Minimalist Walls, Baroque Heart: Mexican Cuisine and Wine at The Cape in Los Cabos

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The Cape, a Thompson Hotel, is all restraint in its architecture: poured concrete, glass, and steel set against the Sea of Cortez, with the desert at its back. Designed by architect Javier Sanchez, the structure acts like a dark frame for the landscape, inspired by the black rocks where the waves break. It channels ocean light and desert air much like a camera obscura, focusing the view toward The Arch and the bay.

Yet step inside, and Mexico asserts itself: flavors that layer sweetness with heat, service that blends precision with warmth, and a kitchen where tradition and invention share the same plate. It’s an understated structure wrapped around a baroque heart.

That tension between the building’s minimalism and the generosity within runs through the work of Executive Chef Ari Reyes and Wine Director Cindy Sandoval. Both trained in Puebla, one of Mexico’s culinary capitals, where patience and precision are second nature. Here in Baja, they bring that discipline to a place where architecture sets the stage for an experience built on depth, detail, and a distinctly Mexican sense of hospitality.

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Mexican Cuisine: From Puebla’s Kitchens to Baja’s Shores

Mexican cuisine is often reduced to its best-known dishes, like mole poblano, cochinita pibil, or pozole verde, but its identity runs deeper. It is a national language shaped by centuries of indigenous knowledge, colonial influence, and constant reinvention. Every region speaks it differently.

Puebla is one of its most articulate voices. Known for layered moles, chiles en nogada, and a meticulous approach to balance, the city shows how flavor can carry history. Ari grew up nearby, in Orizaba, Veracruz. Cindy was born in Ciudad Serdan, Puebla state, before moving to the capital.

That shared foundation means their work at The Cape carries the confidence of tradition while remaining open to new expressions: a conversation between memory and invention that plays out on every plate and in every glass.

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Mexican Wine’s Parallel Story: Deep Roots and a Modern Renaissance

Like its cuisine, Mexican wine speaks in many regional dialects. Its story has two distinct chapters. The first began centuries ago, when Spanish settlers brought vines to the northern deserts. Coahuila’s Casa Madero, founded in 1597, is the oldest winery in the Americas, proof that winemaking here has deep roots.

The second chapter is still unfolding. In recent decades, Mexico’s wine regions have grown in skill and ambition, matching the seriousness of producers in Argentina, Chile, and Napa. Valle de Guadalupe in Baja California now anchors the country’s reputation. Coahuila and Querétaro add their strengths, and even Puebla, better known for its cuisine, is beginning to produce boutique vintages.

For Cindy, wine is another way to explore Mexico’s complexity. She describes it as baroque in its own right: layered, sometimes bold, sometimes restrained, always revealing something about the place it comes from. At The Cape, the wine list is an exchange between Mexico and the wider world, with pairings chosen for their ability to complement the kitchen’s voice, not overshadow it.

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How Baja Shapes the Flavors at The Cape

Baja California Sur changes the way chefs and sommeliers think. The peninsula’s geography demands it: long supply routes, a desert climate, and the Pacific and Sea of Cortez on either side. What’s available is shaped by the season and by the people who bring it in: fishermen, farmers, and small-scale producers who work close to the land and water.

The move to Baja put Ari in direct conversation with the sea. Local fishermen arrive with the morning’s catch, sometimes species he hasn’t planned for, but will adapt around. That flexibility leads to dishes like totoaba with sweet potato and pipián, where a native fish meets a sauce with pre-Hispanic roots.

For Cindy, pairings respond to this same rhythm. She chooses wines for ingredients pulled from the water hours earlier or grown in sparse desert soil. Baja requires a balance between planning and improvisation, and that tension often shapes the best matches.

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Signature Dishes and Pairings: From Totoaba to Lobster Risotto

Some plates at The Cape carry the restaurant’s philosophy in full. One is Ari’s totoaba with sweet potato and pipián, a meeting of Baja’s sea and Puebla’s kitchen. The fish is seared to preserve its flavor, the sweet potato lends a mellow richness, and the pipián, made with pumpkin seeds, chiles, and spices, adds depth without overpowering. Cindy pairs it with a Tuscan Ansonica from the family estate Tua Rita, elegant and fresh with the structure of an almost orange wine. Its texture meets the pipián; its acidity lifts the fish.

The lobster risotto with huancaína sauce takes a different path: creamy, bright, unapologetically rich. Cindy’s first instinct is a Satèn-like Franciacorta, whose fine bubbles and structure temper the creaminess. She also reaches into Mexico’s cellars, from a crisp white in Coahuila to a barrel-aged Chardonnay from Valle de Guadalupe. Both carry enough backbone to stand with the dish without muting its brightness.

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The Cape Experience: Architecture, Cuisine, and Wine in Dialogue

Dining at The Cape is not a quick encounter. The pacing is deliberate, shaped by the kitchen’s rhythm and the shifting light outside. Courses arrive in measured succession, leaving room for conversation, for a wine’s scent to open, for a sunset to move from gold to violet.

A menu here moves with the flow of a well-composed piece. Each course builds naturally on the last. Pairings are tested until they feel inevitable, even if they began as experiments. Cindy listens to what the wine and food are saying together, tasting not just for flavor but for texture, weight, and the impression they leave.

For a visiting couple, that might be the first sip of Franciacorta Satèn with a local oyster. For a resident returning after months away, it could be a favorite dish reinterpreted with the season’s catch.

At The Cape, the interplay between architecture, cuisine, and wine is not staged; it’s lived. In a region better known for its beaches than its cellars, Ari and Cindy are quietly expanding what visitors expect from Mexican hospitality. Their work points to a future where Mexican wine and cuisine evolve together: layered, precise, and unafraid to mix past and present. The building sets the scene; the table delivers the reason to remember it.