Manzanilla

Manzanilla stands near the Ensenada port on Boulevard Teniente Azueta and is one of the founding restaurants of modern Baja California cooking. It was opened by Benito Molina and Solange Muris, a chef couple trained in Europe who returned to Ensenada at the end of the 1990s and argued, well before anyone else had made the case commercially, that the peninsula's seafood, valley vegetables and young wine industry could support serious cooking on their own terms. A generation of Baja chefs passed through the kitchen, and the restaurant's influence on what is now called Baja Med is difficult to overstate. The dining room is a converted industrial space with high ceilings, exposed structure, warm lighting and a bar, opening onto a courtyard used in warm weather; the mood is grown-up and relaxed rather than formal, and noise stays at conversation level. Wood fire is central to the cooking. Grilled octopus is the dish most identified with the house, charred over coals and dressed simply. Fish cooked in a fig-leaf broth and mussels steamed in Valle de Guadalupe white wine are the other two long-running signatures, and the daily catch is treated with the same restraint. Vegetables come from valley farms, and the menu shifts with the seasons rather than staying fixed. The wine programme is a genuine strength and is essentially a survey of the Valle de Guadalupe, with bottles from Casa de Piedra, Monte Xanic, Adobe Guadalupe, Vena Cava and smaller producers, many available by the glass, plus a well-built cocktail and mezcal list. Prices are upper-middle for Ensenada, with mains generally 400 to 800 pesos. Reservations are effectively essential for dinner, especially Friday and Saturday, and are made by telephone; the restaurant serves Wednesday to Sunday from 1PM to 10PM and is closed at the start of the week. Dress is smart-casual.