Where are Los Cabos restaurants getting their fresh, organic ingredients? Right at home

Los Cabos has ever boasted an abundance of caller section seafood, but implicit the past 2 decades, section nutrient and meats person besides go staples astatine galore country restaurants — surely successful the municipality’s champion restaurants.

Although not an cultivation powerhouse, Los Cabos does nutrient a important magnitude of integrated produce.

Los Cabos is not Mexico’s biggest cultivation producer, but it is Mexico’s biggest shaper of integrated agriculture. (Flora Farms)

“We are the fig 1 portion successful Mexico that produces integrated vegetables and fruit,” Rodrigo Esponda, Managing Director of the Los Cabos Tourism Board, told Travel Pulse Canada. “Everything is for section consumption; we don’t export.”

Los Cabos’ acclaimed farm-to-table nutrient scene

Nowhere is the ethos of section nutrient for section depletion much evident than successful the municipality’s acclaimed farm-to-table restaurants. Flora Farms was the first, with Gloria and Patrick Greene pioneering the inclination erstwhile they bought onshore successful Ánimas Bajas, conscionable extracurricular San José del Cabo, successful 1992. 

Flora’s Field Kitchen opened successful 2010. Today, the 135 oregon truthful types of fruits, vegetables and herbs grown connected the seven-acre workplace and neighboring ranch are reserved for usage astatine the edifice oregon Flora Farms market, oregon for employees oregon owners of the property’s culinary cottages; if they turn excessively overmuch of anything, it’s donated to the section orphanage oregon different bully causes.

The edifice dictates what’s grown organically during the farm’s extended 10-month increasing season. Crops are rotated often, nary pesticides are utilized and companion planting keeps the ungraded fertile. For example, maize takes nitrogen retired of the soil, truthful it’s planted with beans, which puts nitrogen backmost successful the ground.

Meanwhile, the adjacent 120-acre ranch raises free-range pigs and sheep with conscionable capable cows to nutrient dairy for burrata and crystal cream. However, they aren’t culled for beef, and owed to concerns astir c dioxide emissions, their numbers are kept to a minimum. 

A bartender astatine Acre, wherever nutrient from the restaurant’s workplace adjacent makes it into immoderate of the cocktails. (Acre)

Flora Farms and Acre, different Ánimas Bajas-based restaurant, are the astir celebrated of the present galore Los Cabos farm-to-table operations. Produce grown connected Acre’s 20-acre workplace provides the backbone of Acre Restaurant & Cocktail Bar — yes, cocktails too, including the figs successful its Fig Collins. Meats and seafood are sourced from sustainable section producers.

The integrated farming superior of Los Cabos

San José del Cabo, Miraflores and Santiago correspond Los Cabos’ arable farm belt. The accumulation successful these areas has a agelong history. As Alba E. Gámez points retired successful her humanities relationship successful “Los Cabos: Prospective for a Natural and Tourism Paradise,” a period ago, San José del Cabo ranchers were managing 24,000 heads of cattle portion farmers produced 90 tons of tomatoes on with 690 tons of the piloncillo — unrefined cane sweetener — that was erstwhile a staple successful San José and Santiago. 

Nowadays, Miraflores, a municipality of astir 1,500 residents, is Los Cabos’ undisputed integrated farming capital, producing crops that grace galore a edifice array successful Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo. Grower Carlos Manuel González produces astir 70 integrated products astatine his Miraflores property, including tomatoes, beets, carrots, radish, lettuce and basil. 

Cabo San Lucas has ne'er been capable to turn overmuch of anything, but it has ever been known for the prime and quantity of its seafood. For overmuch of the 20th century, its now-closed cannery was a large seafood root successful Mexico, astatine its highest accounting for 75% of the nation’s canned seafood products.

Agricultural, ranching and seafood accumulation successful Los Cabos

How overmuch meat, food and nutrient does Los Cabos relationship for annually? More than astir tourists would imagine. In 2023, the municipality had conscionable nether 5,000 acres devoted to farming, but grew implicit 24,000 tons of produce. Tomatoes and mangoes, 2 section specialties, accounted for astir two-thirds of the total. 

Nearly 4 cardinal liters of beverage were produced locally successful 2023, on with astir 130 tons of eggs. Cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and chickens signifier the backbone of Los Cabos’ ranches. Commercial sportfishing is progressively rare: Over 90% of permits are issued for athletics fishing, and Los Cabos present accounts for little than 1% of commercialized food caught successful Baja California Sur.

Still, it does nutrient astir 300 tons of food annually for section restaurants, astir of which are standard food and clams. Almejas, oregon cocoa clams, are a Baja favorite.

Los Cabos beekeepers besides nutrient astir 75% of the state’s honey. Flora Farms, for example, maintains 48 beehives.

Almejas chocolatas get their sanction from the colour of their shell, not from immoderate affluent sweetness. (Villa del Palmar)

Where tin you find integrated nutrient and locally sourced nutrient and food successful Los Cabos?

Summertime is fresh-fruit play successful Baja California Sur. The harvest of the astir locally emblematic of these fruits, mangos and pitahayas, is celebrated with signature seasonal events. The Festival de la Pitahaya, which is ever scheduled for mid-July, is an juncture to observe section nutrient successful Miraflores. The Festival del Mango is held successful Todos Santos, portion of the neighboring La Paz municipality. Last year, the festival ran from July 31 to August 4. Given however adjacent unneurotic these festivals occur, immoderate summertime visitors be both.

Local farm-to-table restaurants are the champion stake for those seeking sustainable nutrient with a certifiable provenance. However, Los Cabos is 1 of 5 municipalities successful Baja California Sur, and all, including La Paz, are sources of superb produce, nutrient and seafood, meaning galore section restaurants boast astatine slightest a fewer caller offerings. 

Granted, if you spell to a section pizzeria oregon Italian restaurant, you whitethorn not spot a batch of section produce. However, arsenic tomatoes are a determination specialty, they whitethorn person caller condiment and homemade pasta. But immoderate edifice of note, including those successful luxury hotels successful Los Cabos, apt gets its fruits and vegetables from Miraflores. Much of the section seafood is besides regionally sourced. 

But extracurricular of farm-to-table restaurants and others, similar The Woods Cabo, that whitethorn root immoderate nutrient and herbs from onsite gardens, you’ll person to cheque with your waiter to find retired what’s caller and what isn’t.

Chris Sands is the Cabo San Lucas section adept for the USA Today question website 10 Best, writer of Fodor’s Los Cabos question guidebook and a contributor to galore websites and publications, including Tasting Table, Marriott Bonvoy Traveler, Forbes Travel Guide, Porthole Cruise, Cabo Living and Mexico News Daily. His specialty is travel-related contented and manner features focused connected food, vino and golf.