A walking food tour of San José del Cabo isn’t a stroll, it’s a full-on flavour mission, and it’s not for the faint hearted. We meet our guide, Adrian, at 10:00am in the town square outside the historic Mission Church. Originally built by the Spanish but rebuilt several times over, the building is small and plain but beautiful. It’s interesting to see stained glass windows that open to let the breeze through.

Adrian leads us to El Pisito. We wonder where the heck we’re going as it looks like an old garage, And it is, but as we climb the steps at the side it starts to smell like a restaurant. We’re here for the enmoladas. Picture soft tortillas wrapped around tender chicken, blanketed in rich mole (pronounced moll-lay) negro. There are hundreds of different recipes for mole, a dark, nutty sauce with just the right kick of spice. It is deep and earthy, clinging to everything in the best way, and it’s a I want to lick the plate dish.



At the next stop, the Mercado Municipal, the town market, we see huge containers of different moles for sale. When you make mole it’s difficult to make a small amount as it usually includes twenty or more ingredients, many requiring their own preparation, and it takes hours. I know, because I made it myself – once – and if I remember rightly I gave the dinner guests containers of mole to take home.



The mercado is very small by market standards. Typically we’d expect a farmers’ market with lots of fruit and vegetable sellers, but Los Cabos is in the desert and there are no farmers. Almost everything is brought in. At the food stalls, we sit at long tables with the locals out for a late Sunday breakfast, and Adrian orders quesabirria. These are sensational. The history of the dish is short he tells us, maybe ten years, and it’s an adaptation of a birra, a dish of marinated meat cooked in a broth for ten or so hours. Taco sellers would sell birra on tacos and it was a few short steps to creating the more easily eaten quesabirria. It’s a cross between a taco and a quesadilla. The stew, usually beef, and cheese are inside a corn tortilla that has been dipped in the flavorful fat leftover from the stewing process, then crisped on the plancha. They’re messy and soft crunchy and delicious. I especially like my Nemo plate.

So following chicken and beef were ready for pork. It’s time for carnitas, the soul of Mexican street meat. Carnitas starts with the whole pig, you read that right, nothing is wasted, slow-cooked for hours in a cazo, a wide copper cauldron of bubbling pork lard. The kitchen is busy with cooks brandishing cleavers and chopping mountains of pork, crispy crackling skin, and tripe. The tripe sits in the display, twisted into plaited ropes. Adrian tells us he comes here at least once a week for tripe carnitas and dark beer. They’re not for everyone, but apparently unforgettable for the bold. We are not bold.


We’re beginning to waddle at this stage because no, I can’t leave anything on my plate. I was brought up to think about the starving children in Biafra. While there’s a good walk between the stops until now, Tacos Rossy is nearby. It’s time to go to seafood. The specialty here is sea bass fried in a very light batter so it is light and crisp, topped with slaw and spicy salsa. One bite cuts through the fat of the earlier meats, fresh as the coast.


The finale, after almost four hours, is a frozen fresh fruit popsicle from a quiet corner shop. I go for mango, Scott for lime. Cold, clean, and just sweet enough. The perfect finish to a tour that doesn’t pull any punches, and imparts a sense of place through the history of the dishes and the regional variations. This is the best food tour I’ve ever done, and now I need a lie down.

