In the heart of Barrio Escalante, San José’s dining district, Isolina occupies a 1940s wooden house that once belonged to the Escalante family, early owners of the coffee plantation that shaped this part of the Costa Rican capital. The structure still carries its past in every beam and floorboard.
The Birth of Isolina and the Family Memory
Manuel and Fernando Crespo, brothers and co-owners, restored it with restraint rather than reinvention. The original hardwood floors remain. The ceilings, too. During renovations, they discovered newspaper clippings hidden beneath layers of wallpaper; today, those fragments of another era line the staircase like quiet footnotes to the building’s life. “This was our grandparents’ house,” they say. “We grew up playing here.”
The name Isolina honors the first woman in their family to settle in the neighborhood — the original owner of the finca. The project is, in many ways, a tribute to maternal lineage, to the women who anchored generations. Even the wine cellar carries that intimacy: it was once the bedroom of their great- grandmother Rita, who lived to 106. She enjoyed wine and rum. “We believe she would be happy to know that her room is now filled with bottles,” they say with a smile.
The Style of Isolina
The restaurant’s philosophy grew out of childhood memory and a decade spent working abroad in Argentina and Brazil. “We didn’t know exactly how to open a restaurant,” Manuel says. “But we knew what we loved: serious food and proper drinks. For us, that’s always a celebration.” The cooking at Isolina leans generous and grounded — deeply flavored dishes built with technical control but meant to comfort rather than impress. The dining room hums with conviviality. The same discipline shapes the bar program. “Before you attempt something new, you have to master what already works,” they explain. A Negroni, precisely measured and stirred with intention, becomes the bar’s litmus test. The cocktail list respects the canon before venturing elsewhere.
Author-Driven Cuisine and Hospitality in Costa Rica
When Isolina opened, Costa Rica was only beginning to articulate the language of author-driven cuisine. The brothers were part of a small cohort helping redefine what dining in San José could look like. “We grew alongside other colleagues who were also pushing forward,” Fernando says. Today, they speak openly about the future: more risk, more original thinking, a hospitality culture confident enough that visitors leave saying Costa Rica eats and drinks remarkably well.
The Crespo Brothers and the Cultural Soul of Isolina
Though aligned in vision, the brothers operate differently. Fernando is measured and analytical. He entered the industry at eighteen, already collecting cookbooks and wine manuals. He describes himself as reflective, deliberate — and quietly adventurous. His fascination with Italy came through cinema: La dolce vita , Una giornata particolare and La grande bellezza . “The little Italian I speak comes from films,” he says. If Isolina were a movie, in his mind it would unfold like a Fellini scene — layered voices, music, joyful disorder.
Manuel brings velocity. As a child, Sundays meant Mussorgsky playing in the background while his grandmother tested him on Chopin and Tchaikovsky. Opera came later with Wagner, Puccini, Turandot and Tosca — and with it a taste for emotional scale and dramatic build. That sense of crescendo mirrors his approach to hospitality: energy, warmth, a room that feels alive.
A Place of Warmth and Togetherness
Between them is an ease forged by two years of age difference and decades spent working side by side before returning home to build something of their own with partner Lissa Barquero. Isolina is the result: a family house reimagined, memory translated into hospitality, and a dining room where eating and drinking remain acts of generosity.
The article first appeared on Coqtail – for fine drinkers. Order your copy here
Photo by Emanuel Florentin x Coqtail – all rights reserved
