“A local treat,” says my server, encouragingly.
“High in protein,” adds the handsome man sitting next to me at the bar, the spitting image of tennis star Carlos Alcaraz. Wait, is that him? I stare too long, and now we’re both uncomfortable.
Feigning nonchalance, I stuff another taco down my throat and reach for another swig of margarita before bringing a worm (technically, it’s an insect) to my tongue. I close my lips around it. A gentle crunch. A vibration of salt. A faint rush of fat. Tastes almost like a chicharron. But I’ve gotten off track. The worms are not why I’m here Nor is it these flower-printed tortillas, although I could certainly eat daily at this taco shack and never get bored.
No, I came to the Jalisco coast for Coyul, the resort’s signature restaurant — a partnership between Four Seasons and chef Elena Reygadas, whose wildly popular Rosetta in Mexico City I’d enjoyed years prior. She owns a string of restaurants and bakeries, but this is her first and only one outside the city.
Outside the city is an understatement. We’re in the middle of nowhere on a 2,000-acre compound surrounded by jungle, on the edge of a private peninsula overlooking the sea. The hotel’s modular suites and villas cascade down a cliff and continue along the beachfront. The view from mine triggers a confusing sense of melancholy deep in my chest, perhaps from knowing that I’ll eventually have to leave.
When Coyul opened in 2021, only a handful of the 157 rooms were ready to receive guests, so the restaurant flew under the radar, almost a secret, while construction inched forward.
The miles-long private road that connects Tamarindo to the highway took nearly 20 years to build, says Herve Fucho, resort manager and one of the hotel’s first hires. He helped assemble the team and shepherd development of what would become, essentially, an entirely new village built from scratch. “We even built a school,” he says.
The rooms are finally complete this year, and the two cooks from Rosetta who had relocated for the opening have since returned to the city. The majority of the team now hails from the region, from the Costalegre to the north or Colima to the south.
Coyul serves breakfast and dinner, but not lunch, which partly explains why I keep returning to Nacho, as well as the resort’s open-air beachfront restaurant, Sal, where executive chef Miguel Soltero and sous chef Aharon Pando serve fantastic seafood: tuna and mahi-mahi from local fishermen to be dry-aged in house, plus tropical ceviches, gorgeous aguachiles and whole, salt-roasted snapper.
Hotel breakfast could seem like a downgrade for a celebrity chef, but Reygadas is famous for baking. The morning pastry display is pure spectacle, and I’m tempted more than once to fill my tote with chocolate croissants and conchas and make a run for the beach.
Come sunset, Coyul’s terrace is fully booked, and as the sky fades from orange to red to purple, I feel my heart smiling as I bask in the breeze, relishing handmade hoja santa pappardelle in a silken sauce of queso Ocosingo. And when I’m confronted with a risotto crafted not from rice but nixtamalized corn, heady with the aroma of pecorino cheese and a heavy dollop of manzano-pepper mayonnaise, bite after bite I find myself breathless. It’s truly extraordinary.
“More Taittinger?” asks the server, just in time.
Much of what’s on the menu at Coyul, as with Nacho and Sal — purslane, herbs, chiles, heirloom corn and beets, but also chicken, eggs, lamb — comes from the resort’s self-operated farm. “We’re constantly discovering what the land wants to offer,” Reygadas says.
“Squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk!” It’s 7 am, and I’m jolted out of bed by a covey of chachalacas who’ve mistaken the pool on my terrace for their morning birdbath. The wildly talkative birds, native to this jungle, look like a cross between oversize roadrunners and small pheasants. And while I wish they would discover their indoor voices, I welcome their wake-up call because I’m supposed to be having breakfast at the farm today and, “Yikes, my driver’s going to be here any minute!”
A charming valet with a lead foot retrieves me in an electric buggy, and we race across the resort at F1 speeds, zigzagging up, down and around hairpin curves until we reach the graveled entrance of the farm, where we skid to a stop under a giant palm tree. But for chef Soltero and his crew stoking fires in the outdoor kitchen, I’m the first one here. The air smells alive with herbs, smoldering pork, fried eggs and charred tortillas.
As the last plates from breakfast get cleared, here comes Fucho, all smiles. A former chef himself, he led the kitchens at Four Seasons Hong Kong years ago, when that hotel collected more Michelin Stars for its restaurants than any other hotel in the guide. Now embracing his Old MacDonald phase, he’s been the mastermind behind the farm. He takes me inside the chicken coop and the bee shed and the greenhouse where they grow seedlings for the quelites (native greens and herbs).
“Corn is our most important project,” he explains. “Corn is everything.” And that’s not just for Tamarindo, but also Mexico at large — including the neighboring village of La Manzanilla on the other side of the mountain (population 1,500; not to be confused with the larger Manzanillo, where the airport is). “We made too much masa last year at Christmas, so we sold the surplus to some locals. Now the entire town wants to buy our tortillas.”
Still in its early stages, the farm’s flock has grown to 200 chickens, but that’s not nearly enough yet, given that the resort goes through 450 eggs a day. “If I’ve done the math right,” Fucho says, “we’ll need about 600 chickens before we’re fully self-sustaining.”
The farm’s goal is to supply its own pork, too. Tamarindo just bought six Mangalitsa pigs, massive creatures, which Fucho says he plans to breed with Durocs from Jalisco.
Seeing the pigs makes me think again of Nacho: not of worms, but fondly of tacos, specifically the tacos al pastor — chile-marinated pork slowly roasted on a vertical spit until crisped and fragrant — a family recipe of chef Pando.
“I better get back to the hotel,” I declare with startled urgency, waving to the valet to get the buggy revved up. I came for Coyul. But it’s lunchtime again, and the competition for delicious memories here is strong.
Four Seasons Resort Tamarindo, K.M. 7.5 – Carretera Federal 200, Barra de Navidad, 48898 La Huerta, Jalisco, Mexico; fourseasons.com/tamarindo. The closest commercial airport is in Manzanillo, 50 minutes south. Rates from about $1,200.
This story originally appeared in OLTRE. For more dining and travel inspiration, I invite you to follow me and join the conversation on Instagram, Facebook and Threads. (I’m no longer active on Twitter/X.)
