Curtis Stone’s Latest Restaurant Is Mixing His Household’s Cooking Traditions With the Yucatán’s

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 motels workforce approached him about opening a restaurant on a resort they had been refurbishing on this scorching spot simply south of Cancun, he felt a direct connection.  

“[Belmond] actually needed to enhance it — however hold its pure allure,” he says of the resort, which was beforehand a personal residence. It’s a departure from most of the close by seashores, the place massive motels have shot up shortly and pushed a celebration scene full with daytime DJs. However what actually caught Stone’s consideration was the open hearth 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 hearth 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 fireplace, and that’s a really particular odor to me.”

Stone already faucets into that cooking custom at Gwen, however he cherished the concept of doing it via 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 taking place for good cause. The substances 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 workforce to construct a menu that, he says, is slightly like “writing a love letter” to the world.

“I’m actually into telling tales via dishes,” Stone says. “And right here, we’re embracing the Mayan tradition, we’re embracing the substances — however we’re nonetheless cooking in a means that may 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 completed 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 arms on that’s acquired a very 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 could be enthusiastic about 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 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 may ebook 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. 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 workforce are writing a love letter to Riviera Maya, it’s each a sublime and real one.