El Fogón de María
Wood-fire Cooking with Heart
El Fogón de María— an intimate kitchen experience
Where fire, tradition, and nourishment meet.
Where cooking is lineage.
Where warmth is shared.
El Fogón de María is a separate and deeply personal cooking space located in María’s home kitchen, where meals are prepared over a traditional wood-fired stove. This is not a restaurant or a formal dining room — it is an invitation into Costa Rican home life, lived simply and honestly.
Using ingredients harvested from the land and the farm, María cooks in rhythm with the seasons and the countryside around her. Guided by memory, intuition, and time-honored techniques, each meal is slow, generous, and deeply nourishing.
Guests are welcomed into her kitchen to prepare lunch at her side — tending the fire, chopping, stirring, and tasting as the meal comes together. This is not a cooking class, but an immersive experience of everyday family life.
Sharing a meal at El Fogón de María is an intimate encounter with Costa Rican tradition — offered not as a performance, but as a genuine act of hospitality.
Meet María
María Durán is the heart and hands behind El Fogón de María. A native Costa Rican from the Caribbean coast, she moved to the south as a teenager, carrying with her the gift of flavor and tradition learned at her grandmother’s side and shaped by the school of life.
After three years working closely with Angélica through Maga Nómada, María now leads her own kitchen and experience in her home at Balsa Nueva. Kind, generous, and deeply rooted in tradition, she cooks the way she lives — surrounded by family, tending to her chickens, ducks, and quail, milking goats and cows, and growing the food and herbs she uses with intuition and love.
Sharing a meal at her table is to step into Costa Rican home life — simple, intimate, and full of heart.
Join María at the Table
El Fogón de María is a farm-to-table dining experience rooted in Costa Rican tradition. Before the meal, guests walk the farm — meeting the chickens, ducks, goats and cows, and seeing where the food comes from. Then, gather around María's wood-fired stove as she cooks a generous, nourishing meal made from ingredients harvested that same day. Farm-raised chicken or duck, handmade corn tortillas, rice and beans, seasonal vegetables, and homemade cheese or sour cream when the farm allows.
$65 per person · Lunch or dinner · Farm walk included ·
By reservation only · Open calendar