Hyatt Zilara Cancun, Mexico for a long weekend

Part One: Hyatt Zilara Arrival Experience and Room
Part Two: Hotel Amenities
Part Three: Restaurants and Chef’s Table

The Hyatt Zilara Cancun has a number of great restaurants. Most are casual, but one is more formal.

Pelicanos

Pelicanos is the Hyatt Zilara Cancun’s kind’ve “beachy restaurant”, it has a pool bar, as well as a regular dining area, that is open air, and with a wonderful view of the pool on two sides, and the beach and ocean on the other. The food was a mix of standard western fare, plus some Mexican options. Our favorite was the dessert.

Spice – Buffet

There was a buffet, which was our primary choice for breakfast. As you would expect, they had made-to-order eggs, a variety of other options, including a fresh juice bar.

Spice also served dinner. In the evening, we peaked our heads in (since we were busy trying other restaurants), and saw a very nice spread as well.

And who could pass up the gelato! (did I mention the desserts at the Hyatt Zilara Cancun were quite good?)

Asiana

Two of our three nights at the Hyatt Zilara Cancun, we enjoyed dinner at Asiana.

It was so good, that despite the wonderful hibachi show, we forgot to take pictures of the actual food.  But here’s the menu. This is a place where you go for the show, and are pleasantly surprised by the food. Trust me, get the Yakimeshi rice, its essentially fried rice, and it is one of the best things on the menu–and that is not to say the proteins aren’t great too!

Chef’s Plate

Our friend Jeanne mentioned that we absolutely had to try the Chef’s Plate. It did not disappoint.

It’s a private room, essentially with about a dozen or so chairs, and a view of the kitchen. The thing that spoke to me most about this, was that while they had a fixed menu each night, they were able to modify it, if you had particular allergies or things you wanted to avoid.

We had opted for Monday, primarily because of the Short Angus Beef.

What follows is each particular dish. Of particular note, for the first dish though, are the three blue dots, those imply that the dish is “special”, as I had requested mine to be served without the crab and tuna–I don’t enjoy seafood as much.

The Foie Gras Capuccino was much better than it sounds. The bacon really came off strong, but it really made it to be quite the conversation piece.

Next there was a palate cleanser, they called it Soursop and Gin Raviolis, which confused us, but we just went with it.

Next was the Rockefeller Shrimp.

And the distant cousin, Rockefeller Chicken.

And then the Short Ribs, which were great, although we were all starting to get a bit full at this point.

We finished off with a martini and coconut cream banana, and truffle.

Wrapping Up

All of the dining establishments at the Hyatt Zilara Cancun were wonderful. The Chef’s Plate rose above the rest, but, I suspect that is by design. Even if the entire menu is not to your liking–because, perhaps, an aversion to seafood–they can tailor it a bit. You also get a wonderful opportunity to socialize with other guests. I’d caveat that the Chef’s Plate requires pants and a collared shirt for men. I think all the other restaurants had a much more relaxed dress code.

In entirety, we enjoyed our stay at the Hyatt Zilara Cancun, there were some things that threw me for a loop, like the evening shows, but really, it is an awesome hotel, and I would highly recommend it to folks that are just dipping their toes into the idea of an all inclusive. I’m sure I didn’t consume enough to justify the rack room rate, but, considering I burned the equivalent points as a night at the Park Hyatt Tokyo, I felt like we got a pretty good value.