Samara Costa Rica Restaurants: The Complete Local's Guide (2026)
Sámara has roughly [NUMBER] places to eat, from beachfront Italian kitchens to family-run sodas serving a full lunch for a few dollars. Expect to pay [PRICE RANGE] for a main course at a tourist-facing restaurant and [PRICE RANGE] at a soda. If you only have a few meals here, make them [TOP PICK 1], [TOP PICK 2] and [TOP PICK 3].
Photo: Julián Monge-Nájera, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Quick picks
The whole guide in one table, for anyone deciding where to eat in the next twenty minutes.
Quick picks
| Category | Our pick | Typical price |
|---|---|---|
| Best sunset dinner | Gusto Beach | $$$ |
| Best seafood | El Lagarto | — |
| Best soda | Soda La Perla | — |
| Best budget | Malibu (Soda Colocho's) | — |
| Best breakfast | Roots Bakery & Café | — |
Beachfront dining
Sámara is one of the few beaches in Costa Rica where you can eat with your feet actually in the sand rather than looking at the sea from across a road. The trade is the usual one: you are paying partly for the view, and the kitchens know it.
Gusto Beach
- Address
- 100 m east of the police station, Playa Sámara
- Price
- $$$
- Hours
- Mon08:00–23:00Tue08:00–23:00Wed08:00–23:00Thu08:00–23:00Fri08:00–23:00Sat08:00–23:00Sun08:00–23:00
Details from public listings, August 2026 — not yet checked in person.
La Dolce Vita
- Address
- 100 m west of the rural police station, facing the beach
Details from public listings, August 2026 — not yet checked in person.
Italian
Guanacaste's Italian restaurants are not a tourist affectation — a genuine wave of Italian migration to this coast left behind cooks who brought their own recipes with them.
Mar y Fuego
- Address
- Side street towards Intercultura Sámara Spanish School
- Hours
- Mon11:00–00:00Tue11:00–00:00Wed11:00–00:00Thu11:00–00:00Fri11:00–00:00Sat11:00–00:00Sun11:00–00:00
Details from public listings, August 2026 — not yet checked in person.
Local sodas
This is the section other Sámara guides leave out, because sodas have no websites and no marketing. It is also where you will eat best for the least money. Read the soda explainer below if the format is new to you.
Soda La Perla
Malibu (Soda Colocho's)
Breakfast and brunch
Breakfast here runs early and sells out. The bakeries in particular are worth setting an alarm for — by mid-morning the good things are gone.
Roots Bakery & Café
- Address
- Patio Colonial, Main Street, at the entrance to Sámara
Details from public listings, August 2026 — not yet checked in person.
Bohemia Cafe
- Address
- Centre Street, near Casa del Mar
Details from public listings, August 2026 — not yet checked in person.
Seafood
The fish comes off boats at Playa Sámara and Puerto Carrillo down the road. What is on the plate depends on what was landed that morning, which is a good sign rather than a limitation.
El Lagarto
- Address
- Northern end of the beach, next to La Dolce Vita
- Hours
- Mon15:00–22:30Tue15:00–22:30Wed15:00–22:30Thu15:00–22:30Fri15:00–22:30Sat15:00–22:30Sun15:00–22:30
Details from public listings, August 2026 — not yet checked in person.
Quick and cheap
Samara Farmers Market
The farmers market runs Friday afternoons, 15:00 to 18:00. It is small, it is where a good share of the town does its weekly shop, and it is the cheapest fruit and vegetables you will find locally.
What is on the tables depends on the season, but the shape of a Costa Rican farmers market is consistent: tropical fruit picked days rather than weeks earlier, vegetables sold by the kilo, tortillas and bread from someone who baked them that morning, and a few stalls selling prepared food to eat there. Bring small notes — nobody is taking a card — and your own bag.
[WHICH STALLS ARE ACTUALLY WORTH IT — who has the best fruit, who bakes, what to arrive early for, and roughly what things cost.]
What locals eat: casado, gallo pinto and sodas 101
If you eat one meal in Sámara that isn't aimed at visitors, make it a casado at a soda.
A soda is a small, family-run eatery serving Costa Rican home cooking. There is usually no printed menu beyond a board on the wall, the kitchen is whoever owns the place, and the price is a fraction of what the beachfront charges. Sodas are where Costa Ricans actually eat lunch, and they are the part of the food scene that travel guides skip because the places have no marketing and often no website.
A casado is the plate that anchors the menu. The name means "married man", and the joke is that it is the plate a wife would send her husband to work with: rice, black beans, a shredded cabbage salad, fried sweet plantain, and a protein — chicken, beef, pork or fish. It arrives on one plate, it is almost always the cheapest hot meal in town, and portions are built for someone who has been working since six.
Gallo pinto is the breakfast counterpart: rice and beans fried together with onion, sweet pepper and coriander, served with eggs, plantain and sour cream. The name means "spotted rooster", for the speckled look the black beans give the rice. Costa Rica and Nicaragua both claim to have invented it, and neither is going to concede.
Two things follow you around the table. Salsa Lizano is the tamarind-brown, lightly spiced sauce on every soda table — it is what makes gallo pinto taste Costa Rican rather than generically Latin American. And refrescos naturales are fresh fruit drinks blended with water or milk; ordering "con leche" gets you something closer to a milkshake, "en agua" something closer to juice.
Where to go next
Once you have eaten, what Sámara looks like after dark is a short guide to the bars and live music. For mornings, our cafe and coffee guide covers where the espresso is worth drinking and which places you can work from.
Frequently asked questions
How expensive are restaurants in Samara Costa Rica?
A main course at a tourist-facing restaurant in Sámara runs [PRICE RANGE] and a casado at a soda runs [PRICE RANGE], as of [MONTH YEAR]. A beer is around [PRICE] and a fresh fruit drink around [PRICE]. Sodas are consistently the cheapest hot meal in town, and the gap between them and the beachfront is wide enough to plan around.
Can you drink tap water in Samara?
Costa Rica treats and chlorinates the water in most populated areas, and tap water is drinkable in the great majority of the country — considerably more of it than in most of Central America. Restaurants here serve tap water and ice made from it as a matter of course. Supply on this coast can vary between the dry and wet seasons, so if you have a sensitive stomach or are staying somewhere with its own well rather than town supply, ask your host what they drink themselves.
Do restaurants in Samara take credit cards?
Most restaurants aimed at visitors take Visa and Mastercard; sodas, market stalls and the smallest kitchens are frequently cash only. Costa Rica is unusual in that businesses here accept both colones and US dollars, but you will almost always be given change in colones and at a rate set by the till rather than the bank — so paying in colones costs less. Carry enough cash for a soda lunch and the Friday market. [CONFIRM which specific places are cash only, and where the working ATMs are.]
Do you need reservations in Samara?
Sámara's high season runs from mid-December to April, which is also the dry season, and that is when the beachfront restaurants fill up in the evening. Outside those months you can generally walk in. [CONFIRM which places actually need booking in high season and how far ahead, and note anywhere that takes no bookings at all.]
What time do restaurants close in Samara?
Most kitchens in Sámara stop serving between 22:00 and 23:00. As listed in mid-2026: Gusto Beach runs 08:00–23:00 daily, Mar y Fuego 11:00 to midnight, and El Lagarto 15:00–22:30. Sodas keep shorter, earlier hours and several close after lunch, so a late meal usually means a tourist-facing restaurant. [CONFIRM the soda hours and whether anything serves later than 23:00.]
What is a soda in Costa Rica?
A soda is a small, family-run restaurant serving Costa Rican home cooking at local prices — the equivalent of a neighbourhood diner. Menus are short and usually written on a board rather than printed, the food is cooked to order by the owners, and the signature plate is the casado: rice, black beans, cabbage salad, fried plantain and a protein, all on one plate. Sodas are where Costa Ricans eat lunch, and they are almost always the cheapest hot meal in any Costa Rican town.