With Hotels With Great Taste, we’re pulling back the curtain for a peek at the “special sauce” that hotels use to create memorable, meaningful culinary experiences for their guests.
As you head up the Pacific Coast from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, high-rise hotels and busy traffic give way to dense jungle and views of cloud-topped mountains. The 200 miles of shoreline running around Bahía de Banderas and north to San Blas is known as Riviera Nayarit, and it's commonly billed as being "untouched," due to its relative lack of development.
That's now a misnomer, as an increasing number of visitors have flocked to the area in recent years and new hotels—and a modern highway—have cropped up to accommodate them, but the sentiment remains: Sipping mezcal with your toes in the sand, you'd be forgiven for thinking that you've found your own personal paradise. But more on that in a minute.
Rosewood Mandarina, which began welcoming guests in May 2025, is located on a plot of terrain where Riviera Nayarit's three distinct ecosystems (jungle-y flatlands, beach, and mountains) converge—and the brains behind the operation knew better than to try to compete with Mother Nature.
The natural landscape acts as the property's North Star. Suites are cleverly engineered to blend in with the environment. Furniture and art is sourced from local craftsmen. And while the resort's four dining and drinking spots draw inspiration from cuisines around the world, their menus are filled with ingredients harvested from the surrounding landscape.
"The seafood is sourced locally from trusted regional suppliers, vegetables and coffee come from local, sustainable agriculture, and eggs are sourced from a nearby organic farm," says Jose Mascarós, Rosewood Mandarina's executive chef and head of food and beverage.
Japanese-Peruvian restaurant Toppu is touted as the property's fine-dining option, but for the biggest flavors and most exciting dishes, you'll want a table at La Cocina, Mandarina's Mexican spot. Fruit grown in the resort's on-site garden, handmade tortillas cooked on a comal, ceviche made from fish caught just offshore—you can't get any fresher.
Mandarina's libations, too, are locally sourced, and during my visit late last year, I spent a magical (not a term I use lightly!) afternoon tasting agave spirits with head mixologist Ivan Torres Flores. That snapshot described above, with the mezcal, bare feet, and crashing waves? I lived it.
As Flores poured my husband and me generous sips of tequila, mezcal, raicilla, and sotol—the latter two being less common spirits made from plants native to Mexico—he explained how each drink is made and its significance to the local people.
"Our beverage program is built around agave spirits produced in small, responsible batches," says Flores. "We seek spirits that honor Mexican culture, align with sustainable practices, and tell an authentic story through their origin and production. We want people to understand the vast diversity of agave plants in Mexico and how this natural, cultural, and climatic richness results in an extraordinary variety of agave spirits."
Flores tells us that one of the most common misconceptions about mezcal and other agave spirits is that they taste smoky. "While smokiness can be a characteristic, it does not define mezcal as a whole. The category offers a wide range of flavor profiles," he says.
A sotol from the artisanal spirits brand Flor del Desierto was nearly two decades in the making. The sotol plant, a.k.a. desert spoon, it's derived from needs to grow for 18 to 22 years before it can be harvested. The spirit smells like hazelnuts and tastes like peppercorns. A raicilla, a type of mezcal made from agave grown in Jalisco, by Las Perlas has a saline minerality and notes of tropical fruit.
We drained our glasses as the sun started to sink into the horizon. A crowd was gathering on the beach—a bale of turtle hatchlings was about to be released back into the ocean. I'm handed a small cardboard takeout box with three squirmy babies inside. I crouch down and tip the box on its side so they can wiggle their way toward the waves. Go, little guys! Has there ever been anything so beautiful? It's not the alcohol talking. Well, maybe it's a little bit the alcohol talking, but still… In front of us, it's water as far as the eye can see. Behind, the Sierra Madre Occidental's peaks are just visible over a dense green canopy. Like I said: magical.
