Opening a restaurant in Mexico’s Riviera Maya wasn’t an apparent subsequent step for Curtis Stone. In spite of everything, the acclaimed Australian chef is squarely settled in Los Angeles, the place he owns and runs the Michelin-starred Gwen and, beforehand, Maude. However when the Belmond inns crew approached him about opening a restaurant on a resort they have been refurbishing on this scorching spot simply south of Cancun, he felt an instantaneous connection.
“[Belmond] actually wished to enhance it — however maintain its pure attraction,” he says of the resort, which was beforehand a personal residence. It’s a departure from most of the close by seashores, the place giant inns have shot up shortly and pushed a celebration scene full with daytime DJs. However what actually caught Stone’s consideration was the open fireplace that performed a central function of the kitchen the place his restaurant would go. Whereas it’s a longstanding Mayan culinary custom, live-fire cooking runs in Stone’s household, too.
“My granny had a giant fireplace at their farmhouse [in Victoria]; it’s what she cooked on and it’s what heated the home,” he says. “Once I walked into that home I smelled the hearth, and that’s a really particular scent to me.”
Stone already faucets into that cooking custom at Gwen, however he beloved the concept of doing it by way of the lens of Mexico’s personal traditions — and culinary strengths. “Mexico is in the midst of a tremendous meals revolution,” he says. “And it’s occurring for good cause. The components right here? It’s unbelievable — it’s like a playground.”
He named the restaurant Woodend, after the city in Victoria the place the household farmhouse is, after which labored along with his crew to construct a menu that, he says, is a little bit like “writing a love letter” to the world.
Courtesy of William Jess Laird
“I’m actually into telling tales by way of dishes,” Stone says. “And right here, we’re embracing the Mayan tradition, we’re embracing the components — however we’re nonetheless cooking in a manner that could be very genuine to us.”
An amuse bouche of chilled tomato consommé with balls of melon and cucumber evokes the sensation of leaping into an area cenote to go swimming on a scorching day. The “Mayan rice” is finished risotto-style, however the central ingredient including taste is native chaya greens. Then, in fact, there’s the part of the menu that’s cooked over an open flame.
“There’s an unbelievable indigenous wooden right here that we’ve acquired our fingers on that’s acquired a extremely delicate scent,” he says. “And over it we roast stunning meats and seafood from the area.” That seafood contains bluefin tuna from Ensenada and blue prawns from Sinaloa. The prawns are grilled and paired with inexperienced mango, apple, daikon, and almond.
“[Woodend is] not some steakhouse that we pulled out of Los Angeles or New York and simply threw down right here as a result of we thought individuals is perhaps keen on coming to my restaurant,” Stone says. “We wished to faucet into and respect the indigenous tradition.”
It explains why his partnership with Belmond is so seamless. After a full overhaul, Belmond launched Maroma, A Belmond Resort, Riviera Maya final yr. The model has taken nice pains to supply company distinctive experiences that work in concord with the pure environment of the Yucatán. Onsite, there’s a nursery producing endemic vegetation in addition to sanctuaries for indigenous birds, sea turtles, and Melipona bees (a stingless species prized by the Mayans).
On the spa — by Guerlain — you possibly can e book a bee remedy and sound therapeutic session, take a category on native vegetation and herbs on the apothecary, or sweat it out in a temazcal. Whenever you keep at one of many 72 rooms and villas, you’ll routinely have an attendant to curate your go to, whether or not reserving your eating, yoga, meditation, and even sustainable ocean golf.
You can too go for extra bespoke experiences like an agave spirits tasting — or a cenote go to. Swim in a single by day, come again and pattern Woodend’s homage to it that night. If Stone and his crew are writing a love letter to Riviera Maya, it’s each a chic and real one.