Coastwise Chefs

Tamarindo, Playa Flamingo, Potrero, Las Catalinas, Nosara, Sámara, Papagayo

A long table laid down a terrace above a bay at dusk, plates and glasses along it, the Pacific and a headland running away behind.
Las Catalinas — 2 August 2026. Ceviche, whole snapper and cut fruit down the table, an hour before sunset.

Your first evening in Guanacaste

The house is booked and the bay is right there. The cooking is the part still open, and it is the part we take: three of us come to your kitchen, two cook and one serves.

Write to us hereMessage us on WhatsApp

One of us reads every message, and we answer within 24 hours.

What booking us actually involves

Some houses want us for one evening. Some want us every day.

Gallo pinto and coffee at seven, on the mornings after the late nights. Lunch on the day nobody leaves the pool. Dinner most evenings, and a night or two when you all go out.

A breakfast plate of gallo pinto, scrambled eggs, fried plantain, tortilla and cheese, with black coffee and papaya, on a shaded table.
Nosara — 22 July 2026. Gallo pinto, eggs, plantain and tortilla, at seven.

One meal is a booking. So is every meal of the week.

A plate of grilled lobster tail, sliced sirloin, a baked potato and green vegetables, on a table by the water after dark, string lights behind.
Potrero — 23 July 2026. Lobster from the boats at Flamingo, and sirloin over coals, after dark.

Two decades cooking in Guanacaste

What we cooked, and when.

Every entry is one day’s work — where we shopped, what came in, and what went on the table. Nothing here is a plan.

Tamarindo

Eight at the table for a birthday. Two of us cooked, one served, and the cake came from the bakery on the road in — we do not bake, and we say so before anyone asks.

Papagayo

Breakfast for four, three mornings running. Gallo pinto on the first, eggs and fruit on the second, and on the third they asked for the first again.

Las Catalinas
A pair of hands spooning ceviche into a shallow bowl at a kitchen counter, a glass bowl, a halved lime and a cutting board alongside.
Las Catalinas — 2 August 2026. Ceviche going out at twenty to six.

Six at the table. Ceviche while the coals came up, then the fish whole over them. Three of us in the house from four: two in the kitchen, one on service.

Sámara

A house with two people who eat no meat and four who do. One kitchen, one service, two boards kept apart. It goes on the form before we shop, not on the night.

Las Catalinas

Dinner for five moved indoors at six when the rain came. The coals were already up, so the fish went in the oven and the table went in the kitchen.

Playa Flamingo

What we cook is decided here, on the morning, by what came in — not the week before, on paper.

That is why the answer to “what will you make us?” is a conversation and not a menu. You tell us what you want and what you cannot eat; we tell you on the day what we found.

Whole red snapper and mahi packed in ice in a cooler, on the sand beside a beached skiff.
Playa Flamingo — 24 July 2026. Snapper and mahi off the boats, in the cooler by nine.
Tamarindo

Lunch for nine on the day nobody left the pool. Rice, beans, plantain, and a whole fish on the board to pull from.

Potrero

Two services in one day: eggs and coffee at seven, then dinner for six at seven again. We drove back to Santa Cruz between them for the fish.

Nosara

Dinner for three, the smallest table of the month. The same shopping, the same three of us, and the price is the price of three dinners and not of a week.

Santa Cruz

We shop the morning of, in Santa Cruz, and drive it out to the coast. Papaya, tomatoes, limes, plantains. Breakfast the next day was gallo pinto — the rice and beans that is breakfast here — with plantains and tortilla.

Crates of papaya, tomatoes, limes and plantains loaded in the bed of a pickup truck.
Santa Cruz — 11 July 2026. Loaded and out of the market by seven.

See the full log (coming soon)

What booking us actually involves

This is the whole of it, in the order it happens.

  1. 1

    How do we start?

    You send us a message — where you are staying, the first date you want us, and what you are after. One of us reads every message, and we answer within 24 hours.

  2. 2

    What comes back?

    What we can cook on those days, and what it costs for your table — your dates, your house, the number of you who sit down.

  3. 3

    How do the dates get held?

    A deposit holds them. What it is, how it is paid and how it comes back are written out in full at the foot of this page, before anyone asks you for anything.

  4. 4

    What do you need from us?

    Allergies, what nobody eats, and how many sit down. They come to us before we shop, not on the night.

  5. 5

    What happens on the day?

    We buy that morning, so what is on the table was decided at the market. Three of us come up from Santa Cruz an hour before you eat — two cook, one serves — and we go once the kitchen is clean.

An empty table laid for six on a covered terrace, linen and candles down its length, with hills and the sea beyond at sunset.
Las Catalinas — 2 August 2026. Laid for six, before anyone came up from the beach.

What it costs

Every service is priced on its own, so what it costs depends entirely on what you wish us to provide. Three examples from the recent past are:

$450Dinner for fivePotrero — one evening
$1,780Four dinners for eightLas Catalinas — across a week
$2,940Breakfast and dinner for sixNosara — seven days

Each is the shopping on the morning, the three of us in the kitchen, the cooking, the serving, and the kitchen as you found it when we go.

Want to know what it would cost for you, based on your needs? Send us a message

Tell us what you are looking for

Sent. One of us reads every message, and we answer within 24 hours.

That did not send. Write to us on WhatsApp and we will pick it up there.

We are in Santa Cruz, an hour up the road from the coast. One of us reads every message, and we answer within 24 hours.

So we can answer you.

One date, or the run of them. The rest we work out with you.

A town is enough. It does not have to be a house or a villa.

The occasion, how many sit down, which meals, anything nobody eats, and what you have in mind to spend.

Message us on WhatsApp

One of us reads it and answers within 24 hours: what we can cook on those days, and what it costs for your table.

The terms, before you ask for them

The deposit
A deposit holds your dates. It is paid by card through Stripe.
If your plans change
The deposit comes back in full up to 14 days before the first service.
Your receipt
A receipt for the deposit is sent when the deposit is received, with the dates it holds on it.
What we answer in
24 hours. We are in Costa Rica, UTC–6, and we do not change clocks.