Our guests from Colorado, Mike and Michele said that they wanted to have a special dinner one night during their stay with us. There was no question that the best fine dining location in San Jose del Cabo is Don Sanchez. Just over a year ago, Chef Edgar Ramon and the Edith’s Restaurant Group had acquired Don Sanchez and moved the restaurant across the street from its original location on Blvd Antonio Mijares just a few steps from the plaza in San Jose del Cabo. They took just over six months to completely renovate the space and create an amazing Baja based restaurant. Don Sanchez includes a bar and lounge, a private wine dining room and two levels of outdoor dining – one of which is under a large palapa. All of the design elements – artwork, lighting, furniture was created in Baja. The space and atmosphere are incredible. But the atmosphere is outdone by the quality of the food and the service.

Beth and I had been at the restaurant in June and Chef Edgar had prepared for us a special tasting menu to sample the style and flavors available at the restaurant along with wines to pair with each course. This was the first time that we had been back to order from the actual menu. It is one of the few fine dining restaurants that also offers true vegan items for each course on the menu (and is listed in Happy Cow, the app for vegans and vegetarians). As Michele has a number of dietary restrictions this was the perfect restaurant choice for her.

There are two servers that provide service to every table. We were offered the menus, ordered a bottle of good Chalk Hill California Chardonnay and some water as we each studied the menu. Each of us was present with an amuse bouche compliments of the restaurant – a small piece of fresh bread with a fish paste, beets, onions and greens as garnishes. It went great with our Chardonnay.

As an appetizer, Beth and I ordered the Caesar Salad that is made table side. The server described each of the ingredients as he added them to make the traditional Caesar dressing at the same time describing the restaurant in Tijuana where the salad was created (see separate video). There is nothing like a traditional dressing made with garlic, olive oil, anchovies, egg yolk and Worcestershire sauce and this was perfect. Beth is a bit lactose intolerant and so the fresh parmesan cheese was only added to my plate of salad. The romaine lettuce and croutons were added to the dressing and mixed before plating. Mike chose the goat tacos as his appetizer, which turned out to be three tacos piled high with the meat, onions and other vegetables. Michele love beets so ordering the Charred Beets was a natural for her. The platter was huge and included sliced beets, candied pecan nuts, vegan cashews jocoque with pink pepper corns, garlic, and wild Baja oreganus with fermented hibiscus vinaigrette and fresh quelite sprouts. She was in heaven (and had more the half to take home for lunch the next day).

With our appetizers we were served two different types of freshly baked rolls and two organic butters – one with mushrooms – that were presented in a dome covered plate chilled with the freezing air coming off as the glass dome was removed. Between courses, we had a coconut sorbet to cleanse our palates.

The main courses were equally impressive. Both Mike and I ordered the pork shank. Beth selected the catch of the day in a potato crust with citrus salad of xoconostle, cactus, tomato, avocado with acuyo oil and a sour pitahaya sauce with mint essence on a nopal chip. Michele similarly went for fish with the catch of the day in red axiote rub, baked in banana leaf with carrot puree with citrus and cold smoked habanero, roasted xnipec and risotto with pepper leaf.