We have a confession to make. Though we may never get enough Yucatecan cuisine, panuchos dripping with habanero salsa and cochinita pibil steaming hot from an earthen pit, we sometimes miss a flavor or two from the old country, Gringolandia. This is especially true at breakfast time. Wherever we have traveled in the world, and especially in Mexico, we seldom find an authentic American breakfast, with real hash browns and sourdough toast.
Yucatan restaurants have a lot to offer the breakfast connoisseur. The orange juice can’t be beat and the bacon is world class, but it takes something more than ingredients to deliver what we crave. Like they say in that song from Fiddler on the Roof, it takes… tradition! You can count on an abuelita Yucateca to prepare a satisfying relleno negro, but where in Yucatan can you find gringo breakfast comfort food?
The very first time we came to Yucatan, we stayed in a sleepy fishing village and diving destination called Akumal, located on the Caribbean coast between Playa del Carmen and Tulum. Every morning we would stop in at the only real sit-down restaurant and order breakfast before heading out for scuba diving or snorkeling along the nearby reefs. We didn’t realize it then, but we had already fallen in love with a special little place called Turtle Bay Café.
Ever since, whenever we travel to the Riviera Maya from Merida, we always make a point of eating at least once at Turtle Bay Cafe, where we are willing to “officially” declare (drum roll please) that you can enjoy the best Gringolandia-style breakfast anywhere in Yucatan.
One risk we take suggesting restaurants to friends is that on any given day, like a favorite sports team, the ball may be dropped and the fans disappointed. We have chatted with many hotel owners over the years who tell us this is a common occupational hazard. They flinch when a guest asks for a dinner recommendation, because the next morning they may be treated to a tirade about how their favorite restaurant didn’t deliver.
But over the years, any time we’ve settled in for a bite at Turtle Bay Cafe, their service and food have been remarkably dependable and delicious.
The first thing we do is order cappuccinos, which – we must further confess – have become a part of our breakfast ritual since our first visit to Italy. Our ritual includes a cappuccino ranking system we call “foam hang time” where we drop a spoonful of sugar in the center of the foam and count the seconds until it drops through into the espresso. Any count above 7 is Italian-quality espuma. Amazingly, the foam hang time on a Turtle Bay Café cappuccino is longer than any we’ve ever tested and longer than we are willing to wait. Of course the real test is the espresso and it’s some of the richest and most aromatic we’ve ever tasted. Not surprisingly, the grind is one hundred percent Mexican-grown, from Oaxaca.
Next up is usually a tall glass of that great fresh-squeezed juice, not just orange, either. Sometimes we’ll indulge in a long tall glass of sandia (watermelon) juice, or a well-blended and refreshing smoothie, made from one or more of the tropical fruits available here. Ten or fifteen minutes can pass just drinking and scanning the menu, trying to make up our minds. It can be a real challenge, partly because we’re still not fully awake, but mostly because there is so much to choose from.
The classic Gringolandia breakfast is called The Expatriate (hmmm… we must not be alone!) and includes the standard breakfast fare of two eggs any style, hash brown potatoes, bacon, sausage or Canadian bacon and toast. But this time maybe we should try the Hobo With Eggs or the Turtle Bay Skillet or the Crab Cakes Benedict. There’s comfort food for every taste, including a couple Yuca-Gringo specialties like a buttery arranchera steak and eggs as well as a few vegetarian dishes. All of their breakfasts taste like they are prepared with care and tenderness, just the way our mothers would have done it, if only Cocoa Puffs hadn’t been invented.
We have another confession: the name of this restaurant isn’t really Turtle Bay Café. No, it’s Turtle Bay Café and Bakery. Fact is, there’s nothing like fresh baked goods to put the comfort in comfort food, so every day somebody kneads a miracle and bakes up an assortment of goodies that are nearly impossible to find anywhere else in Yucatan: moist and springy coffee cake, perfectly acceptable cinnamon rolls and usually two flavors of muffins (last time it was chocolate and almond). They also bake their own breads, which are served with the breakfasts. Our favorite is the pan agrio (sourdough), which is thick and hearty. We can’t even imagine what it takes to bake great bread in a tropical environment, so even if it isn’t quite the same as sourdough in the old country, we are duly impressed.
Turtle Bay Café and Bakery doesn’t shut down after breakfast, either. They make really delicious lunches and dinners, too. Feel free to drool over life-size reproductions of their menus when you visit their website.
Oh, and one last confession: somehow, after all these years, we’ve never managed to meet the owners of Turtle Bay Cafe, so don’t bother telling them we sent you. But if you find out why their logo is a monkey instead of a turtle, would you please let us know?
Turtle Bay Café and Bakery
Akumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico
Breakfast 7-12 Every day
Lunch 12-3 Every day
Dinner 6-9 Thursday-Saturday
www.turtlebaycafe.com
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You’re so-o-o-o right. I just returned from a week in Akumal. Turtle Bay Cafe was where I began every day. Finally a place in Akumal with great coffee (that had been a sore point). The little complex there - Internet cafe, gym, yoga, two food markets, a simple hotel room or bungalow at family-run Akumal Caribe - is pretty much all I need for a gloriously laid-back vacation.
I always tell friends, who inquire about where to go first in Mexico, to choose carefully - because the first place you go, in this country, will be in your heart forever. I can tell someone exactly what to order in the first restaurant I ever patronized in Yucatan - and I can sing its praises to the Heavens - even all these years later.
It is my breakfast time after reading this I know I am going to be wishing I was there.
Yummy, Yummy !!!!!!! I can’t wait for our move in March!!!!!!! Thanks for all the wonderful articles, can’t find better information in any other web place. This is the best!!!!!
Turtle Bay has never disappointed us. The owners (Jen and Bart) are very nice people from California, i think? They made our beautiful and tasty wedding cake.
Shhh! Stop talking about Turtle Bay! It’s our own little secret, as is Akumal. Oh heck, people will discover it if they haven’t already. But my memory of early mornings at Turtle Bay will last a lifetime. I rise before dawn and take a stroll out to the windy point and listen to the song of the Caribbean Sea, waves bashing on the rocks, seabirds wheeling and calling. I left my watch back in the States. I don’t care about time. But I do care about coffee.
Suddenly my brain is agitating for its morning fix. I stroll the path near the veranda of Pablo Bush’s house, past the rusting canons guarding Akumal’s little harbor. Turtle Bay nests in the lush vegetation, cool even as the heat of the day begins. It’s still early. The place is empty. I’m the first to arrive. I enjoy the stillness, interrupted by the clack of coffee cups headed my way. Beach dog Senor Cejas wanders by. He doesn’t like tourists. Why should he squander his affection on people he will likely never see again? He heads straight for the kitchen door. American breakfast sausages are frying and he’s ever hopeful for a serendipitous accident that may send one rolling his way.
The waitress who brings my coffee has the most beautiful Mayan face. I try not to stare too hard as I’m suddenly overcome with a thought that I have seen her face somewhere before and it immediately comes to me that she is unchanged from her ancestors, depicted in the glyphs on the temples of Chichan Itza and Coba. She has no idea why I am looking at her so strangely, but her eyes and her smile tell me it’s OK.
I’ve been many places, but Akumal is special. Turtle Bay is special. Even if Akumal eventually gets overrun with Disney theme parks like Xel-Ha that have brought nothing but ruin to so much of the so-called “Rivera Maya,” I’ll always have that memory of one beautiful morning to carry with me forever.