When people hear that Anamaya is gluten-free, we occasionally imagine the picture forming in their minds.
Rice crackers.
A sad piece of substitute bread.
Something beige.
Possibly a muffin with the structural integrity of beach sand.
Fortunately, that isn’t how our kitchen works.
At Anamaya, the goal isn’t to spend all day recreating foods made from wheat. The goal is to create delicious meals from fresh ingredients that already belong in a tropical Costa Rican kitchen.
Food That Happens to Be Gluten-Free
This distinction is central to our philosophy.
There is “gluten-free food,” meaning food designed primarily as a replacement for something containing gluten.
Then there’s simply food without gluten.
A ripe mango doesn’t need a gluten-free label.
Neither does grilled mahi-mahi, avocado, roasted squash, black beans, coconut, papaya, plantains, eggs, herbs, salad greens, rice, chicken, yuca, or most of the ingredients filling a tropical kitchen.
That’s where we begin.
Our cuisine is based on whole foods, with local and organic ingredients used whenever possible. Some of our greens, fruits, herbs, vegetables, and eggs come directly from our own farm.
Explore: farm-to-table wellness cuisine.
Breakfast at Anamaya
A good retreat breakfast has an important job.
You might be heading into yoga, surfing, a hike, an excursion, or an extremely demanding morning involving a hammock.
We want breakfast to provide energy without making you feel as though you need to recover from eating it.
Costa Rican food gives us an excellent foundation. Rice and beans are deeply embedded in local breakfast culture. Eggs provide satisfying protein. Tropical fruit adds color and variety that can seem almost absurd if you’re visiting from a northern climate.
Depending on the day and the menu, breakfast can incorporate fruit, eggs, Costa Rican staples, vegetables, gluten-free creations from our kitchen, and other fresh ingredients.
The point isn’t to imitate a continental breakfast built around toast and pastries.
The point is to make breakfast worth getting out of bed for.
Lunch Shouldn’t End Your Day
One of the peculiarities of resort travel is that lunch can easily become enormous.
Then everyone spends the afternoon digesting.
At a wellness retreat, we prefer food that supports what you actually came here to do.
Lunch may be followed by surfing, a spa treatment, an excursion, the beach, yoga, a waterfall hike, or several hours beside the infinity pool.
Fresh vegetables, healthy fats, quality proteins, herbs, fruit, rice, beans, roots, and other whole foods allow us to create satisfying lunches without depending on a mountain of bread or pasta.
Dinner Is Still Dinner
Healthy food shouldn’t make you feel virtuous and disappointed.
Dinner at Anamaya is social.
People come back from the day’s adventures, shower, gather, talk about what they did, meet new people, and eat together.
This is where the retreat experience often becomes something more than a vacation.
A table of strangers on Sunday can feel remarkably like a table of friends by Friday.
Food helps create that.
The meal has to be good enough to belong in the memory.
Costa Rica Gives Us Better Alternatives to Wheat
One reason gluten-free dining works naturally here’s that we’re surrounded by alternatives.
Corn offers tortillas and masa. Rice and beans form a complete culinary tradition of their own. Plantains can be sweet, savory, crisp, soft, roasted, or fried. Yuca and tropical roots provide satisfying starches. Coconut appears in sauces and desserts. Fruit can be breakfast, dessert, juice, salsa, or part of a savory dish.
Fresh herbs and tropical produce make it possible to build intense flavor without hiding everything under heavy processed sauces.
Traditional Costa Rican cuisine gives us a useful lesson: wheat is only one starch among many.
The Tiny Ingredients Matter Too
The obvious ingredients are easy.
Bread contains wheat. Pasta usually contains wheat. A pastry probably contains wheat.
The less obvious ingredients require more attention.
Soy sauce is a good example. Conventional soy sauce generally contains wheat, which is why ours is gluten-free.
Mayo Clinic includes sauces and soy sauce among the foods people following a strict gluten-free diet need to evaluate carefully.
Source: mayoclinic.org
Spice blends, thickeners, dressings, marinades, and processed ingredients can create similar surprises.
This is another reason we like cooking from recognizable ingredients. Simpler food is easier to understand.
Our Staff Eat This Way Too
There’s sometimes an assumption that retreat food is something a chef makes for guests while everyone who actually lives in the country goes home and eats “normal food.”
But rice, beans, chicken, fish, eggs, fruit, corn, plantains, vegetables, and roots are normal food here.
Our staff enjoy them too.
The biggest lesson is that a gluten-free menu doesn’t need to feel exotic or restrictive when you stop trying to make wheat the center of every meal.
Food and the Anamaya Experience
Anamaya means “health” in Sanskrit, so food was never going to be a minor detail.
Guests come here for yoga and wellness, but meals often become one of the things they remember most.
Our current retreat program combines accommodation and meals with the ability to personalize the week through yoga, spa treatments, surfing, excursions, and other experiences.
Explore: our retreats.
We also offer cooking experiences because some guests want to bring a piece of the food philosophy home with them.
That’s when healthy food becomes genuinely useful.
A week of wonderful meals is nice.
Learning that you actually prefer some of those choices can affect the way you eat for years.
Gluten-Free Food That Doesn’t Announce Itself
This may be our favorite compliment.
Someone finishes dinner and realizes they never thought about gluten once.
That’s the goal.
A meal shouldn’t require a speech before you enjoy it.
It should smell good, look beautiful, taste great, leave you feeling good afterward, and make you curious about what’s coming tomorrow.
Everything else is secondary.
