Where to Eat in La Fortuna: Sodas, Splurges and How the Bill Works

Seven tables around Arenal, sorted by what you are actually in the mood for, plus the tip and tax rules that explain your receipt

Article Marta Daví · October 14, 2026 · 9 min read

Most people arrive in La Fortuna with the volcano planned and dinner unplanned. Then it is seven in the evening, the clouds are doing something dramatic over Arenal, and you are reading three menus in a row on the main strip that all cost more than you expected.

The town is small enough to walk and crowded enough to get wrong. Here is how the food actually sorts itself out.

The short answer

• Eat at least one meal in a soda, the small family run kitchens where a plate of local food costs a fraction of what the tourist strip charges.
• Save one evening for a proper sit down dinner. Upscale in La Fortuna is still gentle on a holiday budget compared with upscale at home.
• When nobody in the group agrees, go to a food hall and let everyone order from a different stall.
• Your bill already includes a 10 percent service charge and 13 percent tax. You are not expected to tip on top.
• When the card machine asks whether to charge in dollars or colones, choose colones.

ArenalCosta Rica

Sodas and everything else

Almost every dining decision in La Fortuna comes down to one distinction.

A soda is a small, usually family owned Costa Rican eatery. The menu is short, the kitchen is often visible, and the anchor dish is the casado: a chosen protein with white rice, black beans, salad, fried plantain and whatever side the house made that day, which might be picadillo or sweet corn. Breakfast is gallo pinto, rice and beans cooked together and seasoned, served with eggs, plantain, white cheese, avocado and tortillas or bread. This is the food Costa Ricans eat on an ordinary Tuesday, and it is the reason a soda lunch can cost less than a cocktail.

Everything else in town is aimed more squarely at visitors: fusion kitchens, wood fired pizza, sushi, craft beer, rotisserie grills. The cooking can be very good. It is simply priced for a different room.

One practical note on language. Staff at the tourist facing places generally speak English. In the smaller sodas, Spanish may be the only language in the building, which is part of the charm and also worth knowing before you walk in with a complicated dietary question.

Toorizta also runs a Maleku village visit north of Arenal, where food is still cooked over a fire and wrapped in leaves. It is a useful reminder that the rice and beans on your plate sit on much older food traditions in this valley.

Two sodas worth the detour

Soda & Restaurante Rodríguez

Just outside the centre of La Fortuna, this one is built like a treehouse: raised wooden platforms, greenery pressing in from every side, and dogs, roosters and pigs wandering the grounds while you eat. Hundreds of small wooden tiles hang from the rafters, each painted by a previous guest with a note, a quote or a signature. You get a tile and paint too.

There is no printed menu. A server recites what the kitchen is cooking that day, which depends on what came in fresh. Expect a seasoned chicken bowl with rice, beans, avocado, pico de gallo and fried plantain, or a toasted quesadilla with fresh salsa.

The verbal menu is the one real catch. If you travel with a picky eater or a strict allergy, you are negotiating in the moment rather than reading ingredients, and possibly in Spanish. Ask clearly before you order.

Soda & Restaurante RodríguezArenal, Costa RicaA traditional Costa Rican soda just outside the centre of La Fortuna, built as raised wooden treehouse-style seating in dense greenery, with farm animals wandering the grounds. There is no printed menu: servers recite the dishes the kitchen prepared that day from fresh ingredients, typically a seasoned chicken bowl with rice, beans, avocado, pico de gallo and fried plantain, or quesadillas with fresh salsa. Guests are given a small wooden tile and paint to hang their own message from the rafters. Budget pricing. The verbal menu can be awkward for strict dietary restrictions, and Spanish may be the main language spoken.

Soda Sabores Lulú

In town, and much closer to the idea of eating at someone's house. Indoor tables, a small covered patio and a service window straight into the kitchen. A bowl of cut fruit tends to arrive before you have ordered anything.

This is the place for a full desayuno típico, the traditional breakfast of scrambled eggs, gallo pinto, avocado, fried plantain, white cheese and toasted bread, or a casado with grilled chicken, corn and picadillo. Prices are posted in colones and portions are generous. Fruit batidos, blended with milk or water, are the right drink order.

Soda Sabores LulúArenal, Costa RicaA family-run soda in La Fortuna town serving home-style Costa Rican cooking: desayuno típico with gallo pinto, scrambled eggs, avocado, fried plantain, white cheese and toasted bread, and casados with a grilled protein, rice, beans, salad, corn and picadillo. Indoor tables, a small covered patio and a service window onto the kitchen. A bowl of fresh cut fruit tends to arrive on seating, and fruit batidos are a house staple. Prices are posted in colones and portions are generous. Reviewers also single it out for careful handling of gluten-free requests.

If both of these are full, the strip has plenty of other sodas, including one Toorizta already lists.

Soda ViquezArenal, Costa RicaA local soda, or small restaurant, offering affordable Costa Rican dishes.

When the group cannot agree: Mercadito Arenal

A modern, semi open air food hall in the middle of town with communal wooden benches and, when the clouds cooperate, the volcano standing over the whole thing.

Several independent kitchens share the space. La Canalla does gourmet burgers and grilled meat, including a stacked burger capped with a cheese and pepperoni covered bun. Pizzería y Cafetería Rooster runs a wood fired oven. Sensei Sushi handles raw fish and poke bowls. Mexikah Taquería serves Mexican street food out of a converted yellow school bus. Voodoo Cocktail Bar does the drinks, including a passion fruit margarita and a smoking showpiece called the Vulkano.

This is the obvious answer for families and friend groups where one person wants sushi, one wants pizza and one wants a burger. Everybody orders separately and still eats together.

Mercadito ArenalArenal, Costa RicaA semi open-air food hall in central La Fortuna with communal wooden bench seating and views of Arenal Volcano when the clouds allow. Several independent kitchens share the space: La Canalla for gourmet burgers and grilled meat, Pizzería y Cafetería Rooster for wood-fired pizza, Sensei Sushi for sushi and poke bowls, Mexikah Taquería serving Mexican street food from a converted school bus, and Voodoo Cocktail Bar for mixology. The obvious choice for families or groups who cannot agree on one cuisine, since everyone orders from a different stall and still eats together.

For a real dinner out

El Chante Verde

Slightly outside the centre, which is exactly why it feels calmer. The room leans boho: plants hanging from the ceiling, woven light fixtures, a garden. The kitchen, led by chef Alexander Arce, cooks international fusion and marks vegan, vegetarian and meat dishes clearly on the menu, which is the simple feature that saves mixed tables a lot of discussion. Fish ceviche arrives with purple sweet potato chips, corn and patacones. There is also a chicken cordon bleu under a creamy mushroom sauce.

This is the strongest pick when one person in your party eats plants and another wants a steak night. The restaurant notes that the access road is fine for any type of vehicle, which is worth knowing if you are in a small rental car.

El Chante VerdeArenal, Costa RicaAn upscale but relaxed restaurant, cafe and garden bar slightly outside downtown La Fortuna, with hanging plants, woven light fixtures and a garden setting. The kitchen, led by chef Alexander Arce, cooks international fusion and marks vegan, vegetarian and meat dishes clearly on the menu, which makes it the easiest booking for mixed tables. Signature plates include fish ceviche with purple sweet potato chips, corn and patacones, and chicken cordon bleu in a creamy mushroom sauce. The venue notes that the access road is passable for any type of vehicle.

Restaurante Fortuneño

Also known as Pollo Fortuneño, a few blocks from the park, and impossible to miss because the rotisserie turns in a street facing window. Flame roasted chicken is the specialty, and the sharing platter for two lands in a large iron skillet with refried black beans, patacones, corn tortillas, coleslaw and sweet plantain.

The design is built for photographs: neon lettering, wood, walls of artificial foliage. In a valley this green, the plastic leaves are a strange choice. The chicken is not.

Breakfast, dietary needs and a beer

Organico Fortuna

Bright, open and plant forward, in the centre of town, with a small market at the back selling organic products and local design. Vegetarian, vegan and gluten free options are easy here rather than grudging, which matters if you have spent two days asking kitchens the same question.

Breakfast is the move: a gallo pinto plate with pickled red onion and pico de gallo, an Arenal toast with homemade bread and parmesan cream, or Turkish eggs. Prices sit above soda prices, and the kitchen is explicit about why: organic ingredients from local suppliers.

Beerland

The craft beer stop, in the centre of town next to Kappa Sushi, roughly 50 metres from Banco Nacional. Costa Rican craft beer on draft, tasting flights if you want to work through them, and bottles to take back to your hotel, which is a quietly good idea when your room has a balcony facing the volcano.

Food here is priced in US dollars and sits at the top of this list. Treat it as a beer bar that also feeds you, rather than the budget dinner of the trip.

What it costs

These numbers come from menus photographed during a filmed restaurant tour of La Fortuna. Menu prices drift, so read them as ballparks and not as quotes.

Two notes. Operating hours were not posted in the footage, so check them yourself the day you go, especially for the sodas. And a soda lunch for two can cost less than a single main course at the top end of this list, which is the whole argument for alternating.

How the bill works in Costa Rica

This is the part nobody explains, and it is where visitors quietly overpay.

The 10 percent is already there. Costa Rican law has treated a 10 percent service charge in restaurants and bars as the workers' right since 1972, under Ley 4946. On top of that, the general rate of value added tax, IVA, is 13 percent, and prepared restaurant food is taxed at that general rate. Many bills show both lines, labelled servicio and impuesto. Rounding up for genuinely lovely service is a kind gesture. It is not an obligation, and no one will hover.

Choose colones on the card machine. Terminals often offer to charge your card in US dollars instead. That conversion is done by the merchant's payment provider at its own rate, not your bank's, and it usually costs you. Pick colones and let your own bank convert.

Paying is not always done at the table. Some servers bring the card terminal to you. Others expect you to settle at the counter on your way out. Watching what the table beside you does is the fastest way to find out.

The phrase you need is la cuenta. That is the check. Asking for it is normal and never rushed in Costa Rica, where nobody clears you out of your chair.

Fitting this into an Arenal stay

A pattern that works over three nights: soda breakfast, a day out at the waterfall or the hanging bridges, then dinner chosen by energy level. Food hall on the loud nights, El Chante Verde on the one evening you want a table and a bottle of wine, and a soda lunch on the day your plans run long and your budget needs a break.

If a hot spring evening is already on the list, eat early. Soaking after a full rotisserie platter is a different experience than soaking before one.

Arenal Hot SpringsArenal, Costa RicaWhat it is: A network of naturally heated mineral pools spread across the foothills of Arenal Volcano, fed by geothermal activity beneath the mountain. The area has more than a dozen hot spring resorts plus one free river option, ranging from five-star luxury to simple local pools. Cost: Free option available at Río Chollín (public river pools). Resort day passes range from around $25 (Los Laureles) to $140+ (The Springs Resort & Spa), with most in the $40–$85 range. Hours: Vary by resort. Most…

Ask us before you book the week

Food is the part of a trip most people leave to chance, and in La Fortuna that usually means eating three times on the same two blocks. If you tell us who is travelling, what nobody will eat and which nights you want to feel special, we will tell you where to go and in what order, including what to book ahead and what to simply walk into.

Send us your dates and your dietary deal breakers. We will answer with real places, not a list.