Notes from Mérida: Club Sibarita Puts on the Dog

Every spring, Club Sibarita hosts a “Festival Gastronómico de Yucatán” spread over several days in and around the capital. The festivities include tastings, expositions, elegant dinners featuring invited chefs from local as well as renowned national restaurants and an outdoor all-you-can-eat (and drink) food festival. This April nvited chefs of honor were Thierry Blouet of Café Des Artistes, Puerto Vallarta; Hiroshi Kawahito of Koya, CDMX; Jorge Ildefonso from La Mata, Mérida; Alexis Ayala of Pargot, CDMX; Enrique Hernández who runs Komunal in Colima and is worth a detour to that seldom visited city. In addition, I will keep an eye on Paloma Ponce, an independent chef from Mexico City whose best friend is smoke and cooked with it at several events.

 The first organized dinner was held at the recently inaugurated Hotel Sureño, a centrally located mansion whose interior has been smartly modernized in a tasteful less-is-more style.

The invited chefs and guest journalists were then treated to a day visit to the highly recommended Destino Mío, an exquisitely done “jungle retreat” in the middle of nowhere about an hour out of town, that incorporates three refreshing cenotes, those underground cave/springs unique to the peninsula, several nicely appointed rooms in the “glamping” tradition and a very good restaurant whose chef utilizes produced organically grown on the property. We hated to leave.

 The culmination of the festival was a six-course dinner aptly entitled “The Art of Fine Dining” and set, al fresco, at the elegantly restored colonial-era Hacienda Chichí Suarez. While balmy breezes blew, champagne flowed and well-heeled guests, about 150 of them, were treated to such standout dishes as chef Blouet’s simple salade composée of exquisite baby nopal and charred avocado astutely gleaned from the local market and chef Hernandéz’ exquisite snapper drizzled with preserved lemon mayonnaise and a ponzu sauce fragrant with sesame and cilantro.  

The chefs (photo courtesy Club Sibarita)

 And the writer and his colleagues did sneak away to breakfast at Taquería la Lupita, a locally famous institution in the small Mercado Santiago. Lupita prepares the best lechón and cochinita in town—God bless her.

 We’ll look forward to next year’s edition of Club Sibarita and any events they offer before then. As the song goes, “You CAN in Yucatán”.

Club Sibarita
Mérida, Yucatan
www.clubsibarita.mx