At This New Hotel in Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit, You Can Have It All

In heaven, the bread baskets at breakfast are stocked with warm banana bread and fresh fruit spread, and the water is always heated to within a few degrees of body temperature. I know this to be true because I have seen and experienced it at Rosewood Mandarina, which opened to visitors on the Riviera Nayarit in Mexico last summer.

Boasting panoramic views of the water, beachfront dining, and a spa so relaxing as to be borderline lobotomizing, the hotel offers a stock photo of a vacation. The ocean is just that blue. The horizon is just that expansive and mesmerizing. Even the alligators bobbing in one of Mandarina’s (enclosed—don’t fret) estuaries seem to smile. It’s cliché to call a resort paradise, but there is something divine about the new development—like Eden before the fall. It’s the kind of place that drives a person to make resolutions—and to bargain. “I’ll be good!” I think as I check in. “Just let me come back here.”

I have arrived on site after a multi-leg trip from New York via Houston (visitors land at the airport in Puerto Vallarta, and the Rosewood is an hour north) that is the opposite of ethereal, and I feel wholly error-prone and fallible as I fumble with passports and tickets and miscellaneous wrappers at the indoor-outdoor reception area. A host of staffers liberates me from all that, orienting me and handing me a welcome drink that is cold as space and inscrutable. I taste pineapple. I taste… corn? I down it in two sips. This exchange will repeat several times over the next 72 hours. Here, welcome drinks are not restricted to the reception area. The welcome is constant, an unceasing parade of treats and niceties that conspire to make a person feel not just greeted, but embraced. I drink all manner of citrus-laced beverages served out of little stoneware vessels while I roam the grounds. I match the alligators’ smiles.

Rosewood is the second five-star hotel to set up in the secluded and sparkling Mandarina, joining the neighboring One&Only resort. The two properties share a beach club and an equestrian center where I will later meet a jet black stunner of a horse named Jo, but are otherwise worlds unto themselves. Each has its own crucial kids’ club, where children are occupied and entertained and remain (for the most part) out of sight.

There is no dearth of beautiful locales in Mexico, but Mandarina offers something different. In stark contrast to thumping beach towns near Cancún and the transporting desert landscape of Los Cabos, Mandarina has no single orienting principle. It’s for people who don’t want to choose. On the 565-acre resort complex that comprises it alone there are three distinct topographies, with distinct accommodation options to match: flatland, jungle-inflected cliffside, and Canalan beachfront with rooms set so close to the water that I can see the feathers on the hovering big beaked birds quiver in the breeze.

All 134 suites (two of which are enormous standalone villas) come with a private plunge pool, serene terraces, and design touches crafted in close collaboration with local artisans. In addition to a phone to reach the front desk, butlers communicate via WhatsApp to finalize dinner reservations, excursions, and fresh towel deliveries. The effect is intimate and personal and personable—preferable to me compared to the seamless, but often slick and automated service that other resorts favor.

Restaurants offer more abundance. La Cocina serves fresh Mexican food on the sand and brings around a plate of gratis black bean tacos at lunch time, Buena Onda plates Spanish tapas in a set-back cove on the edge of the resort, and Toppu is perched in the mountains of Mandarina, emphasizing Japanese fine dining. There’s a hidden bar carved into a cliffside and a grill-focused open-air Argentine restaurant called Chukker on the sidelines of Mandarina’s polo fields. Yes, Mandarina hosts actual games during polo season and can coordinate lessons for guests. But I—a 5’2” New Yorker—prefer to take in the view from one of the restaurant’s sun-dappled tables, margarita in hand.

There is no shortage of choice, but I find favorites. On back-to-back mornings, I pick the red sauce-drowned chilaquiles from La Cocina. I make a daily habit of fruit plate and cappuccino deliveries and get spa recommendations from the staffer who arrives to froth the milk à la minute. I could bike to La Cocina for lunch, but I prefer to walk on the waterfront. I realize I don’t need to wear shoes. At Buena Onda, I expect to be limited to the appetizer section because I don’t eat meat or shellfish, but the concierge has called ahead, and an artichoke- and mushroom-studded vegetarian paella is set down in the middle of the table in front of me. I am still thinking about it, months later. It also drew the attention of a man near me who would later tell me he has been to over a dozen Rosewood hotels. He calls out from his seat to the open kitchen. Can he get one, too? As tends to be the case at Mandarina: Request granted.

Other niceties do not need to be solicited. In the rooms—palatial, done up in neutrals and dark hardwood, the better to emphasize the blues and greens of the natural environs—there’s a basket of Rosewood-branded insect repellent and SPF. At the Asaya Spa, the robes are soft and warm, and I experience something more like a ritual than a massage. Facedown on the table, I stare at an inlaid tile plate that is supposed to conjure up ancient dreams while I’m basted with warm oil and a concoction of herbs that includes tobacco. Sounds like the inside of a beat poet’s living room, but trust that it’s 90 minutes of extravagant bliss, and I somehow leave smelling of jasmine, not cigarettes. Even more relaxing: Although the hotel is 75% full while I visit, and the restaurants thrum with conversation and buzz, the spa feels and is designed to be so private that I manage to be shepherded through it without encountering a single other guest.

On the last morning I spend at Mandarina, I’m gifted a bracelet handmade by locals meant to bless me with luck, happiness, and wealth. In heaven, I hope there is no WiFi and no Instagram, but on earth, the souvenir gives the crew at Rosewood Mandarina one last chance to demonstrate their attention to detail. The bracelet is coordinated to match my iPhone case. Paradise found.