Restaurants, hotels, bars and wineries in Santa Cruz from the En Primeur Club guide.
Accolades in Santa Cruz
These picks lean into the Pacific setting, with seafood, grill cooking, and open-air rooms close to the shore.
In Tamarindo, Pangas Beach Club sits where the estuary meets the Pacific Ocean and serves local seafood on a tropical fusion menu. The beachfront restaurant offers à la carte dining, craft cocktails and sunset views.
On Playa Avellanas, Lola's is a beachfront restaurant serving organic seafood and international cooking. Open-air tables sit beside the Pacific surf. The restaurant offers à la carte dining, craft cocktails and a standard wine programme.
In Playa Flamingo, Restaurante Coco Loco serves Caribbean seafood and grill cooking with feet-in-the-sand dining under palm trees. Its Coco Loco cocktail comes in a coconut, and steak is cooked on lava rock at the table.
Santa Cruz also has a strong resort layer, where meals follow the rhythm of pools, hotels, and coastal properties.
In Hacienda Pinilla, Azul is a beachfront grill and restaurant within the JW Marriott Guanacaste, with ocean-view dining on the sand. It serves seafood and grilled food à la carte, with a standard wine programme and craft cocktails.
In Playa Conchal, Caracola Poolside Restaurant serves casual Costa Rican and American fare beneath an outdoor palapa beside the pool. The outdoor dining setting has coastal breezes, with set menu and buffet formats.
Barracuda is a poolside bar inside Hacienda Pinilla in Santa Cruz. The bar is on Costa Rica’s Guanacaste coast, with its drinking space beside the pool within the Hacienda Pinilla setting.
Tamarindo has the largest concentration of venues in our guide, including Pizzeria La Baula and Pangas Beach Club. Resort dining features in Playa Conchal and Hacienda Pinilla, with beachfront restaurants in Playa Flamingo and Playa Avellanas.
There are no Michelin-starred restaurants in our guide for Santa Cruz. Our guide includes 11 restaurants citywide, with beachfront grills, seafood restaurants and poolside dining among the restaurant settings and cuisines.
Azul has a standard wine programme, as does Pizzeria La Baula. Lola's also has a standard wine programme. Restaurante Coco Loco is another restaurant in our guide with a standard wine programme.
Pangas Beach Club, Lola's and Restaurante Coco Loco offer beachfront dining. Pangas Beach Club serves local seafood in Tamarindo, Lola's serves organic seafood in Playa Avellanas, and Restaurante Coco Loco serves Caribbean seafood and grill cooking in Playa Flamingo.
By Emmett Haley · Updated October 8, 2026 · Editorial standards
Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz
Selected entries from the current guide for Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz, Costa Rica
Azul belongs to the resort-dining side of Santa Cruz, where Guanacaste’s coastal produce, ranching culture, and hotel kitchens shape the table more than urban tasting-menu fashion. With its Hacienda Pinilla address, it reads as a polished coastal stop for travelers who want the region’s ingredient logic without turning dinner into a long-form ceremony.
Santa Cruz, Costa Rica
Caracola Poolside Restaurant belongs to the relaxed end of Santa Cruz dining: poolside, coastal, and shaped by the produce-and-seafood logic of Guanacaste rather than by tasting-menu ceremony. Its appeal is situational as much as culinary, useful for travelers who want a meal that fits the rhythm of Playa Conchal without turning lunch or dinner into a formal event.
Santa Cruz, Costa Rica
On the sands of Playa Avellana in Guanacaste, Lola's is a beachfront institution that has shaped how casual dining on Costa Rica's Pacific coast is understood. The setting is the meal here: open-air tables, Pacific surf, and a rhythm that belongs entirely to the shore. It draws surfers, travellers, and locals in equal measure, and holds a reputation that extends well beyond the province.
Santa Cruz, Costa Rica
On the main road into Tamarindo, Pangas sits within the broader Guanacaste dining scene that has spent two decades finding its own voice between surf-town informality and the region's serious Pacific seafood tradition. The restaurant draws from the same coastal larder that defines Nicoya Peninsula cooking, making it a reference point for understanding how Tamarindo has moved beyond its backpacker-era origins.
Santa Cruz, Costa Rica
Pizzeria La Baula sits on Corona Street in Tamarindo, Guanacaste, where the beach-town rhythm sets the pace for an unhurried meal. The pizzeria takes its name from the leatherback sea turtle, the baula, that nests along this stretch of Pacific coast, grounding it in local identity. For visitors moving between surf sessions and sunset dinners, it offers a familiar format anchored in a distinctly Costa Rican setting.
Santa Cruz, Costa Rica
Situated steps from Playa Flamingo on Guanacaste's Pacific coast, Restaurante Coco Loco is a fixture of the beach-town dining circuit that draws both long-stay visitors and locals from the surrounding Flamingo corridor. The setting places it squarely in the casual coastal category, where fresh seafood and open-air atmosphere define the offer rather than formal credentials.
Santa Cruz
Selected entries from the current guide for Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz, Costa Rica
Set within Hacienda Pinilla on Guanacaste's Pacific coast, JW Marriott Guanacaste Resort & Spa occupies a stretch of coastline where the dry tropical forest meets the ocean. The property operates in the upper tier of Guanacaste's full-service resort market, positioned alongside Peninsula Papagayo competitors as a large-footprint, amenity-heavy destination with beach, spa, and golf access built in.
Santa Cruz, Costa Rica
The Westin Reserva Conchal sits on Playa Conchal in Guanacaste, among the more sought-after stretches of Costa Rica's Pacific coast, operating as a full all-inclusive resort with an 18-hole golf course and spa. The property positions itself in the larger-scale, amenity-dense tier of Guanacaste luxury, competing directly with the Peninsula Papagayo flagships for guests who prefer structured resort programming over boutique independence.
Santa Cruz
Selected entries from the current guide for Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz
Selected entries from the current guide for Santa Cruz.
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