L’Ancora Ristorante Italiano
Tel: (506) 280-5170
Specialty: Italian Seafood.
Chefs: Co-owners Ciro Genova and Gaetano Guida.
Recommended Dish: Lingua dello Chef, tongue in a delectable sweet and sour sauce.
Prices: Dinner entrées range from U.S. $4.50 to $13, before sales and service taxes (23%).
Location: Barrio Escalante, eastern suburb of the capital city of San José.
Directions for Taxi Driver: Barrio Escalante, de la Iglesia Santa Teresita 400 mts. este y 100 mts. norte.

At L’Ancora Ristorante Italiano, excellent Italian seafood and other authentic dishes are just part of a truly enjoyable experience that includes an elegantly comfortable ambiance and graciously attentive service.

Candles adorn each of the cloth-covered tables, which are surrounded by a beautiful selection of tropical foliage, tasteful decorations and soft background music. The enticing aroma wafting through the air hints at the gastronomical delights soon to appear from the kitchen, where the restaurant’s two owners are busy with their most important job: cooking.

With just one year in business and very little advertising, L’Ancora keeps its 18 tables full with a success built on repeat clients and word-of-mouth recommendations. After all, where else in the Central Valley can you find an Italian restaurant with two experienced Italian chefs - including one who is internationally renowned?

Highly experienced in the culinary arts, Italian chefs and co-owners Ciro Genova and Gaetano Guida have nearly half a century of combined experience in the restaurant business. Guida has more than 35 years of experience laboring in the kitchen. Before coming to Costa Rica, he worked at a catering service in Italy with capacity for up to 400 people, which specialized in weddings and party banquets.

The two chefs, who founded L’Ancora in 1999, are both from the same area in southern Italy, a lucky coincidence that has become a tremendous asset to their combined cooking endeavor. They use a combination of fresh local ingredients, such as vegetables and seafood, and Italian ingredients, such as virgin olive oil, cheeses and sausages, imported to Costa Rica directly from their homeland.

L’Ancora offers diners a carefully selected array of delicious meat and seafood dishes, steaming pizza and pastas, antipastos, rice, soups and salads. Prices are reasonable, too - the most expensive item on the menu, Fresh Lobster with Homemade Pasta, costs U.S. $12.85.

Diners can begin their meal with an authentic Vegetable Minestrone, or Zuppa di Asparagi e Uova, an asparagus soup with eggs, or the Insalata di Tonno Fresco, a fresh tuna salad with white beans. The Focacia de la Casa is baked to perfection and sprinkled with fresh chopped tomatoes and basil. Breads, pastries and pies are all baked fresh on the premises.

The chefs’ two most highly recommended meat entrées are the Lingua dello Chef, or Chef’s Tongue, cooked in a sweet and sour sauce, and Filetto di Maiale, a pork fillet with cooked with bacon, onion and curry.

But L’Ancora’s real specialty, as its name suggests, is seafood: succulent sea bass dishes like the Corbina Gratinata, Corbina a La Plancha, Corbina LiVornese and Corbina a La Mange, and Salmon Au Herbe, fresh salmon cooked in herbs and spices.

Vegetarians and meat-eaters alike will enjoy the Melinzana Au Parmesano, an authentic eggplant parmesan dish, the Tagliatelle ai Funghi, delicious pasta smothered with a creamy mushroom sauce, and the Pasta Cacera, homemade ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese and spinach.

Pizza lovers will rejoice when they see the menu at L’Ancora - or perhaps be dismayed at the thought of having to choose among them: Quatro Formaggi, a superb Italian four-cheese pizza, or the Siciliana, with salami, ham, mushrooms and artichokes, or the Odissea, a true odessy of a pizza, heaping with vegetables and seafood.

Don’t forget to leave room for dessert - freshly made Tiramisu, Créme Caramel or Apple Pie are just a few of the choices.

The restaurant’s fully stocked bar offers a wide selection of foreign and domestic liquors, beer and fine wines, including the house white wine, Chianti, and Italian red wines such as Toscani, Veniti and Pugliesi.

L’Ancora is open for lunch, from noon to 3 p.m., and dinner, from 6 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., daily except Sunday, when it opens at noon and closes at 5 p.m.


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