and a mosquito net. The hotel’s owner, Paola, is an Italian woman with unruly gray hair and perpetual Birkenstock sandals. She has been in Tulum for 12 years. “People come here to find tranquility,” she says over a meal of freshly caught fish and chilled white wine. “We’re doing everything we can to keep it this way.” Right across the narrow street that follows the ocean is El Tabano, a sprawling Mexican restaurant in the jungle with colorful recycled furniture. Every morning, in an open-air kitchen, women hand grind chiles to make rich, flavorful Yucatánstyle sauces, such as pibil, mole or pipian, hand grind corn to cook fresh tortillas and prepare freshly caught fish, which is served with habaneros. An
extensive selection of Mexican wines is also on the menu. “You come here to eat home cooking,” says Laura Brea, a bubbly Spanish brunette who opened the restaurant in 2008. “We wanted to create a playful and innovative place, and a magical realism-inspired setting.” As for health nuts, they might prefer Amansala, where New Yorker Melissa Perlman pioneered the Bikini Boot Camp 14 years ago. Lean young people drink detox concoctions, practice 6am meditation and yoga classes, and tan on the quasi-deserted beach. “People come here to reconnect with themselves and be healthy,” says Perlman. Now Amansala also offers yoga, detox and wellness holiday packages for those who’d choose a Bikini
Martini (with chia, pineapple and vodka) over an all-you-candrink-and-eat buffet. “This is the anti-Cancun,” Perlman adds. Equally boho is the chic hotel Coqui Coqui, a favorite of Eva Mendez, Kate Bosworth and Ricardo Tisci. The owners, Argentine model Nicolas Belleville and Milanese Francesca Bonato, fell in love on this beach and began offering massages and facials on their tiny property with the island’s coconut oils and flowers. “This is the most beautiful beach in the world,” says Bonato, a beautiful brunette with delicate freckled skin and large blue eyes. “And it’s still very natural. For me real luxe is waking up in the morning and seeing the Caribbean. There’s a magnetic energy here; we’re very close to the stars.” 265 A