Chef Pablo Bonilla decided to reinvent himself 10 years ago, leaving behind what he had learned in cooking school to return to the roots of the food of the indigenous peoples of his country.

"What I did was get involved with indigenous communities (...) so that the gastronomic culture of these peoples does not die and is transmitted by cooks", he explains to the AFP.

No excess in this restaurant in San José.

Here, place to purity in tasty and colorful dishes made with ingredients from different regions of the country, grown by small producers, and highlighted in the most faithful way possible, as prepared by the peoples from this Central American country for centuries.

An employee prepares dishes in the kitchen facing the dining room of the "Sikwa" restaurant, in San José, Costa Rica, on February 14, 2023 © Ezequiel BECERRA / AFP

"It tastes like home cooking, it tastes like smoke, it tastes like firewood, it really tastes like what this ingredient should taste like," says the 40-year-old chef.

Immersion

Pablo Bonilla says he had to "change his state of mind" and his vision of cooking by deciding to highlight the diversity of foods offered by fertile Costa Rica.

For this, he immersed himself for years as "Sikwa" - non-indigenous in the native languages ​​Bribri and Cabécar - among the eight original peoples of the country: Bribri, Cabécar, Ngöbe, Maleku, Brunca, Terie, Huetar and Chorotega.

He observed, learned, harvested and ate, soaking up these experiences to bring back to the capital a whole unwritten gastronomic culture.

Pablo Bonilla, the chef of the Sikwa restaurant, on February 14 in San José, decided to reinvent himself 10 years ago, leaving behind what he had learned in cooking school to return to the roots of the food of the peoples natives of his country © Ezequiel BECERRA / AFP

“We still have a lot to learn from indigenous communities” who “have a lot to say, a lot to tell. But our way of life, our daily life, takes us away from it”, explains the chef.

Maintaining a gastronomic culture

In the kitchens of "Sikwa", there is no stock but a fresh market every day: fish from the Pacific, cocoa from the Caribbean coast, corn from the high plateaus of the northern border or bananas from the southern jungle.

"Costa Rica is a country where, wherever you plant, it will grow. Yucca (cassava, editor's note), pumpkins, corn... products that are indigenous to this region, we faithfully transform them into these recipes that we have learned", explains the chef.

While one clerk fills corn and plantain empanadas with potato, ayote (pumpkin) and carrots, another prepares roasted plantain and roasted cocoa ice cream.

The dishes of the "Sikwa" restaurant in San José, Costa Rica on February 14, 2023, are made with ingredients from different regions of the country, grown by small producers © Ezequiel BECERRA / AFP

On the stoves, conger eel in anise oil cooked in banana leaves, and peach palm tarts are ready to be filled with shrimp bisque, raw "piangüa" (mangrove mollusk) marinated in lime or grilled "cocoro de chayote", a vegetable from the squash family.

Its bias has attracted the attention of international food critics and its cuisine has won over many followers with its main courses from 10 euros.

"Our daily work is to try to preserve" a gastronomic culture, "but if we are recognized it is that we are on the right track", believes chef Bonilla.

© 2023 AFP