simple — if it’s full of local people at midday, walk in. This site doesn’t list them, and the reason is stated plainly on where to eat: the site is paid for by a monthly fee from the businesses on it, and charging a soda that fee would make no sense.

Is Costa Rican ceviche like Peruvian ceviche?

No. Costa Rican ceviche is fish diced small, marinated in lime with onion, sweet pepper and coriander, and served cold in a glass or a shallow bowl.

There’s no ají and no leche de tigre, and the lime works on the fish longer, so it comes out firmer and milder. It’s eaten with soda crackers or with patacones, and in a lot of places it’s the first thing that arrives while you’re still deciding. Think of it as bar and beach food rather than restaurant food.

What else should I try?

Olla de carne, the Sunday soup: beef with cassava, chayote, corn, squash and plantain, with the broth served on the side. Chifrijo, a bar dish of rice, beans, fried pork and pico de gallo in one bowl with tortilla chips to scoop it.

Patacones — smashed green plantain, fried, usually with refried beans on top. Cheese or bean empanadas at breakfast. And in December, tamales: made in families, in large batches, wrapped in banana leaf. For dessert, tres leches, rice pudding, and cajeta, which here is a firm milk fudge rather than a sauce.

What do they eat on the Caribbean coast?

A different cuisine with a different base. In Limón the rice is cooked in coconut milk and it’s called rice and beans — it comes with stewed chicken or fish and tastes nothing like gallo pinto.

There’s rondón, a slow pot of fish or meat with root vegetables and coconut milk, which in many places has to be ordered a day ahead. Patí, a flaky pastry turnover filled with spiced meat. Pan bon, a dark sweet bread with fruit in it. And to drink, agua de sapo: ginger, raw cane sugar and lime. Which coast you land on changes what you eat, and that’s covered in Pacific or Caribbean.

What do people drink?

Fresh fruit drinks, blended that day, either with water or with milk: cas (a tart local guava), tamarind, passion fruit, blackberry, soursop, and horchata. You order them exactly like that — “a cas refresco, with water” — and they are the best thing on a Costa Rican table.

There’s also agua dulce, raw cane sugar melted in hot water, and coffee, drunk all day. In many places it’s still filtered through a chorreador, a cloth sock on a wooden stand. On the alcohol side, the national lager is the default and guaro is the country’s cane spirit, taken with lime and ice. And on the street: a cold pipa, a green coconut opened with a machete in front of you.

What does the bill look like, and do I tip?

By law the bill arrives with 10% service and 13% tax already added, so the menu price is not what you pay — add roughly 23%. That applies to the humblest breakfast and the priciest dinner, and it explains why the total never matches your mental arithmetic.

Because service is already charged, a tip is not expected and nothing is owed. Leave one if you want to and it’s appreciated, but nobody is waiting for it and nobody will react badly if you don’t. This is the single biggest adjustment for visitors from the United States. And pay in colones even where dollars are accepted: the rate a business gives you is always worse than the bank’s.

When do people eat, and when do kitchens close?

Lunch is the big meal of the day and runs from about 11:30 to 1. Dinner is early, and that’s where the trap is: outside San José and the busier beach towns, many kitchens close between 8 and 9 p.m.

Turning up at 8:40 somewhere that closed at 8 is the most common way to end up without dinner. That’s why every listing on this site carries day-by-day hours instead of a vague range — and check the closing day too, because plenty of places don’t open on Mondays.

Can I eat vegetarian? Can I drink the tap water?

Eating vegetarian is easy without any special effort: a casado without the protein is already rice, beans, salad, plantain and picadillo. Ask for it sin carne — without meat — with extra picadillo or with cheese. Vegan is harder, mainly because of the natilla and cheese, but it’s solvable by asking.

And yes, tap water is drinkable across most of the country, including in a lot of small towns. In genuinely remote rural areas, ask wherever you’re sleeping — they’ll know. The restaurants and bars that have been checked and published are listed under where to eat, with the price of a plate and the owner’s WhatsApp.