“This trip opened my eyes to the fact that Cancún has turned into a destination with a real sense of style and sophistication. It’s grown up.”

-Terry Jones
Founder/Former CEO, Travelocity.com
Chairman, Kayak.com

My girlfriend, Ginny, and I stayed at the Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach, a pink palace of a resort in Cancún’s famous Hotel Zone. All of the rooms are ocean-facing suites, and I thought ours was an unusually large one, with a gorgeous terrace facing the water, only to learn that the resort has more than 30 just like it. The service was impeccable from the front desk onward. While Ginny spent the morning at the spa, I went down to the beach, where I was immediately offered water and a cold, herb-scented towel and asked if I wanted anything to eat and drink, or would I like to take out a jet ski? I actually just wanted to hang out at the beach but all that attention was very nice.

Cancún’s cuisine has definitely grown up. At lunch that day, the resort’s executive chef, Eric Scuiller, gave us a preview of the new menu at Isla Contoy, the outstanding poolside restaurant: roasted red pepper soup with a crab tower; ceviche cocktail, layered with pico de gallo and guacamole; beets layered with nopales (prickly pear cactus) and goat cheese; pistachio-crusted rack of lamb with mint-infused oil and an intermezzo of beer-flavored sorbet in a traditional beer glass.

The meal was paired with Mexican wines. Now, Mexican beer and Mexican tequila I knew, but I had never had a Mexican wine. What a surprise! We started with a chenin blanc that was very good, then moved on to a sauvignon blanc that was excellent, and finished with a red similar to a Barolo that had a wonderful nose and multiple flavors. It stood up very well to the lamb.

Chef John Gray is also doing his part to live up to Cancun’s rising gastronomic reputation. Gray had been a luxury-resort chef in Cancún before opening his own restaurants south of the city, in Puerto Morelos and Playa del Carmen. He named his newest establishment John Gray’s Downtown because it feels like a place in downtown New York, and also because it’s in downtown Cancún, a bit off the beaten track. “I like that you have to work a little to find it,” he said.

Gray told us when he first came to the area, he couldn’t get a wide range of produce, meats or spices, and for a time he was flying everything in. Now he’s sourcing a lot of ingredients from around the Yúcatan Peninsula. What I loved about Gray’s and Scuiller’s food was how they apply their culinary technique to uniquely Mexican flavors. For instance, Gray cooks a brisket with recado negro, a sauce of allspice, cinnamon, Yúcatan oregano, and the ashes of raisin-size peppers called pequines that are roasted until they’re black. The incredibly smoky recado negro tends to be paired with turkey or pork, so people were surprised how well Gray’s idea worked. He completed our dinner with the surprise of adding coconut to the crème brûlée (wonderful) and vanilla (originally, like chocolate, a Mayan product) to the banana bread.

That sort of cultural cross-pollination is also occurring outside of the food realm. At Luxury Avenue, a shopping mall in the Hotel Zone that’s devoted to upscale brands, is a Pineda Covalin boutique. Founded in collaboration with Mexico’s National Anthropology Institute, the fashion company uses fabrics based on traditional Mexican patterns and colors, as well as Mexican mythology and architecture. Of course, Luxury Avenue also boasts the global high-end brands you’d expect: Cartier, Montblanc, Louis Vuitton, and others. There’s even a Veuve Clicquot champagne bar — a far cry from the usual mall food court — so now I know where to buy a cylindrical carrying case for a split of champagne.

It’s just as well we didn’t go on a shopping spree because we needed room in our bags for a few bottles of tequila. (I’ve carried on my bags for 30 years, but I made an exception on this trip.) During our final evening in Cancún, Miriam Moreno, the maître d’ at Le Basilic at the Fiesta Americana, arranged a tequila tasting for us. We compared blanco, reposado and añejo varieties, and I learned that the difference between blanco and reposado is that the latter is aged in oak barrels. (Ginny said she already knew, but then again, she’s a tequila aficionado. In fact, she once had a license plate that read “TEKILLA.”) As we sipped the añejo in snifters, like you would cognac, Miriam described how in the 1970s, everyone was making “tequila,” so standards were established. Tequila now must be at least 50 percent agave or distillers can’t use the name, though the good stuff is 100 percent agave. Now tequila is considered a drink to be savored, not just in Mexico but around the world.