Healthful, Gourmet Dining

The Inn at Coyote Mountain, Costa Rica

The Hacienda's Chef/Proprietors count among the finest Creole cooks in the Americas, having earned critical praise for their restaurants in New Orleans and Nova Scotia. The Dining Room at Coyote Mountain serves Creole-inspired cuisine using Costa Rica's local abundance of fresh tropical and temperate ingredients, featuring sumptuous vegetable-based dishes, home-made breads, and desserts (non vegetable-based entrees upon request). The Inn also offers the Tropical Creole Cooking School, allowing guests to hone their own culinary talents.   Daniel Abel, Vaughn Perret and Charles Leary,authors of the forthcoming Trout Point Lodge Cookbook (Random House, New York)prepare innovative menus that change daily and include tantalizing dishes such as:

Yucca & Roasted Garlic Cakes, Fresh Guacamole and Home-Made Corn Tortillas, Chilled Tropical Fruit Soup, Tico Jambalaya, Garden-fresh Artichokes a la Romana, Stuffed Fresh Hearts of Palm with Spicy Okra Sauce, Yucca Cakes served with Lime & Anchovy Pepper Sauce, Creole Fried Oyster Mushrooms, Gallo Pinto Coyote Mountain Style Macadamia Enrcrusted Wild Mushroom Cakes, Gumbo des herbes Guanabana Tart with Fresh Coconut Milk Creme Anglaise, Mango-Macadamia Bread Pudding with Coffee Caramel Sauce, and the Hacienda's Tropical Fruit Sorbets.

Seasonally every year Abel, Perret, and Leary also operate Trout Point Lodge in Nova Scotia and the Granada Cooking School in Spain, having previously overseen Chicory Farm and the Chicory Farm Cafe in New Orleans, which earned recommendations from the everyone from the TV Food Network to the Vegetarian Times. Here's what some critics have said about the proprietors culinary abilities in New Orleans and Nova Scotia:

• "Extraordinary" Food & Wine
• "Gourmet food inspired by the owner's Louisiana roots" WCVB Television, Boston
• "Gourmet getaway" Chatelaine
• "Food: Excellent. . . . sophisticated fare that satisfies." "inspired meals of marvelous complexity, brimming with vigor and verve, by turns earthy and elegant." New Orleans Times-Picayune
• “this Creole-inspired vegetarian menu . . . translates familiar meat-based dishes into flavorful, flesh-free affairs with the freshest organic ingredients.” Gambit Weekly