Animalon

Animalon is Javier Plascencia's outdoor restaurant at Finca La Carrodilla, an organic winery on the El Tigre road in the Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California. The whole dining room is a single table arrangement set beneath one enormous oak said to be around two centuries old, with the branches strung with bulbs and the vineyard rows running away on every side. Plascencia is the best known chef in the state, the figure behind Mision 19 in Tijuana and Finca Altozano a few kilometres down the same highway, and Animalon is the most deliberately theatrical of his projects: no walls, no roof, a fixed sequence of courses, and a start time chosen so that the meal moves from late afternoon light into darkness under the tree. The menu is a set Baja progression that changes seasonally and typically opens with raw or lightly cured seafood, moves through wood-fired vegetables and a fish course, and closes with meat cooked over coals and a dessert built around valley fruit. Ingredients are drawn from the Pacific and the Sea of Cortez, from valley cheesemakers in Ojos Negros, and from La Carrodilla's own organic garden. Wine is poured largely from the estate, whose Shiraz and Tempranillo are among the valley's better known bottlings, with pairings offered course by course. The setting dictates the character of the evening. It is open-air and rustic rather than polished, the ground is packed earth, service is warm and conversational, and dress is smart-casual with the practical caution that the valley cools sharply after sunset even in summer, so a jacket or wrap is sensible. Seatings are Thursday to Sunday at 2PM and 7PM, and the restaurant closes or moves indoors in bad weather. Capacity is limited to a few dozen guests per service and the room fills far in advance, so a reservation is essential and should be made several weeks ahead for weekend dinners, longer during the August harvest season when the valley is at its busiest. Expect roughly 2,000 to 2,800 pesos per person for the menu before pairings.