Pablo Bonilla

Today

Since 2018, owner and chef Pablo Bonilla has run Sikwa in San José, Costa Rica, with the restaurant’s vision and daily service meeting in one place. The work is anchored in Costa Rican Indigenous culinary heritage, and that lineage gives the cooking its frame: not as a look back, but as an active method for keeping place, memory, and tradition in play. At Sikwa, Bonilla’s food reads as current service built from inherited knowledge.

Signature

Bonilla’s signature plates are built on contrast and control. Oysters with cashew chili set brine against warmth and spice; pujagua toast with cucumber jam and tuna crudo combines sweetness, sharpness, and clean detail; shrimp tartare with plantain hashbrown pairs a delicate preparation with a crisp, golden base. Hen empanadas made from purple corn carry color and texture through a familiar form, while beef with cacao mole brings depth without losing the dish’s footing. Across the menu, the aim is clarity: each ingredient kept legible, each composition held in balance.

In Their Words “It tastes like home cooking, it tastes like smoke, it tastes like firewood, it really tastes like what the ingredient should taste like.” Bonilla’s own phrasing matches the food’s register: direct, elemental, and built from heat and smoke rather than ornament. Home cooking, firewood, smoke—those are the terms of a kitchen working close to flavor and process. The line about what the ingredient “should taste like” points to a discipline of restraint, where the task is to preserve character rather than mask it. “I think we still have a lot to learn from Indigenous communities.” That position sets the frame for Sikwa. Bonilla treats Indigenous knowledge as an active source of technique and understanding, not as a reference point frozen in place. In that sense, the restaurant becomes a working site for inheritance, where tradition and contemporary service are held in the same field.