Bienvenidos to the jungle: munchies Italiano in Costa Rica
A little bit of Italy down south: La Puerta Negra. Photo courtesy of Zancudo Times.
By Erik Morse
A-way down south past Baja, Calif., and the Rio Grande, through Mexico and the mountain ranges of Central America, which blossom into the fiery petals of Arenal volcano, there’s a tiny fishing village near the border of Costa Rica and Panama called Playa Zancudo. Along the town’s one gravel road that travels through the swamps and palm trees to the edge of the Osa Peninsula, passing shotgun shacks and mercados, sits one of the most delicious Italian restaurants this side of the Adriatic.
Christened La Puerta Negra according to the plywood sign near the dirt path entrance, this small trattoria is a simple concrete slab and garden just off the beach. But the chef and owner Alberto Ferrini has taken great care to make it his own: a colorful assortment of fresh flowers, white tablecloths, and twinkling lights sit beneath a quilted patio covering.
Photographs of forgotten guitar heroes from the American delta are pinned above the entrance to the open-air kitchen, and the constant rotation of jug bands and blues troubadours playing from the stereo portray an ardent musical soul. A small advertisement written in marker reads: Live Blues on Saturday Night. Later on I find out that Ferrini often brings his git box from the room above the restaurant to give his customers a lesson in old-fashioned gut bucket.
There are two things I love in my life, says Ferrini, cooking and the blues. And it’s evident that he puts as much of his soul into the kitchen as his heroes put into the juke joint. Greeting his guests with a floral shirt, Bermuda shorts, and a fluffy chef’s hat, Ferrini often takes a seat at the table and smokes a cigarette as he awaits an order. Everything, he explains, is homemade. Gnocchis, raviolis, tortellinis. The menu is pure Italian home cooking - hearty and delicious recipes that might come from any family-run Neapolitan eaterie, although Ferrini is actually from Genoa in the North. And each dish he serves is tender, tangy, rich, and delicate - every flavor a sensory testament to the Old Country.
"I had a couple of Americans drive up here today," he says with a laugh - a cigarette in one hand and a glass of wine in another. "And they yell out they want two slices of Pizza Supremo! And I said what the fuck is Pizza Supremo?! You’re at the wrong place buddy. Go to fuckin’ Pizza Hut!"
An old woman from the States who has apparently crashed in Zancudo for a few weeks of binging falls from a nearby bench with fits of laughter. Some drinking locals have to help her to her feet. She ambles around the patio grabbing and cavorting with all the available men while Ferrini rolls his eyes.
"She’s been here two fuckin’ weeks man," he groans.
It seems he is a magnet for the most bizarre Zancudo imports.
After three delicious meals in as many days - pesto and pomodoro ravioli, bruschetta, olio and alio tortellini, creamy spaghetti alfredo - Ferrini is pleased enough with his new favorite customers to sit for a bit between dishes and recall his peripatetic life through Italy, the States, and Central America.
After rabble-rousing in his home country for a number of years and landing a spot in jail, he took off for America and got into the construction business. He had fun, he said, played the blues, chased women and skirted the law. When he finally found his way down to Costa Rica, he made his home in a tent on the beach until he scrapped together enough cash to buy a plot in Playa Zancudo and open his restaurant. All of his recipes, he said, came from his mother. His best memories of his childhood were in the kitchen.
A bit of Merseybeat sneaks its way on to the stereo, and Ferrini disappears for a moment to correct this infraction. The din of washboards and fiddles soon envelop the patio.
"I was born in the wrong place, man," he laments. "I should have been born in Memphis, Tennessee."
When Ferrini returns to his seat by the kitchen, an old hound comes to lie at his feet, and the chef looks around at the empty dishes. "Sorry," he says mashing out a cigarette. "Nothing left from the table tonight." He dances a quick jig to everyone’s applause and scuttles back to the kitchen to prepare the next dinner.
digg •
del.icio.us •
sphere •
google
•
