We went to Mayakoba last month with five other families to celebrate Melissa K.'s 40th birthday…read more With twenty-two people in our party, including ten children, we played most of our meals by ear. Our last night, though, was Mel's actual birthday, and she and Kevin L. treated everyone to a fantastic dinner at Fuego, the beachfront restaurant at the Fairmont.
The set-up was perfect for our group, which was about the same size as the cast of Lost (we too made ourselves comfortable on a scenic beach). The kitchen was outdoors, with a wood-fired grill, and the tables were right on the sand. We spent a solid three hours at Fuego, our children free to run and play around us when they finished their dinner. I would recommend bringing bug repellent or otherwise preparing for the little biting insects in the sand, which were very active at sunset (they calmed down when it got dark). I'm also amused by the one-star Yelp review starring a horde of raccoons. We did have one raccoon party crasher, who made off with someone's dessert.
Service was excellent. We were well supplied with alcohol, and the pre-set menu came out at a good pace. Unfortunately, my picky six-year-old had nothing to eat, even on the kid's menu, but the staff went above and beyond to help us out. I asked, with the appropriate amount of shame, if there was any way we could get him a plain carb, something like bread or pasta, and our waiter arranged to bring him pasta with marinara sauce from a different hotel restaurant. My son had a hearty dinner thanks to his efforts.
I drank several cocktails, starting with a Riki Tiki, a refreshing drink made with Aperol, mezcal, passion fruit, lime juice, and agave syrup. Then I switched to Mr. Mezcal, a sort of sweet and spicy margarita with Liquor Ancho Reyes, mezcal, lime juice, agave syrup, and a choice of hibiscus, passion fruit, or guava. I tried both the passion fruit and guava and both were great, though I'd give the edge to the guava.
The food was superb, the best I had on this trip, and plenty of it. There were tlayudas with regional salsas--chiltomate, sikil pak, and habanero tamulada. The vegetable dishes came out of the garden. Charred corn esquites with aioli, chapulin chili powder, and lime; k'uum, a regional Mayan dish with local pumpkin, butternut squash, pattypan, zucchini, pumpkin seed, pumpkin flower, and Ramonetti cheese; then caramelized Noh Bec carrots and chaya with Mayan spinach chlorophyll, burnt cream, and cashew.
I loved both of the raw offerings, the blue fish al pastor and the aguachile. I'm not sure what kind of fish was in either dish (I don't think "blue fish" is a species outside Dr. Seuss), but they were fresh and delicious. The blue fish came with honey pineapple, guajillo chili, regional citrus, criollo cilantro, and chochoyotas, which must have been the tiny masa Cheerios. The Vallarta-style aguachile was made with silky artisan hook-caught fish. It was a colorful dish, the fish in a Pepto Bismol pink marinade, in a bowl of creamy puréed avocado salsa with cherry tomatoes and pickled onion. There was also a piece of corn toast drizzled with avocado and cilantro.
Four shareable entrées, cooked on the grill and tremendously flavorful. Campeche shrimp came with roasted garlic emulsion, toasted shishitos, radish, and mizuna. The pollo Rock Cornish "La Cabaña" and wild mushrooms was a cozy bowl of tender game hen with a seasonal mushroom "menudo," mushroom salad, and huitlacoche stew. Mayan octopus was beautifully grilled, with dried chilies adobo, charred eggplant purée, and pickled xcatic chile. My favorite, though, was the catch a las brasas, a large butterflied fish with arbol chile, oregano, mayo, and rice. It came with lemon and green salsa and tortillas to make fish tacos.
Dessert was served, along with two feisty sparklers to mark Mel's birthday. The desserts spread was lovely, with a number of things I'd never tried before, many of them involving cheese. There was cassava cake with buffalo cheese, activated coconut charcoal, and regional fruit cream; a wood-fired cheesecake with green papaya compote and double cream cheese; and totomoxtle--an heirloom corn husk--with seasonal stone fruit, toasted almonds, pinole crumble, ricotta and mango ice cream, and cotija cheese. On the simpler side, there was a Mexican chocolate brownie with vanilla and strawberry ice cream.
We all had a wonderful time at Fuego, the adults feasting and drinking on a gorgeous beach, the children eating a good dinner then playing in the sand. It was a birthday party to remember, a celebration worthy of our beloved friend and auntie.
