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Opening a restaurant in Mexico’s Riviera Maya wasn’t an apparent subsequent step for Curtis Stone. In any case, 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 resorts crew approached him about opening a restaurant on a resort they have been refurbishing on this sizzling spot simply south of Cancun, he felt an instantaneous connection.
“[Belmond] actually needed to enhance it — however maintain its pure attraction,” he says of the resort, which was beforehand a non-public residence. It’s a departure from lots of the close by seashores, the place massive resorts have shot up rapidly 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 an enormous 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 liked the concept of doing it by means of the lens of Mexico’s personal traditions — and culinary strengths. “Mexico is in the course of an incredible 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 together 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 means 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 method 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 sizzling day. The “Mayan rice” is completed risotto-style, however the central ingredient including taste is native chaya greens. Then, after all, there’s the part of the menu that’s cooked over an open flame.
“There’s an unimaginable indigenous wooden right here that we’ve bought our fingers on that’s bought a extremely delicate scent,” he says. “And over it we roast lovely 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 folks is likely to be all for coming to my restaurant,” Stone says. “We needed 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 12 months. The model has taken nice pains to supply friends distinctive experiences that work in concord with the pure environment of the Yucatán. Onsite, there’s a nursery producing endemic crops 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 may e-book a bee remedy and sound therapeutic session, take a category on native crops and herbs on the apothecary, or sweat it out in a temazcal. If you keep at one of many 72 rooms and villas, you’ll mechanically have an attendant to curate your go to, whether or not reserving your eating, yoga, meditation, and even sustainable ocean golf.
You may as well 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.
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