Hotel Azucar

The Habita mini-empire, comprising Mexico City’s Habita and Condesa DF, as well as Playa del Carmen’s Deseo and Basico, expands yet again; this time to Veracruz, near San Rafael, a little beach town that makes Playa del Carmen look like the big city by comparison. It’s the perfect place for another design-savvy eco-retreat, sort of in the same vein as the largely recycled Basico, only more basic — instead of post-industrial concrete and oil tanks, here we’re back to thatched-roof bungalows, albeit ones with crisp all-white contemporary bedrooms inside.

The construction is sustainable and environmentally friendly, a reaction against the despoilment that followed in the wake of Mexico’s first bega-resorts. And unlike those mega-resorts, here the accommodation choices are few: one king bed or two, and that’s about it. All twenty bungalows come with private terraces and hammocks, which should give you some idea of what kind of place this is; Azúcar is about lounging in style. There’s a rather good seafood restaurant, an open-air library, a pool deck littered with beanbags and pillows, and huts on the beach, for communing with nature. Chill out with yoga, meditation and massage, or strike out on a bike, a horse, a raft, or on foot — there’s the fishing village of San Rafael, as well as plenty of wild countryside and the pre-Columbian ruins at El Tajín.