Casa de Piedra at Hacienda Xcanatun

We have heard of a restaurant outside of town called Casa de Piedra at Hacienda Xcanatun and drive out to find it. It is in a small village on the outskirts of Merida, and when we turn off the main road we are convinced we must be in the wrong place. It is a working class Mexican village with a dirt football pitch serving as the town square. There are a few youths trying to skateboard on a patch of concrete, a couple of Datsuns from the early 80’s and a beat up Mustang parked around the square. The houses are all one and two room low square buildings with nothing to recommend them to anyone.
We drive round the village square but there is no sign for, or of, the restaurant. We are convinced we are in the wrong place, but then we see a 12 ft wall painted a rather wonderful deep red color down one of the streets. When we reach it there is a beautiful ironwork gate opening on to a driveway that leads to the hotel and restaurant.

The hotel is quite fabulous, all painted in the same deep red color, with huge rooms and very high ceilings. The grounds are full of beautiful old trees and palm trees, subtly lit.
Hacienda Xcanatun was built in the 18th century, for the owners of a factory producing sisal. The hacienda is now an upscale hotel, while Casa de Piedra, the restaurant, is located in the old factory building next door. It has been renovated beautifully. The ceilings are 30 ft tall, and the old machinery and pulleys are still there, but restored and painted black. The walls are faux painted in subtle shades of blue and grey, and the tables are beautifully presented with flowers and starched tablecloths.

I do not usually write a restaurant review as part of my travel muse, but in this case I can’t help it. It is the best food we have ever eaten in Mexico.
I start with a duck and pine nut pate. The portion is huge, and it is served with a wonderful mustard sauce. It is terrific and brings back memories of French picnics.
Next I have a fish steak, the fish is called Bruja and it is the most perfectly cooked piece of fish you could imagine. It is served on a bed of leek puree, and is delicious.
Gordon has duck in a chocolate and mango mole, a fantastic combination that we have never come across before.
The restaurant is busy the entire evening. We get there at 8pm, and there is a large group of elderly tourists, dressed to the nines and dripping in jewels who are obviously there on some sort of very expensive coach tour. But, more interestingly, Mexicans arrive to eat throughout the evening. These were not the locals we had seen in the village, but immaculately tailored men oozing power, with their expensively dressed and overly made up spouses. They ordered without looking at the menu, demanded a great deal of attention, and were incredibly rude to the waiters.
A pianist and saxophone played from 9pm on and were a perfect accompaniment for a great evening

Uxmal - More Ruins

From Uxmal we take a circular route back to Merida in order to see other Mayan ruins. But our first stop is at a village called Santa Elena where we are told there is an interesting Museum housing several mummified bodies that were found under the church floor. The museum consists of three small rooms with hardly anything in them other than four tiny bodies of children in open coffins, shown beneath a large sheet of extremely dirty glass. At the entrance are three local young women who presumably are there to take the entrance fee of ten pesos.


But they are so excited to see a foreign tourist that all they can do is giggle and blush. We try to talk to them, but they just turn an even brighter shade of red and giggle some more. The museum itself is so depressing that the giggling girls are a welcome relief.

From there we go on to Sayil, where the Palace of the Ants is found. It is a huge Palace of 90 bedrooms, but little has been restored and you are not allowed to go in or on it. Consequently very few tourists come here. In fact we are asked to sign a guest book which shows that the last visitors came three days ago. The site actually boasts a gift shop, which is a truly desultory affair, the entire stock consisting of about seven rather dirty white dresses on coat hangers, hanging from an open sided Palapa. Maybe the last guests were major shoppers and bought up everything else.


Our next stop is Xlapak, which even the tour book describes as “a site of some fourteen mounds”, which makes it sound so unimpressive that they couldn’t even be bothered to make an exact count of the mounds. We drive on by.

The next site is much more impressive. Labna used to be a Mayan city of over 2000 people. It is a large site with three partially restored buildings. Again the setting is lovely with raised streets crossing huge lawns. This site is famous for The Arch of Labna, a beautiful arch that once marked the entry to a nobleman’s house.


Labna is lovely, and we are amazed that there are only two other people here. They are a very elegant pair of Mexican women carrying huge sun umbrellas and strolling across the lawns as if they were at some garden party.

Merida - Our First Impression

Joany, despite the non stop talking, is a wonderful hostess and provides free wine and beer, stocked in her fridge, to which we are welcome to help ourselves. After a drink we decide to walk into the center of Merida to have dinner. We are in the Historical District and we walk through streets lined with wonderful old colonial houses, some of which are waiting to find an owner that cares enough to return them to their previous glory, and some of which have already found that person.


They are painted in wonderful deep desert colors of burnt orange, sand and green. The windows and doors are covered in intricate and beautiful iron work. The rooms are tall and large with marble floors. The front doors are double, made of beautifully carved wood and 12 feet tall. Chandeliers hang from the ceiling. They call out “buy me” as we pass.

We find the main square, which is the perfect town square with beautiful colonnades on three sides filled with café tables and chairs, and on the fourth side there is an imposing cathedral, The Cathedral of San Idelfonso. It is actually the oldest Cathedral on the American continent dating back to the 16th century. The conquering Spanish dismantled all the nearby Mayan Pyramids and used the huge stones as the foundation for the Cathedral.

The center of the square is full of people enjoying the evening, and watching the clowns and musicians. The streets around the square are lined with horses pulling Victorian carriages. The carriages are all painted white and decorated with flowers. There are few tourists . It is mainly the locals enjoying all this. It is about as different from our life in Puerto Vallarta as it could be.

We end up at a restaurant called the Villa Maria Restaurant. It is highly rated in Trip Advisor and it is the first restaurant recommendation that Joany makes. She does however warn us that it is a huge restaurant and there will be very few people there, but not to let that put us off, the food is terrific.

Joany exaggerated about the number of people that would be there. The place was deserted, other than 5 waiters, all leaning against the wall, talking to each other.
Normally we would walk on by, but as we don’t know of another restaurant we go in. It is a gorgeously restored 17th century mansion with a central open courtyard with art nouveau hanging chandeliers, and beautifully presented dining tables. The waiter asks if we would like to sit there or inside . Inside there are two more dining rooms both equally elaborate in their settings. It is magnificent and deserted. We eat in the courtyard.

The restaurant has pretensions of grandeur, and everything about it appears first class, until we hear a loud bang. We turn in the direction of the kitchen and see two of the waiters dragging a large old water heater out of the kitchen and across the restaurant floor. It is too heavy for them and they keep having to drop it on the tile floor. Sweat is running down their faces. If this is a regular occurrence it might explain the lack of customers.

As for the rest of the evening, the staff is very attentive, the food is good but not excellent, and the prices are high but not exorbitant, until, that is, it comes to the wine list. Most of the wines are immediately recognizable as coming from Costco (they have a Costco in Merida), and the restaurant is charging 6 times the price they paid in Costco. It leaves an unpleasant taste in our mouths.