Chef Santiago Fernández
I’m Santiago. I cook at Silvestre, in Barrio Amón.
For years now, a good part of my time has gone into asking questions. Questions about our ingredients, our growers, our recipes and our customs. About what we think we know, and about everything we still have left to discover.
I opened Silvestre in 2017 to understand Costa Rican cooking a little better. Not to define it. Just to get a bit closer to it.
Since then we’ve worked with ingredients from all over the country: small-boat fishing, small growers, cacao, grains, root vegetables, vegetables, fruit, and many of the things that have been part of our table for generations.
Sometimes the result feels familiar. Other times it shows up in ways no one expected. Something from the sea can end up as charcuterie. A tamal can bring a soup to mind. An everyday ingredient can tell a completely different story when you give it time, attention and curiosity.
What interests me most is still the same: to understand Costa Rican product better, and to see how far it can go.
Along the way some recognition has come, and we’re deeply grateful for it. In 2018 I was named an Esencial Costa Rica Ambassador, and New Worlder included Silvestre among the best new restaurants in the world. More recently we received the One Knife distinction from The Best Chef Awards, two years in a row.
These are things I’m very thankful for. But I also see them as a natural result of the work of so many people: growers, fishers, farmers, cooks, servers, and a team that makes Silvestre possible every single day.
The fullest way to know our work is Óptica, an eight course tasting menu built around fire, the season, and the ingredients we have close by.
It’s made to sit down to. To eat slowly. To discover a way of understanding Costa Rican cooking that keeps changing every day.
If you find me at Silvestre, I’ll probably be near the embers, doing exactly what I’ve been doing for years now: trying to learn something new about the ingredients of this country.
Since opening in 2017, Silvestre has been researching Costa Rican product: where it comes from, who grows or fishes it, how it has always been used, and what else it can become. Nine years of that curiosity have left hundreds of recipes of our own, created with this country's product. The proof is the house calendar: the tasting menu has changed since opening day, the à la carte and lunch menus renew with it, and every year, without exception, Mother's Day, Christmas and Valentine's Day premiere new recipes, never repeated. That depth makes the invention possible: to create something that did not exist, you have to know your material deeply.
Santiago Fernández Benedetto runs this kitchen. New Worlder named Silvestre among the best new restaurants of 2018. That year, Santiago became an Esencial Costa Rica country brand ambassador, the first Costa Rican chef to hold the title, for his commitment to researching the flavors that give his country its identity. The Best Chef Awards counted him among the world's best chefs with One Knife in 2024 and again in 2025.