At the Riviera Maya Edition, Francisco Ruano Turns a Milestone Into a Culinary Power Play

From Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Matador Room in Miami to Josh Niland’s Fysh in Singapore, Ian Schrager’s EDITION Hotels have no shortage of culinary firepower. At Mexico’s Riviera Maya Edition at Kanai, the headlining chef is Francisco “Paco” Ruano, who runs Ki’is and Kitchen at the hotel.

On Friday, Feb. 13, Ruano (best known for Guadalajara’s Alcalde, which is currently No. 15 on Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants) kicked off the hotel’s two-year anniversary celebrations with a special collaboration dinner. Ruano cooked at Ki’is alongside a longtime friend, fellow Michelin-starred chef Jonatán Gómez Luna of La Chique. It was part of a weekend food-and-beverage extravaganza that also included a beach barbecue and a cocktail takeover helmed by Paola Morales and Amer Heneidi from Mexico City’s Libreria Valladolid at the hotel’s Lobby Bar.

The entire anniversary weekend was a reminder that this Edition isn’t like the others. The Edition hotels, conceived by Schrager and Marriott, are typically urban-chic properties in the middle of busy cities. (Schrager loves to use the word “sophisticated” to describe what he does, and that word is appropriate in this case.) Riviera Maya Edition at Kanai, situated on a 620-acre private nature preserve on the Yucatán Peninsula, feels like it’s a world away from that kind of setting.

So on Friday night, Ruano and Gómez Luna showcased both earthy and oceanic ingredients from Mexico and the Caribbean. Ruano dressed nopal ceviche with grasshoppers, coriander and turnip while Gómez Luna shaved coconut atop a spider crab aguachile that showcased the textures and flavors of different kinds of coconut. Ruano served a luxurious shellfish tamale featuring abalone, mussels and atole made with shells. Gómez Luna’s 72-hour short rib came with a deeply dark and complex mole chichilo and a hoja santa tortilla for a soul-warming make-your-own-taco experience.

Ruano just returned to Mexico after participating in Convergence, a symposium and dinner series in Copenhagen hosted by Alchemist chef Rasmus Munk, so he’s been busy on the chef-collaboration circuit. But Friday at Ki’is was a deeply personal night for Ruano, who even brought his mom with him to the hotel.

“This is really special because I’ve known Jonatán for 14 years and he’s a guy who’s the pioneer of fine dining here in the Riviera Maya,” Ruano tells Observer. “I just saw his daughter, and I met her back when she was just a little baby. It’s about friendship most of all.”

The prolific Ruano, whose portfolio includes Ojo in Bangkok and a forthcoming project in Mexico City, plans to bring many other friends to Riviera Maya Edition at Kanai this year. He’s envisioning an October event with some of the best chefs from Mexico and beyond.

“I want to bring my friends from Panama, from República Dominicana, from Cartagena,” he says. “I want to do a Caribbean all-star kind of thing with a heavy Latin style. I like to do things just to see my friends. And for me, it’s coast to coast. I’m a Pacific Coast kind of guy now in the Caribbean. I’m an ocean lover.”

At Ki’is, “We try to explore the Mayan boundaries,” Ruano says. “We also bring a lot of stuff from Campeche—octopus and crabs. We use every kind of citrus that we can find in the Mayan region.”

Meanwhile, the Lobby Bar (where the crew from Libreria Valladolid made smoky and fruity cocktails with Moon Shift agave spirits on Friday) aspires to become a world-recognized bar and plans to bring in guest mixologists for monthly pop-ups. This hotel, where we ate Ruano’s luscious roast suckling pig adorned with edible flowers at Ki’is on Saturday, is also home to prominent chef Tomás Bermúdez’s seafood-focused So’ol Beach Club. 

With this loaded culinary lineup at a 182-room beachfront hotel, the Riviera Maya Edition at Kanai is a baller escape on what feels like a sprawling complex compared to other Editions. And in addition to being home to a 27,000-square-foot rooftop villa that’s the largest hotel suite in North America, the property recently debuted two additional villas at a separate beachfront site.

Whether you’re in the three-bedroom villa, four-bedroom villa or the five-bedroom rooftop villa (where Akon has stayed), you’ll have access to a full kitchen and dining area. These villas are designed for extended stays for big families or groups of friends, but they might also work well for some exclusive dinners with globetrotting chefs.