Service Areas · Costa Rica
Santa Teresa, Mal País &
the Nicoya Peninsula
Where Chef James Kelly and the SOMA team cook — and what local knowledge of this coast actually buys you.
Check Your DateBased in Santa Teresa Since 2003
A Coast We Know by Name.
SOMA is a mobile kitchen. There is no dining room to book — we come to your villa, your venue or your beach, which means the question that matters is not where we are but where we will go.
The short answer: everywhere on this list, for private chef service, wedding and event catering, private cooking classes and culinary consulting.
Santa Teresa, Costa Rica
Private Chef & Catering in Santa Teresa
Santa Teresa has been home since 2003, and it is where most of our work happens. We cook in the villas above the beach, in the boutique hotels along the main road, and at the beachfront venues that host destination weddings through the dry season.
Knowing a town this well is practical rather than sentimental. We know which kitchens can handle a plated dinner for thirty and which cannot, which roads are passable after rain, which fishermen land what on which morning, and how long a delivery from Cóbano actually takes.
Private chef service, wedding catering, private events and cooking classes are all available in Santa Teresa with no travel surcharge.
- Playa Carmen
- Santa Teresa Centro
- Playa Hermosa
- Villas & Boutique Hotels
Mal País, Costa Rica
Private Chef & Catering in Mal País
Mal País sits five minutes south of Santa Teresa: the fishing village, the boat ramp, and the houses on the hillside above it. It is quieter than the beach road, and the private homes there make a particularly good setting for a chef-cooked dinner.
Much of our seafood comes off boats here, which means a menu can be written the morning of an event around what was actually landed rather than what was ordered a week earlier.
Villa dining, private dinners and small weddings in Mal País are handled exactly as they are in Santa Teresa, and at the same rates.
- Mal País Village
- Playa Carmen South
- Hillside Villas
- Cabo Blanco Side
Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica
Catering Across the Nicoya Peninsula
Across nearly two decades we have catered events throughout the southern Nicoya Peninsula — Cóbano, Manzanillo, Montezuma, Tambor, Playa Hermosa and the properties scattered between them.
Peninsula work is logistics as much as cooking. Some venues have a full commercial kitchen; some have a countertop and a generator. We scout the site, plan the menu against what that kitchen can genuinely produce, and bring whatever the property lacks.
For weddings and larger private events further up the peninsula, tell us the venue and the date and we will tell you plainly what is workable.
- Cóbano
- Montezuma
- Manzanillo
- Tambor
- Playa Hermosa
Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica
Puntarenas Province & Beyond
Beyond the peninsula we take selected work across Puntarenas Province, and occasionally further afield in Costa Rica, for weddings, multi-day private events and consulting engagements that justify the travel.
These are quoted individually, because transport, accommodation for the team and local sourcing all change once you leave the coast we know best.
If your event sits outside the areas above, it is still worth asking. Chef James has cooked across Costa Rica, Mexico and the United States, and travel is a normal part of the work.
- Puntarenas Province
- Guanacaste Crossings
- Costa Rica, by Arrangement
Getting Here
The Practical Part.
Most guests arrive through San José or Liberia, then drive, fly into Tambor or take the Puntarenas ferry to Paquera.
From San José it is roughly five hours by road, or a short domestic flight to Tambor followed by forty minutes of driving. Liberia is a similar drive from the north. The Puntarenas–Paquera ferry is the scenic option and the one most people underestimate for timing.
None of this changes what we cook, but it changes when we shop. If your group lands late, we plan a first meal that holds; if you arrive on the morning ferry, we can have lunch on the table.
Sourcing on the Nicoya Peninsula is seasonal and genuinely local: seafood landed at Mal País, produce from peninsula farms, and the handful of specialty items we bring in from the Central Valley when a menu calls for them.
We will always tell you what is good that week rather than promise an ingredient that has to fly to get here. More about Chef James.
Service Area Questions
Coverage, Travel & Timing
The questions that come up most often about where we work on this coast.
- Which areas of Costa Rica do you cover?
- Santa Teresa and Mal País are home base, and we work throughout the southern Nicoya Peninsula — Cóbano, Montezuma, Manzanillo and Tambor — as well as the wider Puntarenas Province. Work elsewhere in Costa Rica is quoted case by case.
- Is there a travel charge for Mal País or the Nicoya Peninsula?
- There is no travel surcharge for Santa Teresa or Mal País. For venues further along the Nicoya Peninsula, travel is included in the quote and stated plainly rather than added afterwards.
- Do you cook in private villas, or only at venues?
- Both. Most private chef work happens in the client’s villa or rental home using its own kitchen, and catering is regularly staged at hotels, beach clubs and private estates across the peninsula. See private chef service
- How far ahead should we book a wedding in Santa Teresa?
- For a destination wedding in the December-to-April dry season, six to twelve months ahead is realistic — the good venues and the good crew both go early. Smaller private dinners can often be arranged within a week. Wedding and event catering
Inquire
Tell Us Where You Are.
Send the property or venue, your dates and the size of the group. If we are not the right fit for the location, we will say so and point you somewhere better.
