If You’re Heading to Mexico for the Food, You Shouldn’t Miss This Coastal Town

When you're dining in Mexico's Los Cabos, one of the first questions you'll often hear is: “How many chillies do you want?”

I’m at Flora Farms, a restaurant and retail compound that also hosts cooking classes under the Baja California sun. At this organic oasis, a 20-minute drive from the city of San José del Cabo, I’m learning to make steamed, pillow-light tamales, rich with butter and ground corn, plus the best guacamole I’ve ever eaten (the secret is a rosemary sprig) and blow-the-roof-off salsa.

For a confident chilli-eater like me, five or six chile de árbol should do the trick, worked into a chunky paste with garlic and blanched tomatillos in a molcajete (traditional basalt grinding bowl). But chef Anita has been eating chillies since before she could walk. She heaps 20 – count ’em! – of the tiny fiery pods in a pile then grabs a handful more and starts grinding. My salsa resembles a watery pond; Anita’s is fire-engine red.

“Anita says that hers isn’t that spicy, if anyone wants to try it,” translates assistant chef Nicole. “But I wouldn’t believe her.” Anita smiles encouragingly as I reach for a tortilla. Yes, her salsa is spicy, delivering a flame-throwing knockout punch that radiates into the back of my throat. But it’s also phenomenal, a calibrated balance of salt and heat. By comparison, my sad, weak version is like a badly built fire.

This isn’t my only run-in with chilli in Mexico’s Los Cabos region. Deployed for flavour as much as it is for spice, chilli is intrinsic to the national cuisine. For a quick snack, street vendors in San José del Cabo dust slices of mango or sticks of roasted corn with the stuff. At Cocina de Campo by Agricole, a farm-to-table restaurant just outside the beachside hamlet of Todos Santos, I order fried prawn chicharrones. Caught that day and rolled in a little smoky chilli powder, they’re served in a warm tortilla with a lick of salsa that Anita would approve of, plus coriander that was picked from the ground right next to my chair.

The curved shores of Los Cabos might be better known for sun- and surf-seeking holiday-makers but that ocean yields a mighty bounty. There’s hamachi (yellowtail) crudo with grapefruit at 1890, a slick fusion eatery inside the ultra-luxe bolthole Todos Santos Boutique Hotel. Then there are juicy almejas chocolatas (chocolate clams), dug out of the Sea of Cortez, fire-roasted and paired with a salt-rimmed beer at nearby hotspot Jazamango. And, of course, there’s what my driver, Andres, calls “Mexico’s gift to humanity – los tacos”. It seems the best choice here is to have them stuffed with the famous Baja fish, fried crisp and golden. I eat as many as I can.

When the Michelin Guide came to Mexico for the first time this year, it did so with gusto, handing out 20 stars. Los Cabos fine-diner Cocina de Autour scored one. “Miss Yee, we were waiting for you,” says a waiter at the elegant, innovative restaurant before I can even introduce myself. The eight to 10 courses of modern Mexican cuisine served here include a glossy Baja oyster doused in green-apple essence and a cheerful corn velouté bursting with sweetness. To finish, the chef whips out one “last little bite”, a spiced ganache-filled dark chocolate topped with a boozy tuft of mezcal cream. A decadent delight, it’s a reminder that we have Mexico to thank for all of these delicious things – chilli, chocolate and the sexy smoothness of mezcal.

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