Information
For more than three decades, Park Café has been one of Costa Rica's hidden treasures—combining exceptional antiques, handcrafted furniture, fine craftsmanship and timeless design in an extraordinary setting. Every piece has been individually selected to become part of a home rather than simply fill a room.
Louise Introducing Park Cafe
Address.
Sabana Norte, 50 metros Norte de Rosti Pollos, Calle 48,
San Jose, Costa Rica
The Antiques Store is open Monday to Saturday. 09h30-17h00
Tel. (506) 2290 6324
Whatsapp : (506) 84 54 75 19
or preferably lolaantiques@yahoo.com (antiques)richardneat@hotmail.com (dining experiences)
ABOUT US.
Louise France
Louise France first opened the doors of this enchanting antique shop in 1991. The property is an old style hacienda, complete with a central courtyard, trickling fountain, statues, sculptures and a venerable orchid tree that has overheard the chatter and laughter of a generation of people as they relaxed amongst the beautiful artifacts.
The aisles are lined with majestic doorways, arches, and columns that once bore witness to the Maharaja’s extravagant parties. Entire facades have been dismantled from these old palaces and restored before they crumbled and disappeared forever.
As the shop grew so did its collection of unique and exceptional pieces. Coral sculptures from East Timor, Stone paneling from Java, spectacular ornate doors from Bhuj, iron railings and wooden windows from Rajasthan, takkart tables, Persian saddle bags, rugs, and many many more architectural and decorative objects can be discovered in this inspirational store. The store occupies over 1300 square meters so please leave plenty of time to visit the premises.
Louise also offers a complete interior design service often combining modern design with her unique architectural and decorative pieces to create the perfect harmony in your home.
The huge inventory is also an ideal source for architects and interior designers and for anyone who shares a true love of beautiful objects.
All the pieces are one of a kind so don’t delay and pay us a visit soon.
The aisles are lined with majestic doorways, arches, and columns that once bore witness to the Maharaja’s extravagant parties. Entire facades have been dismantled from these old palaces and restored before they crumbled and disappeared forever.
As the shop grew so did its collection of unique and exceptional pieces. Coral sculptures from East Timor, Stone paneling from Java, spectacular ornate doors from Bhuj, iron railings and wooden windows from Rajasthan, takkart tables, Persian saddle bags, rugs, and many many more architectural and decorative objects can be discovered in this inspirational store. The store occupies over 1300 square meters so please leave plenty of time to visit the premises.
Louise also offers a complete interior design service often combining modern design with her unique architectural and decorative pieces to create the perfect harmony in your home.
The huge inventory is also an ideal source for architects and interior designers and for anyone who shares a true love of beautiful objects.
All the pieces are one of a kind so don’t delay and pay us a visit soon.
Richard Neat
www.richardneat.blogspot.com
A Brief Biography
Apprenticeship in various restaurants in UK and France, including:
June 1987 - March 1989 Senior Chef-de-Partie at Le Manior aux Quat’ Saisons, with Raymond BLANC, during which time I won M.O.G.B. Young Chef of UK (1988).
March 1989-October 1990. Sauce Chef at Restaurant Jamin in Paris with Joel ROBUCHON. First British Chef to work at his restaurant. Robuchon was awarded Gault Millau Chef of the Century in 1990.
October 1990-November 1991. Head Chef for Marco Pierre WHITE at Harveys in London.
*********************************************************
*********************************************************
January 1992. Opened Pied-a-Terre in London as Chef, co-proprietor, receiving first Michelin star in January 1993 and second star in January 1996 at the age of twenty-nine, being one of the youngest ever recipients of such an honour.
June 1999. Returned to France and opened NEAT Restaurant in Cannes as Chef-Proprietor. The following January, seven months later, the restaurant won a star from the Michelin Guide, Neat becoming the first British Chef to win a star in France, as well as Joel Robuchon performing his first ‘parrinage’ (endorsement) for the opening.
May 2004. Opened Casa Lalla Riad and Restaurant in Marrakech which enjoyed a fantastic success, including a review in Conde Nast 80 world’s best restaurants for 2005. Time Out also wrote that a meal at Casa Lalla “could be the highlight of trip to Marrakech”.
September 2006 until present. Opened Park Cafe in San Jose.
Please write to me for information on private dinner parties.
WhatsApp + 506 85 62 23 90
My new Richard Neat Culinary Workshop.
Please take a look at our exciting new platform www.neatandchaos.com
Richard's Book.
Observations from the Kitchen is an
autobiographical adventure story that unfolds upon the metaphoric battlefield
of a chess board, a place The Cook uses to describe and make sense of a
lifetime spent in service to gastronomy.
Set within the sweatshop kitchens
that have been his home, it is a journey that takes the reader from the
frenetic chaos of the London's West End to the narcissistic playgrounds of the
Cote d'Azur, through amazing India and magical Marrakech to the snow-covered
domes of the Kremlin before ending in the steamy jungles of beautiful Costa
Rica.
The Cook invites different
companions, the people who have touched him, made his life something other than
mundane, to join him 'a table', where, whilst preparing his signature
dishes, they discuss such themes as Ambition, Loyalty and Contentment and
whether such ideas are comprehensible to anyone other than the person who
utters them.
*******
Tico Times book review. April 2014.
Richard Neat, the cerebral chef over at San José’s Park Café, has a penchant for chess, Russian novels, philosophy and political manifestos. Now he’s whipped up perhaps his most complex dish in the form of a self-published reminiscence centered on “life at the center of the gastronomic revolution.”
Neat weaves in tantalizing snippets of how he prepares his
signature dishes, as well as vivid travelogues covering his nomadic life over
four decades, from London to France to India to Morocco to Costa Rica.
The introspective, existential themes of the book are played
out against the strategic framework of an ongoing chess game and fashioned
after a Platonic dialogue, with the chef debating such heady topics as
ambition, faith, hubris and loyalty, with various opposing interlocutors. Along
the way we are also treated to scathing but entertaining rants against greedy,
over-taxing governments, and — my favorite — poisonous, overweening restaurant
critics.
As a non-chess player, the metaphoric strategy was lost on
me. What I did enjoy were the insights Neat provides into what it takes to
aspire to and reach the pinnacle of artistry and craftsmanship in any field –
in his case, gastronomy, and the golden grail of Michelin stardom.
The achievement of two Michelin stars in his London
restaurant Pied à Terre, along with the only Michelin star awarded to an
Englishman cooking in France, for his Neat Cannes restaurant, certainly
qualifies the chef as an expert in what it takes to succeed in the gastronomic
world. Much of the book deals with the collision between the forces of
creativity and the high-stakes economics of the restaurant business.
Each chapter features the preparation of a Neat signature
dish, starting with smoked foie gras with onion purée, and ending
with an incredibly complicated braised pig’s head with pumpkin purée.
Neat makes it all seem so deceptively simple. But these complicated “preps”
make you realize how much training, experience and talent it takes to attain
Neat’s level of creativity and craftsmanship.
The pressures to “create new temptations to amuse my
ever-fickle audience” and to become a “faultless, fanatical craftsman” are
neatly balanced by the pleasure Neat takes in the “beasts and vegetables that
were reared and grown with care,” which, he says “oblige a cook to treat them
with sufficient reverence.”
There is a lot to digest in Neat’s observations, on a number
of levels. As a food aficionado, the lasting impression I took away was the
realization that, along with skill, a lot of thinking goes into haute cuisine.
All those decades Neat has spent in the kitchen were not just about producing
food to eat, but also food for thought.
“Observations From the Kitchen“ by Richard Neat
is available on-line for $7.99 at http://bookstore.authorhouse.com/Products/SKU-000683863/Default.aspx. Or
visit Neat’s blog at www.parkcafecostarica.blogspot.com.
I had hoped to have a professionally
edited and photographed book to offer and even imagined that I had secured the
help of a large and prestigious literary agency whose M.D encouraged me over
the summer with the following assessment ........
OBSERVATIONS FROM THE KITCHEN is rather
wonderful. You’ve created an extraordinary work here, and a beautifully crafted
one. I found myself thinking that every creative should read it regardless of
what industry they’re in or skillset they’re mastering. It raises such
important questions, and is so refreshingly forthright about them.
This work is unique in many ways, yet you refer
to OBSERVATIONS as a novel. That brings with it certain assumptions and
expectations. I’m not sure that this is where it should sit. It’s such a smart,
thoughtful, brave discussion about some really difficult (dare I say
unresolvable) issues. It strikes me as a meditation, a parable, an exploration
of the creative journey. If a reader comes to the work with that sort of lens,
I think they would get a lot more out of it than if they came to it with
“novel” in mind.
Unfortunately, the company decided
that the book was impossible to 'position' so I am left with offering an
amateurishly edited book accompanied by my own home photographs. I do hope
however, that you might still enjoy it.
If you would like a copy you can
find it at the following link.
Comments