Barba Roja
A landmark Manuel Antonio restaurant with ocean-and-jungle views: a pirate-themed crowd-pleaser whose generous vegetarian plates hold their own.
Barba Roja has been a fixture of Manuel Antonio long enough to count as a landmark. A favourite watering hole for tourists and locals alike, it trades in daily specials, live music and a cheerfully committed pirate theme: the kind of place that becomes a fixed point in a Costa Rican itinerary almost by default.
Do not let the smokehouse-and-steakhouse billing put you off. The menu carries plenty for plant-forward diners, including a genuinely good vegetarian sushi and a satisfying vegetarian pasta. Portions are generous to the point of excess, and prices are pleasingly reasonable, a combination that keeps the room full.
Dessert is treated with the same enthusiasm: cheesecake, flan, lemon pie and freshly baked brownies, all built for the sweet-toothed. And the restaurant doubles, quietly, as a small art gallery, its walls given over to work by local artists.
The setting is the clincher. Barba Roja looks out over both ocean and jungle, which makes it one of the area’s better spots to land for sunset happy hour, a drink in hand as the light goes down over the Pacific.
For a traveller in Manuel Antonio who wants a relaxed, generous meal with a view and a bit of character (and options that go well beyond the steakhouse headline), Barba Roja is an easy, well-priced choice. Time it for sunset.
