Punta Mita and Sayulita - Nayarit, Mexico

Recently returned from a long weekend celebrating our anniversary in Punta de Mita. There've been other mentions of this area mashed in with the Puerto Vallarta threads. But with all the development that's taken place around here in the last ten years, it's become a destination of it's own -so I think it's time it's gotten its own special place on lth.

My wife and I were fortunate enough to be invited to a business junket at the St. Regis Punta Mita Resort last January, and were pretty wowed by the place. It sits at the tip of the far northern arm of the Bay of Banderas, and its peninsular location makes it an ideal spot for a citadel with a great wall sealing off the entire peninsula. Also within the splendid isolation of the wall sits the Four Seasons Resort, various Jack Nicklaus $500/round golf courses and multi-million dollar haciendas. Seems to be quite the enclave for the top 1%'ers looking to enjoy the splendor of Mexico without getting sullied by the third world squalor lurking outside their gates. So with a satchel stuffed full of Starwood award nights, hey why not?


But what about the food you say. My God, what about the cocktails!
(the St Regis "Mita Mary" - the famous St Regis bloody formula tweaked to incorporate tequila, ¡Salud!)

Pacificos with an excellent ceviche de camaron at poolside, prepared with fresh St. Blas shrimp caught 50 miles up the coast:


The St Regis has a Thursday ritual where a local fisherman brings in his catch, and the kitchen cleans the fish and lays them out on ice poolside. We were there on Thursday last trip, and they had some beautiful fish on display. Red snappers as long and thick as your arm, dorado, a few others that I forgot. You point out your fish and tell them how you want it prepared, and half hour later you're chowing down on your chaise lounge. I had a huachinango prepared al ajillo with some rice last time that was just fantastic. So for lunch and poolside snacks you can get some excellent food at a pretty reasonable value considering the environs. Dinner at the hotel is basically the same ingredients and preparations at triple the cost. If you're not a hotel guest I'd suggest you call the hotel and see if you can get pool privileges for the day. There's 3 pools, and the Beach Club pool (where we hung out) has full locker and shower facilities so I don't see why they would be opposed. They certainly can use the business, the hotel was maybe a third full both times we've gone. Beautiful grounds, great service, excellent food and drink, can certainly think of worse ways to spend a day in the sun.

The St Regis also does an awesome breakfast. I always went for the Full Mexican (desayuno de Nayarit), which included a choice of 3 huevos preparations (pictured is huevos rancheros day woohoo), frijoles refrito, excellent fresh fruit, coffee, pastries, a slab of fried panela cheese, an ethereal tamale and the mysterious "jugo verde" - a delicious concoction of cactus juice, pineapple and 6 other things that according to the waiter has magical restorative properties:


On our last trip the event planner kept us in the resort the entire time. Which was certainly nice, but this time we rented a car so we could get off the reservation. (btw, we used Gecko Rent a Car instead of the big multinationals, they were referred by tripadvisor. Strongly recommend them if you're heading to the northern part of the bay. The owner is an American named Adam so no language barrier, and you can handle all the reservations via email. They're in Bucerias, which is on the main highway half way between the airport and Punta Mita. They have a driver waiting to whisk you from the airport as soon as you step past the customs door, and they drive you to Bucerias at no charge. Then you dump the car in Bucerias on the return, and their driver takes you straight to your airport gate - again, at no additional charge. Super efficient, brand new car at a very fair price, and excellent service).

Right outside the guarded gates of the St Regis/Four Seasons compound sits the tiny village of Punta Mita (which local realtors are rebranding as "El Anclote"). There's an impressive restaurant row on the street fronting the ocean, with a local outpost of Cafe des Artistes anchoring the northern end of the street, and Si Senor on the south end. One night we ate at Margarita's, which was highly recommended by Adam at Gecko - he said make sure we said hello to Hector the owner. Which we did, and he treated us like we were long lost family. This seems to be the preferred hangout for the American ex-pat community, very lively and convivial. Margaritas were superb, and the setting awesome:



Seems like every place on this coast does their version of a butterflied huachinango, seasoned and cooked over an open flame. Margarita's called their's "divorciado" (due to two different saucings, I guess it makes sense after enough tequila). Fish was excellent, hospitality was superb, and the tab was a very reasonable US$60 total for two:


Our concierge at the hotel highly recommended Si Senor for another dinner on this strip. This time it was the owner's brother Javier who hugged me like his favorite son, and plied me with numerous shots of reposados. Didn't bring the camera with, but setting was as pretty as Margarita's but more laid back without the dueling marachi's and bandera blasting from the neighboring resto's like at Margaritas. Cooking had a lot more finesse, again had the roasted huachinango (how can you resist). Most memorable dish was the side of green beans that came with the fish. They called it something else in Spanish, but it was the best Szechaun green beans I've ever had - I told Javier how amazing they were, and he immediately brought out a second helping. Great meal, and a much stiffer tab than Margaritas, I'd recommend it.

Also made it up to Sayulita for an afternoon. Interesting drive up from Punta Mita up the back road, quite a few sections are washed out by summer storms so definitely would not make this drive at night time. Sayulita has become quite the surfer/stoner enclave from what I could see, seeing the young gringoes stumbling around reminded me of a few misspent trips in my youth to Jamaica. Had a nice lunch at Don Pedro's, a big palapa bar with a balcony overlooking the beach. Made of meal of some antojitos, the chicken taquitos were excellent (I think this was the only meat I had on the trip) and the coconut shrimp were really good. Also had a tuna & crab ceviche concoction was just ok, kind of bland actually. Was missing the secret ingredient of Maggi, which is snuck into everyone else's raw fish prep it seems:



So not the most adventurous dining trip, but lot's of great seafood, spectacular weather and gorgeous scenery. Lindo Mexico for certain, ¡Salud!

Nice post, Fast Eddie! Thanks for sharing.

This has been one of the nastier winters in ages, let's escape to the beach!

Was at the St Regis in Punta Mita again recently, this resort just keeps getting better. The landscaping is maturing, the same staff has been here for years, it's really a perfectly run operation just love this place:



They still do the catch of the day ritual on the beach at 11:30am each Friday (which is correct day for the record, I said Thursday on the above post). On this day they laid out some big ass red snappers and dorados. Half hour later was feasting on fresh fresh fresh seviche and amazing fish tacos (didn't take a picture of the tacos dang it!)



Best dinner on this trip was off the reservation at Rosa Mexicana (no affiliation with the NYC chain) in Punta Mita:


Every course was fantastic, starting with this incredible complimentary roast tomato salsa prepared in the molcajete tableside. This might have been the single best thing we ate on this trip:


Followed by a roasted corn & black bean soup, and then pork prepared two ways - Carnitas y Conchinita Pibil:



My wife and I are wintered out, this year might've been the last straw. We're seriously tempted to pull the plug on everything and move to the tropics. So we bounced up and down the Riviera Nayarit coast checking out the little beach towns. There's a big gringo ex-patriot population in this area so it would be a relatively easy adjustment. We started one day up in Chacala, which was too deserted for our liking.

But then we landed at Rincón de Guayabitos - Madre de Dios! This place was a trip. This is a beach town favored by the locals for their beach getaways. Fun little town, lot's of action. HUGE natural beach, goes on for at least two or three miles in a a sheltered bay ringed by hills. And the beach was extremely wide too, easily 100 yards deep. This beach was packed on a Thursday, lot's of action lots of energy very festive. Lot's of music! This one man mariachi band kicked ass, this dude was making some music baby! Reminded me of Curly hiding inside the radio doing his thing in "Dutiful but Dumb"



There was a restaurant conveniently located on the beach, "Roberto's" - mas musica por favor!


Food was pretty good too, and cheap! I think the whole meal with 4 beers was 400 pesos or so. Started with queso fundido and coctel de camarones, and then a huachinango al Diablo - fried snapper in spicy salsa. Muy bueno! This beach was a lot of fun, I suspect it's a party every day here.



On another morning we went to San Francisco (aka to all as "San Pancho") for breakfast. Another beautiful beach, although everyone was too hungover to be laying out yet at 10:00am


We had an excellent breakfast at the Bistro Organique, the hotel restaurant at the Hotel Cielo Rojo. My beloved huevos rancheros and pancakes with mango & pecans - delicioso! Cool town, very hipsterish very much Americanized although you're definitely in Mexico




Had never spent any time in Bucerias before, had just buzzed through it on the highway driving up to Punta Mita. Looked like an armpit from the highway so never gave it much thought, but another couple at the hotel told us how much they liked it. So we stopped there for breakfast before dropping off our rental car on the way home. Wow, who knew? This place was very nice, we'll definitely have to check it out and stay there on another trip. Can't beat the location, very close to downtown Puerto Vallarta but far enough that it doesn't feel so congested. Had another great breakfast at Los Pericos, and one last huevos rancheros for the road.

Hasta luego Mexico!

most recent trip and previous post really appreciated especially on a cold January day. - appreciated.

Nice photos and tasty looking bites.

jimswside wrote:most recent trip and previous post really appreciated especially on a cold January day. - appreciated.

Nice photos and tasty looking bites.

You're welcome - I just stepped out and walked 100' to get lunch and froze my cojones off, this is ridiculous. I wanna go back!!!