Long gone are the days of beach shacks and dive bars. Tulum is now firmly established as one of Mexico’s chicest dining destinations, full of award-winning restaurants and creative cocktail bars. Despite the area’s boho-chic makeover the past several years, the region’s culinary roots can be felt more here than other Riviera Maya destinations, like Cancun or Playa del Carmen. You’ll find local chefs drawing deeply on the diversity of regional ingredients as well as the traditional cooking techniques—whether it’s $20 cocktails or $2 street tacos. Like every other tourist destination in the world, middling food abounds, but if you know where to look, Tulum is a gastronomic paradise. Of course, you can’t spend all of your time eating, especially when there are ruins and cenotes and bioreserves to explore. Here’s how to see, eat, and do as much as humanly possible in just two days.

Who I am: I’m Lydia, a food and travel writer based in Mexico for the last two decades. I’ve traveled throughout the country reporting on local cuisine, food production, and the latest and greatest of regional food scenes around the country. I’ve become particularly obsessed with the Yucatan peninsula in the past years as I’ve bounced around tasting both traditional and contemporary cuisine that has blown my mind in a way no other regional cuisine has.

Know the seasons: Do your best to avoid April and May, the hottest months of the year with temps over 100 degrees daily. Instead, visit from November to February when it’s cooler or July through October when afternoon thunderstorms provide a break from the heat.

What to pack: Tulum has become quite the playground for the rich and famous, so definitely pack a few beach-elegant items for high-end dining or luxury boat cruises. During the rainy season, a poncho is also handy.

Getting around: If you want to stick to the hotel zone, it’s easy to get around on foot or by renting a scooter to take you up and down the main road that runs along the beach. For excursions farther afield, like the Sian Ka’an bioreserve or some of the area’s cenotes, you’ll need to rent a car or pay for a local taxi, which, not surprisingly, is overpriced.

• Fuel up for a morning of adventure. If you’re staying at Lula, take advantage of their amazing breakfast menu that includes bowls of fresh berries and housemade granola and standout brioche French toast topped with guava compote.
• Rent a beachcruiser or scooter and head to Tulum’s seaside Mayan ruins. The coastal road takes you through the hotel zone, over an open stretch of public beach, and into Parque del Jaguar, home to the archaeological site and most of Tulum’s public beach accesses. Dramatic ruins, hedged in by swaying palms and sections of the city’s ancient walls, sit atop 40-foot limestone cliffs overlooking the sea. At its height, the Mayan city that was here is believed to have been a major center of maritime trade and the home of the region’s elite. A morning visit means you can avoid the crowds and high temps of later in the day. Be sure to bring water, your swimsuit, and maybe a towel—if you get hot anywhere along your route you can stop off at one of the many public beach accesses along this road and take a quick dip.

• I always say if you’re in Mexico and not eating street food you aren’t really in Mexico. With this in mind, take an afternoon street food tour with Eating with Carmen for a little local fare and a chance to spend more time in Tulum proper. On your roving lunch, sample venison salpicon, cochinitapibil, a local style of tamales called tamales colados, and classic Mexican street corn. The surprise of the tour is an incredible taco al pastor, a staple of Mexico City that’s usually not as fabulous outside of the capital. A passion fruit popsicle for dessert will help you beat the heat.
• Tucked among the few dozen boutique shops along the hotel zone displaying flowy cotton dresses, crocheted tank tops, Panama hats, and linen pants are some excellent specialty food shops. Stop in at Wóolis for homemade salsas, Mexican chocolate, or some gorgeous local veggies. Itlado is a favorite of Jose Luis Hinostroza, chef of Arca, and they have fantastic desserts and coffee as well as fresh baked baguettes and cold-pressed juices. For a hyper-local experience, visit Tulum’s municipal market downtown where you can try regional specialities like salbutes de relleno negro (puffed deep-fried tortillas stuffed with charred chili and turkey stew) or tacos de cochinita pibil along with fruit-infused water (aguas frescas). The market also has produce, meat, and seafood stands where you can find fiery habanero peppers and Edam cheese (queso de bola), a popular local snack.

• Dinner is at Arca, where naked palm tree trunks poke up among the tables like mangrove roots, and dim candles flicker in the tropical darkness. Order a Green Garden gin and lemongrass cocktail—a hint of citrus and salt, it’s sea air made liquid. (Arca has been named one of North America’s 50 best bars several years running.) Their menu is a series of incredible small plates. Start with soft shell crab in amaranth tempura and crunchy fried lentils with guajillo-chile-rubbed octopus and pickled radish. One of the most unexpected delights is an eight-inch section of bone marrow topped with slices of earthy serrano pepper, tamarind, and pasilla chile that you spread on golden sourdough.
• A definitive locals’ hang-out, La Guarida, is a cool bar and cultural center downtown. It has the look of a 1960s beatnik lair—pillows strewn around low-lying tables, fringed 1920s lamp shades, stacks of vinyl records, amber lighting pouring out through the wood-slatted doors. There’s even a table for four inside a flat-bottom boat. Bring a group or come on your own for an after dinner cocktail and a philosophical conversation with the bartender.

• Start the day with a big breakfast on the beach at Fresco’s. Order a fresh-squeezed orange juice and some classic Mexican chilaquiles—fried tortillas smothered in spicy salsa and topped here with pickled onions, sour cream, avocado, and queso fresco.
• From here, head south to the Sian Ka’an bioreserve and take a tour with the Community Tours Sian Ka’an. The 2,040-square-mile coastal reserve is home to countless birds, marine turtles, hundreds of species of fish, and large mammals like jaguars, tapirs and monkeys. You’ll float down an ancient canal created by the Maya through the reserve’s tropical wetlands, and watch as the fish slip through the clear water, the same cerulean as the sky. Your guide will take you to see freshwater cenotes that sit underneath the surface of the Chunyaxché lagoon: playgrounds of the bioreserve’s manatees. The tour ends with a swim at a near-virgin, postcard-perfect beach.

• Back in town, Negro Huitlacoxe’s rustic, open-air patio gives you no indication that it will be one of the best meals of your trip. Tatted-up waiters in shorts and black T-shirts serve food deeply rooted in the fundamentals of Mexican cuisine—corn, chiles, tomatoes, cacao. The menu is replete with traditional flavors in unconventionally delicious presentations. Try the elote dorado, roasted corn sliced right off the cob into crispy strips and dusted with charred corn powder that served alongside a dip of the Yucatan’s famous recado negro (a paste of savory spices and vegetables that have all been charred black) and a sprinkling of farm-fresh queso fresco. The birria quesadilla is another standout—a slurry of goat birria and quesillo cheese stuffed into a blue corn tortilla that you dip in a smoky birria broth.
• As the sun hits its peak, you’ll be ready for a swim in one of the local cenotes, freshwater sinkholes fed by underground rivers. Head to Cenote Cristalino, surrounded by picnic tables and hammocks strung between the thatch palms. This crystal clear swimming hole is a jungle paradise without the crowds that swarm some of the more well-known cenotes. The Maya believe that cenotes are the portal between the living world and the inframundo, or underworld. Floating in the crystal clear water and observing the heavens above, that sacredness is palpable.
• Swimming makes everyone hungry. On your way back to your hotel, stop in town to grab a taco at Taquería Honorio, whose cavernous dining room is always overflowing. This is a great place to try a down-home version of cochinita pibil(suckling pig roasted in achiote, citrus, and other spices), possibly the Yucatan’s most famous dish.

• After a shower, it’s time for a pre-dinner cocktail. The ’80s music drifting from the speakers will lure you into Hartwood Tulum, an upscale beach shack. And I assure you, it’s just as fun as it looks from a distance, overflowing with diners and a lively crowd of revelers at the bar. Join them for a mezcal Old Fashioned.
• Hanging plants cover most of the walls and dangle from terrariums above the bar in the dim light of Nü Tulum’s outdoor dining room. The resident chef, César Castañeda, runs a kitchen committed to sustainable sourcing for their contemporary Mexican menu. Start with a pox martini, potent and charged with the liquor’s corn flavor. Then order the deeply charred carrots and okra balanced by the bright acidity of a lemongrass aioli and a rack of lamb is tender as butter. Sweet local peppers add crunch to the salty, green side salad and a sliver of dark, bitter chocolate cookie and chunky coconut ice cream round out the meal.
• In the midst of the Tulum jungle, duck into Casa Jaguar for one of their jungle parties—a sweaty, sexy, late-night extravaganza of drinking and dancing. They offer a menu of in-house hand-crafted cocktails and every Thursday host DJs to spin music for the hippie-chic crowd.

• Support a cooperative of local families by visiting Punta Laguna (+52 984 168 5076) at the entrance of the Otoch Ma’ax Yetel Kooh nature reserve, where you can get an up close and personal view of the spider monkey families that crisscross the 13,000-acre reserve each day. The community has been working alongside scientists for the past four years to study and document the area’s flora and fauna—spider monkeys, howler monkeys, and even jaguars roam this land—and are incredibly knowledgeable hiking guides.
• On the way back to Tulum stop in Francisco Uh May, a communal village or ejido, known for its woven crafts: Massive dream catchers, woven lampshades, and hammocks are strung in thatch-roof stands along the main highway so people can buy directly from the artisans. There are also killer roadside tacos.
• Balnak is a close runner-up to some of the other restaurants in this guide, and an obligatory visit if you’re staying a bit longer. Start with the refreshing banaxoconostle cocktail, which has a hint of smoky mezcal and a charred chile and salt rim. The bartender will bring you a little side of xoconostle jam with candied chunks of prickly pear and tiny, rock-hard seeds. Order the octopus, covered in a heavenly emulsion of chaya and mayo with the slightest bit of heat to it. If you’re into local spirits, try their distilled pulque liquor.

• If you want to see another side of Yucatecan culture, Valladolid is less than two hours away and a bit of a hidden gem (you’ll likely see only a handful of foreigners there). They have their own outstanding regional dishes like the chorizo de valladolid and the town itself couldn’t be more charming—a lively main plaza, ancient Colonial architecture, and a sprinkling of tiny antique shops and colorful cafes.

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