To present fine dining in an all-inclusive setting can feel like a paradox, but Cocina de Autor Riviera Maya, the winner of this year’s MICHELIN Guide Mexico Service Award, ensures hospitality and gastronomy are in sync at their peak.
The experience at the One MICHELIN Star restaurant, from the moment you arrive to the lush corner of the Grand Velas Riviera Maya resort where Cocina de Autor is set, is thoughtful and precise. The restaurant director escorts guests up to the dining room personally. A welcome drink with Prosecco is prepared tableside.
Across nine courses, the vision of Chef Nahúm Velasco is expressed with enthusiasm: each dish, diners are told, is a fun and creative version of the traditional.
In a part of the country where most meals come piled high on a plate by the guest’s own hand, dinner at Cocina de Autor is a welcome exception. Dishes like the “It’s Nut Butter,” a play on words made with pecans and foie gras, and the rock coral and pollen, which simulates food for a bee, conveyed by the front of house storytellers, carry the guest away on their imagination.
Still, this is the Mexican Caribbean coast, a global tourism epicenter, and guests have every right to expect to be catered to. Staff at Cocina de Autor are trained that every table is their own and use hand signals to coordinate for a silent dining room.
Requests are greeted with a smile: If the kid’s club is closing and you have only an hour to eat, the elegant tasting is expedited. The customer on a luxury vacation is always right.
Hero image: Cocina de Autor Riviera Maya / Staff
