La Bahia

Source: Calypso Island Chronicles

The Best Pizza in Costa Rica!

April 24th, 2009

I had just arrived in Nosara, a popular beach resort community located in Costa Rica’s Nicoya peninsula. After picking up my car at Toyota Car rental’s office in downtown Play Guiones, I decided to grab a bite to eat and some coffee at the “hippish” Zen Café before driving further up the coast to my hotel just north of Ostional.

During my conversation with the young Floridian Expats who owned Zen café, I inquired if they could recommend a good vegetarian restaurant near my hotel, Luna Azul. One of the guys who lived in the nearby village of Playa San Juanillo highly recommended a small seaside restaurant called La Bahia located about 5-6KM from my hotel. He boasted that La Bahia had the best pizza in all of Costa Rica. Now, I have had pizza a number of times in Costa Rica and it was average at best! As a pizza enthusiast, La Bahia sounded very promising. Finishing my large cup of organic coffee, which was very delicious by the way, I headed up to my hotel - a good 40 minutes drive from downtown Playa Guiones.

Needless to say, I took the advice of the young guy from Zen as I ended up having dinner at La Bahia two of the four nights that I was in Nosara. Driving to the restaurant at night was quite an adventure though as the 800 meter dirt track from the “main (dirt) highway” was in terrible shape, making it a very bumpy ride. It didn’t help matters any that the signage from the “main highway” was improper and relatively obscure – on at least two occasions I passed the turnoff and had to backtrack to find the sign/exit. But you know what? The young guy at ZEN was right! Not only was the Pizza outstanding - better than 95% of pizzas that that I have had in the USA - but the vegetarian pasta dish and Mediterranean Salad that I had on my 2nd visit was even better. The pasta was freshly made and was accompanied by some very tangy tomato sauce spiced with herbs and some choice green vegetables. And the Salad? It was absolute perfection - a salad to die for.

Now I’m not one who hands out praise too easily especially when it come to restaurants, but I am going on record to say that La Bahia, even though menu is somewhat limited, has to be the best restaurant that I have been to in COSTA RICA! The two guys who man the kitchen are both from Italy and have worked for many years as chefs in both their native Italy and in Spain. No wonder, the food was so delicious!

FYI – For a medium vegetarian pizza, the cost was approximately $10USD, and for the pasta dish, large salad and a Bavaria Negra (the best beer in Costa Rica, by the way) the cost was $21.00USD. Not cheap, not expensive!