Basketball head
Villa Santa Cruz, Big Four, Bus Palladium, favorite casual Notting Hill restaurants, Peach Palace, BẾP, Roots, MORE
GETAWAYS • Baja, Mexico
Magic town
Against all odds and determined developers, the Pacific-facing side of Baja California Sur has held onto a sliver of uncrowded coastline in a part of Mexico overflowing with foreign investment. For more than a decade, I’ve been coming here to do blessedly little more than surf, eat, and siesta, thanks to the long, empty white sand beaches running parallel to the desert, seafood that goes way beyond fish tacos, and an elemental torpor that attunes me to the rhythms of nature instead of Slack.
Whether it’s still the bohemian haven it’s advertised to be is another story. But fierce local resistance, bumpy dirt roads unlikely to get paved anytime soon, and a lack of fresh water have so far kept mega-resorts at bay.
Where to Stay: Just north of Todos Santos, the surf-town-turned-budding- digital-nomad-destination, Villa Santa Cruz is spread across 20 acres on Playa La Pastora, an advanced surf break that’s humbled me plenty of times. We literally stumbled upon it by accident more than a decade ago, mistaking the inviting open-air lounge with fireplace, bar, and ocean views for the popular Green Room restaurant located steps away on the beach.
Californians Matt and Jessica Canepa have owned the land since 2001, and what started as a small B&B grew into a sprawling hacienda-revival property with tall arches, a burnt orange acid-washed cement pulido facade, and 23 rooms — four of which are beachfront glamping suites, with fire pits and a deck from which to sip complimentary coffee and graze on rotating flavors of mini muffins each morning.
The property has miraculously retained its intimate roots in spite of its size. During our last stay, we rarely saw other guests (and when we did, found them to be simpatico in their desire for discretion and light banter). The staff, though attentive and inquisitive, felt like hosts.
Descending the hand-tiled steps of our bungalow for breakfast meant a short stroll through the property’s farm, which provides produce for the onsite wood-fire restaurant Caracara (of all things, get the burger), a spa with dry sauna and temazcal, horse stables, and tennis, pickleball, and bocce courts. Normally by day three I’m desperate to escape the minimum-security prison feel of most resorts, but here I give myself permission to do nothing, settling as much into the property as into myself.
Where to Dine: For something humbler than Caracara, drive into town. On approach, Pacifica Fish Market offers the ideal of a southern Baja fish taco, a little heavier and more savory than its northern counterparts, with the tortilla practically bursting at the seams with Cajun-spiced seabass and a thick layering of ingredients. In Todos, El Santo Chilote is just as good. A bright green open-air palapa, it sits kitty-corner from the glamorous, bachelorette-friendly Oystera. The fish tacos resemble tempura, unadorned, lightly fried, fresh. I go easy on the toppings bar, preferring little more than lime and a squirt of crema.
Further south in Cerritos, I nursed my irritation about having to compete for waves with overeager beginners by plopping down with my wife at Barracuda Cantina, where we ate fried shrimp tacos and cubed tuna tostadas covered in guacamole, salsa macha, and pickled red onions, with Pacificos in our hands and our feet buried in the sand. After being featured on Netflix’s Taco Chronicles, the restaurant crept closer to the beach amid a new complex of restaurants and stores that hint at Cerrito’s rapid development.
For something less written-about than the verdant vegetarian specialties at Hierbabuena or suckling pig at Chef Javier Plascencia’s Jazamango, there’s Plascencia’s take on Baja-Moroccan at Bar Bar Not Bar, an oasis with a big menu of slow-simmering tagines, couscous, and shawarmas. We came here on the advice of Caracara’s general manager to put down a mezcalita or three to the DJ’s blend of pleasantly insipid hotel-lounge electronic music.
Where to Drink: At La Copa, a cocktail bar connected to the recently opened Todos Santos Boutique Hotel, I inhaled the carajillo made with citrusy Licor 43, espresso, Avena Amaro, and Nixta, a sweet liqueur of nixtamalized heirloom corn and piloncillo.
Where to Spa: As much as I love surfing and fish tacos, I sometimes think we come to Baja so often specifically to reinhabit the world of sisters-in-law Maria Lourdes and Maria Antioneta, whose Dos Marias Day Spa in Pescadero is unlike anything you’ll find at a hotel.
We usually spend the better part of a day here, sweating in the temazcal, soaking in a rose petal and herbal clay tub, and surrendering to one of the best massages of our lives. Somewhere in the first half hour, I stop working at relaxation, and feel myself disappear. The ocean waves, rustling palms, cascading windchimes, and tropical birds keep me anchored in this place. Afterwards, the Marias bring out hot tea or cold glasses of herb-infused jamaica and tell us to hang out for as long as we’d like. –Shona Sanzgiri
→ Villa Santa Cruz (Todos Santos, Mexico) • Camino a la Playitas S/N 23300 • Rooms from $490/night • Book.
GETAWAYS LINKS: The most interesting thing Hoshino Resorts is doing isn’t luxury • Who owns your hotel? A wonky deep dive into the world of hotel ownership structures • Egypt emerges as victor in Middle East’s travel shakeup • Inside Mandarin Oriental’s luxe new Mallorca resort • September opening set for new Nobu Hotel Madrid • Plans announced for Four Seasons Sevilla, opening 2028.
RESTAURANTS • San Francisco
Boom cycle
If you’re looking for old money in San Francisco, try the top of Nob Hill, where the Huntington Hotel opened in 1924 during San Francisco’s third cycle of bust-and-boom. Its Big Four restaurant followed in 1976. Both borrow names from the founders of the Central Pacific Railroad, robber barons whose narrative arcs have been replicated across SF’s history ever since. After a long pandemic closure, change in ownership, and deep renovation, the hotel and its restaurant reopened in March, the latter back as a glorious steakhouse that channels the Gilded Age of California.
Acclaimed designer Ken Fulk renovated and restored the Big Four’s clubby interiors, featuring dark wood panels, a gleaming brass bar, green leather booths, and hushed tartan carpets. You’ll pass oil portraits of railroad tycoons, a golden bear statue, and ram horns twisted on walls. “This looks like the kind of place that Willie Brown would love,” my friend said, and she called it — as he was wont to do prior to its closure, the former mayor was back in his corner seat, surrounded by business diners and their dates.
The menu delivers classics with flourishes. The Louie wedge salad stars local avocado and asparagus, and why wouldn’t you pile on Dungeness crab? Servers finish cioppino at the table, pouring saffron broth over clams, squid, and yellowtail. One pro expertly sliced round the rim of our puffed pot pie, and asked if we’d like a splash of sherry to spike the cream sauce. There are only three cuts for steaks and chops, and it feels like a moment for filet mignon, alongside creamed spinach swirled with Boursin cheese. –Becky Duffett
HOTELS & RESTAURANTS • Paris
It scene
It’s been a long time since Paris had a restaurant that reigned as the city’s Big Room, that white-hot, popular-but-exclusive place where the crowd offers a working definition of Those Who Makes The City Cool. But this season, dine there enough times, and you’ll spot everyone interesting in Paris come through Le Restaurant.
Designed by Studio KO, the hottest interior design firm in Paris, the great moody décor of this intimate dining room in the just-opened Bus Palladium hotel gets its wonderfully odd visual DNA from an elision of Tom Jones and Sid Vicious, or that raggedy time period in Paris when disco and punk rock overlapped for a while. This is because the Bus Palladium, now a 35-room five-star hotel in increasingly gentrified Pigalle, was one of the best and most enduringly avant-garde nightclubs in Paris from its original opening in 1965 to 2022 when it closed.
Now, in addition to the sexy party-pad rooms upstairs and a revived club in the basement, the reason Parisians are flocking here is to discover the cooking of young chef Valentin Raffali, who was recruited from his restaurant Livingston in Marseille to run the kitchen here. Luscious and luminously beautiful, Franco-Moroccan Raffali’s cooking has a poignancy that comes from his deep desire to please and the way his culinary creativity is disciplined by an exacting technical precision. –Alexander Lobrano
GOODS & SERVICES • Big Ticket
Select answers to the FOUND Routine query, What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
→ YONI LOTAN, actor/comedian (NY, above): TICKETS TO KNICKS GAME 3 HELLOOOOOOOO but I also bought this basketball head to wear at the game on Amazon.
→ OR AMSALAM, co-owner, baker & operator, Lodge Bread Co. & Full Proof Pizza (LA): Our pizza oven for Full Proof (our forthcoming new pizza spot). We will be working with an electric Moretti Forni deck oven and we can’t wait to start using it.
→ BANBURY CROSS, burlesque showgirl & cabaret director, Palace Theatre (SF): A custom acrylic champagne glass designed for my 80s Centrefold performance, along with several recent bespoke feather and Swarovski-crystal costumes and jewelry handmade in Italy. Investing in pieces and props that are beautifully made and uniquely mine makes every performance feel a little more magical.
AROUND FOUND • Other Notable Intel & Recs
→ NY: Just opened at JFK’s Terminal 8 is Peach Palace by Momofuku. With wraparound bar and plenty of tables, it’s the biggest Momofuku ever opened in NYC. The full menu features Momo classics like the pork bun, but also, breakfast, as well as a very compelling new spin on sweet and spicy wings.
→ LDN: Chef and farmer Tommy Banks is best known for The Black Swan (intel), his pub-turned-fine-dining destination in Oldstead, North Yorkshire. His flagship makes for a fantastic vacation, but if you only have time for a day trip from London, you can’t go wrong with Roots, a similarly brilliant restaurant just moments from York station.
→ PARIS: It’s a family affair at BẾP. Marie Nguyen and Émilien Quéméner, the duo behind Montmartre natural wine bar Sobremesa, have teamed up with Marie’s brother, chef Antoine Nguyen, to open the Vietnamese restaurant in the 9th arrondissement, a neighborhood that has never been a particular hotspot for Vietnamese food. It debuted in April.
ASK FOUND
One PROMPT for which we seek your intelligence:
What’s your favorite restaurant that you’ve visited on your travels?
More answers or questions? Hit reply or email found@itsfound.com.
RESTAURANTS • The Nines
Casual, Notting Hill
FOUND’s 9 favorite casual restaurants in the iconic London neighborhood.
