Wander(lust)

3 Stellar Playa del Carmen Restaurants

Although we mainly stayed happily moored in Tulum during our recent visit, we did venture into Playa del Carmen for three great meals.

It's astonishing—and more than a little depressing—to see just how bustling and quasi-tacky Playa has become in the past few years. But there is still some excellent shopping and eating to be had. Come to Media Luna or La Cueva del Chango for lunch, after savoring the quieter morning hours along Avenida Quinta. Alternatively, come to John Gray's Place for dinner, after a tamarind margarita or two at the venerable Casa de Tequila.

MEDIA LUNA

Yes, it's in all the guidebooks, but it's really, really, good. We've eaten there several times in the past.. and always leave saying that this is the kind of food we could happy eat day in, day out. Media Luna does a great job of fusing primarily Mexican and Asian cuisines with a deft touch and extremely fresh ingredients. On our  recent visit, we had huge fruit smoothies, zucchini-corn quesadillas with cilantro cream, and blackened fish with sesame-flecked rice and mango salsa. Quick service, colorful walls, and an open-air atmosphere perfect for people watching.

Avenida 5 (between Calles 12 and 14).


EL CUEVA DEL CHANGO

This was a new discovery, suggested by Elizabeth at Suenos de Tulum. We had a great lunch there (note that they serve breakfast all day), made with organic ingredients and served with friendly panache. We needed "stick to your bones" food, so ordered enchiladas verdes and sopas de pollo, followed by an amazing lime pie.

The location is enough off the beaten path that there was an interesting mix of tourists, ex-pats, and locals. You can eat in the airy palapa or outside, in the jungly garden. There's a pond with koi, cool lights, a stream that meanders through the restaurant, local art work for sale, and one of the most unusual bathrooms I've ever seen.

Avenida 5 at Calle 38, near the Shangri-La

JOHN GRAY'S PLACE

John Gray, a former Ritz-Carlton chef who worked at a number of the group's properties, settled down on the Mayan Riviera a few years ago. His first brainchild, John Gray's Kitchen, opened in Puerto Morelos in 2002. We ate there twice two years ago while staying at Ceiba del Mar, and the food was amazing. John himself was very cool and approachable, visiting each table to make sure diners were happy—and they were, especially me, who was nipping at my first-ever mescal margarita.

He debuted his second restaurant, John Gray's Place, on Calle Corazon (right off Quinta Avenida) in September 2004. In a town of "primitive chic" establishments, its streamlined black and off-white color scheme is a nice change. Reservations are highly recommended. The menu features only six or seven entrées nightly, adapting to take advantage of what is fresh. Standouts were the grilled shrimp with tabbouleh; the duck breast with chipotle-honey glaze, accompanied by sweet potato hash (pleasing the Southerner in me); and the Mexican-influenced crab cakes.
                  

Calle Corazon, off Avenida 5, between 12th and 14th.

Mr. Caruso, Meet Mr. Escobar

As a journalist, I have a mordid delight in typos found in other publications. And my current favorite even happens to be travel related, so I can unabashedly include it here. From last Sunday's New York Times Travel section comes the following correction:

"A report in the In Transit column on March 12 about the Casa Magna resort on the Riviera Maya in Mexico misstated the name of the Daniel Defoe literary character invoked in a description of the resort's rooms. He is Robinson Crusoe, not Caruso. The column also misspelled the name of the native country of Pablo Escobar, a known drug lord who once owned the property. He was Colombian, not Columbian."

Hotel Review: Suenos Tulum

We returned a few days ago from Tulum, Mexico, a slice of perfection an hour and a half south of Cancun. Our hotel was Suenos Tulum, an oasis of bonhomie, blinding white sand, and sea that ranged from color of louched absinthe (well, let's just say "light aqua") to turquoise to marine blue. The five buildings are embellished with Mayan-inspired reliefs and murals and each is named for an element—Tierra (land), Lluvia (rain), Selva (jungle), Sol (sun), and Luna (moon). Nothing even remotely garish, everything harmonious, in colors of coral, avocado, terra cotta, and putty.

The team that runs Suenos Tulum has much to do with the hotel's laid-back, unobtrusive but completely professional vibe. Jorge and Elizabeth Calles opened the hotel in November 2004; Jorge is also the chef of the beachfront restaurant, which has just four tables and is only open to hotel guests, and the artist behind the Mayan reliefs and much of the furniture. The manager, Alan Gallart, is fantastic—there whenever you need him for a restaurant recommendation, extra beach towel, reservations, etc. (And the only time we went wrong with a meal was when we went against his advice and our better judgment, dining at Ana y Jose's.)

While Tulum is still a paradise in spots like Suenos Tulum, caveat emptor: The "Mayan Riviera" is spreading ever southward, encroaching on the solitude and "off the grid" aesthetic that makes the area so special. From the Tulum ruins, you follow the Boca Paila-Punta Gorda road south, and in many ways can tell how unspoiled a place is by its distance from the ruins.

Suenos Tulum is at Km 10 on the road, practically at the end of the line before the Sian Kaan Biosphere. A glance southward from the top balcony of any of the buildings reveals only jungle, sand, and water. The photo above is the view from our third-floor balcony of the room where we stayed our last of five nights. It was very windy and there has been little rain, so the area is parched and not as verdant as usual. But the sand remains sugar-white and powder fine, swept daily by the rest of the hotel crew, who also make sure that everything is perfect, from lighting torches at night to keeping the rooms incredibly clean for a beachfront hotel.

Suenos Tulum is all about seclusion, from its location to the ever-present roar of the wind and sea that add to the sense of cosseted isolation. There are no TVs or other such trappings in the 14 rooms. But that's not why you come to Suenos Tulum. You come for the breakfasts: awesome Mexican coffee, breads, and heaping plates of fresh pineapple, banana, melon, mango, and grapes drizzled with honey, yogurt, and granola. You come for the impromptu lunches, maybe cactus nachos or tuna tostadas. You come for the sunrise yoga classes—although I never made it to one, I saw no fewer than three guests reading the latest issue of Yoga Journal. You come for the boogie boards and the dips in the Caribbean. You come to cool off in the pool if the surf is too rough. You come for the wonderful day beds (pictured below, complete with two of the hotel's four sweet dogs), where you can spend the entire day reading under an adjustable awning, gazing out at the horizon, or napping after that second Sol at lunch. And, most of all, you come for what you can't get away from at home—and although the property is said to have Wi-Fi, I never saw a guest using anything remotely resembling a laptop (or even an iPod) 

Our last night we stayed in the top-level, master suite (pictured at left) in Lluvia, which was aerier and had better lighting than the second-floor room in Tierra where we'd spent the preceding four nights. All the rooms have tile floors, lovely bedspreads, local art work, porthole-shaped windows, balconies, mosquito netting on the beds (not needed due to the strong breezes, at least this trip), ceiling fans, great bathrooms with open showers, and candles and incense. The master suites have platform beds with built-in storage, king-size beds, better views, and high, palapa-type ceilings. Our room in Tierra (at right) had lower ceilings but, at $40 less a night less, was cozier and warmer than the suite and had a really cool bathroom with a Talavera mirror and sink.

The property and rooms are "eco-chic"—a much overused term, at least in Tulum, where every cabana campground and tired-looking property was attempting to cash in on this appeal. But at Suenos Tulum, it was the real thing. The property gets its electricity from solar panels, so that by the time you took a shower at 4 pm after a day on the beach, there was plenty of hot water. The bathrooms are simple, with beautiful tiles and painting, but there's not enough electricity to, say, plug in a hair dryer. The lighting in the rooms is low-level, which can make it difficult to put on makeup, but the air-dried, fresh-faced look everyone sports is the "great leveler" (although, of course, the truly beautiful people still look better than everyone else).

So get thee to Suenos Tulum, before this mini-resort is booked up months in advance and the Mayan Riviera creeps even farther south. For the time being, it's paradise regained.