Restaurants, hotels, bars and wineries in Puntarenas from the En Primeur Club guide.
Accolades in Puntarenas
Santa Teresa holds the deepest restaurant cluster in our guide, with beach-facing seafood, sushi, and fusion kitchens.
Nami Santa Teresa serves modern Japanese sushi in Santa Teresa, with creative rolls using local fresh fish. The restaurant has an a la carte format, and its drinks include craft cocktails.
This Montezuma beachfront restaurant pairs a handwritten daily menu with fresh local seafood grilled over open flame. Playa de los Artistas has a wine list and serves a la carte dishes and small plates.
Rocamar is a Santa Teresa beachfront seafood and Costa Rican restaurant centred on local artisanal catch from community fishermen. The restaurant also has a surf lounge and serves an a la carte menu.
Koji's, Buddha Eyes and Eat Street have standard wine programs in Santa Teresa. Their food spans Japanese-Peruvian fusion sushi, Asian and Costa Rican cooking, and meals from multiple food hall vendors.
Koji's serves Japanese-Peruvian fusion sushi in Santa Teresa, with fresh seafood and creative rolls. The restaurant has a standard wine program and a beer program, with a la carte and family style dining formats.
Buddha Eyes is an open-air beachfront restaurant in Santa Teresa with a standard wine program, craft cocktails and a beer program. It serves fresh local food with Asian and Costa Rican influences at a yoga-focused oceanfront villa property.
Eat Street is an open-air food hall in Santa Teresa with a standard wine program. It brings together multiple vendors serving a variety of meals, and the food hall also has a signature cocktail bar.
Santa Teresa has the strongest dining concentration in our Puntarenas guide. It accounts for most of the top venues and holds the widest mix of sushi, seafood, fusion cooking, and hotel-led dining.
Puntarenas has no Michelin-starred restaurants in our guide. Playa de los Artistas has a wine list and serves Mediterranean seafood grilled over open flame. Nami Santa Teresa serves modern Japanese sushi and craft cocktails.
Montezuma and Santa Teresa are the clearest focus points. Playa de los Artistas has a wine list, Nami Santa Teresa pairs sushi with craft cocktails, and Butterfly Brewing Co. & Imago Gastro Pub adds a dedicated drinks stop in Montezuma.
Our Puntarenas guide includes modern Japanese sushi, beachfront seafood and Costa Rican cooking, Japanese-Peruvian fusion sushi, Mediterranean seafood beach grill, and beachfront Asian-Costa Rican fusion. Couleur Cafe in Playa Hermosa serves French-inspired cafe food, including savoury crepes and eggs Benedict.
By Emmett Haley · Updated October 8, 2026 · Editorial standards
Puntarenas
Selected entries from the current guide for Puntarenas.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Buddha Eyes belongs to Santa Teresa’s small, road-and-surf dining circuit, where the stronger meals tend to come from proximity rather than ceremony: Pacific fish, tropical fruit, market vegetables, and kitchens built for travelers moving between beach days and late dinners. With no formal awards or chef-led tasting format attached, its value sits in the local rhythm rather than destination-restaurant theatre.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
A casual café in the Hermosa Valley area of Puntarenas Province, Couleur Cafe sits in a region where Pacific Coast sourcing and a relaxed agricultural hinterland shape what ends up on the plate. For travelers moving through Costa Rica's central Pacific corridor, it offers a grounded counterpoint to the resort dining circuit that dominates the coastline nearby.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Eat Street occupies a strip in Santa Teresa, the surf-driven corner of the Puntarenas Peninsula where open-air drinking culture has developed its own informal code. With limited venue data on record, the draw here is context: a coastline that rewards those willing to show up without a reservation and read the room. Compare notes with our full Puntarenas guide before you go.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Koji's sits on the dusty edge of Santa Teresa de Cobano, where Puntarenas province meets the Pacific surf culture that defines this stretch of Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula. With limited documentation in formal dining guides, it occupies the informal, community-embedded tier of Santa Teresa's eating scene, the kind of spot that earns its reputation through repeat visitors and word of mouth rather than award cycles.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Nami Santa Teresa sits in one of Costa Rica's most sought-after surf-and-lifestyle destinations, where the dining scene has moved well beyond beachside basics. Positioned in Santa Teresa on the Nicoya Peninsula, it occupies a town where international residents and design-conscious visitors have steadily raised the bar for what a neighbourhood restaurant can be. For context on the wider Puntarenas dining circuit, see our full regional guide.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Playa de los Artistas sits directly across from Hotel Los Mangos in Montezuma, on the southern Nicoya Peninsula, where the open-air format and beach-side position have made it a reference point among Montezuma's casual dining options. The kitchen draws from the Pacific coastline, and the setting, tables on sand beneath open sky, does most of the atmospheric work before the food arrives.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Rocamar sits in Santa Teresa, the surf-and-jungle stretch of Puntarenas province where the Pacific sets the pace for everything on the plate. The restaurant draws from the coastal tradition of letting the catch and the light dictate the menu, placing it squarely in a dining scene that has grown more considered without losing its barefoot ease. It belongs in any serious tour of the Nicoya Peninsula's food options.
Puntarenas
Selected entries from the current guide for Puntarenas.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
On Santa Teresa's beachfront, Nantipa occupies 2.3 hectares of carefully maintained tropical grounds with 155 metres of direct ocean access across 29 bungalows, villas, and suites. The property sits at the intersection of Costa Rica's Blue Zone wellness culture and its growing reputation for serious coastal dining, anchored by the Manzu restaurant and the Numu wellness centre. For travellers choosing between the Nicoya Peninsula's scattered luxury options, Nantipa represents particularly complete beachfront package in this stretch of Puntarenas.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Ocio Villas Mal Pais holds a Michelin Selected distinction for 2025, placing it among a small cohort of recognised properties along Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula. Set on the road between Mal Pais and Cabuya, the villa-format property trades resort scale for spatial privacy and direct engagement with the surrounding dry tropical forest and Pacific coastline.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
A two-bedroom apartment in Monteverde, Puntarenas Province, 1968house sits within one of Costa Rica's most visited cloud forest destinations. The property suits travellers who prefer self-contained accommodation over hotel formats, positioning itself in a Monteverde scene that otherwise skews toward eco-lodges and yoga retreats. For those spending several nights exploring the reserve and surrounding highlands, the apartment format offers a different kind of base.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Positioned on the Manzanillo Beach road in Santa Teresa, Batik Costa Rica sits within one of Costa Rica's most sought-after Pacific coastal corridors, where surf culture, yoga retreats, and low-density accommodation have attracted a informed international circuit. The address places guests within reach of both beach access and the small-town rhythm that defines Santa Teresa's character, differentiating it from the larger resort clusters further north along the Nicoya Peninsula.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Hotel Horizon Yoga Santa Teresa sits on Costa Rica's Nicoya Peninsula in Santa Teresa de Cobano, one of the country's most-discussed surf and wellness destinations. The property's yoga-forward identity places it within a growing tier of retreat-style accommodation that blends active programming with Pacific coast living. Travellers looking for structured practice alongside beach access will find this address relevant to that search.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Manzanillo sits within Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica, where the Pacific coast's wellness-oriented retreat culture meets raw tropical geography. The area draws travelers seeking structured stillness rather than resort spectacle, with yoga retreats, beachfront lodges, and forest-edge properties forming the dominant accommodation pattern along this stretch of coastline.
Puntarenas
Selected entries from the current guide for Puntarenas.
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Butterfly Brewing Co. & Imago Gastro Pub occupies a road-trip-worthy position on the Montezuma-Delicias stretch of Costa Rica's Puntarenas coast, combining a craft brewing identity with a gastro pub format rare for the region. The pairing of house-brewed beer with a pub kitchen in this part of the Nicoya Peninsula signals a growing sophistication in the local drinks scene, one worth tracking for anyone passing through Montezuma.
Puntarenas
Selected entries from the current guide for Puntarenas.
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