La Bóveda at Casona Sforza

What La Bóveda at Casona Sforza is

La Bóveda is the restaurant of Casona Sforza, an eleven-suite beachfront hotel at La Barra de Colotepec, on the coast south east of Puerto Escondido. The name means “the vault”, which is exactly what the building is: a row of asymmetrical half-tube vaults built from local handmade brick, set back a few yards from the sand.

The restaurant is open to people who are not staying at the hotel, and that is how most visitors experience the architecture. It serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the bar keeps going after the kitchen closes.

Two things are worth separating before you go. Casona Sforza the hotel is in the Michelin Guide and holds a Michelin Key, awarded in 2024 when Michelin launched its hotel distinction. La Bóveda the restaurant is written up inside that hotel entry and in the guide’s Puerto Escondido coverage, but it is not a starred or Bib Gourmand restaurant, and it is not on the guide’s Puerto Escondido restaurant list. Treat it as the dining room of a Michelin Key hotel rather than a Michelin restaurant.

Who cooks here

The kitchen is led by two Venezuelan chefs, Andrés Trujillo from Caracas and Vanessa Franco from Maracaibo, who runs pastry. They met in Mexico City and have cooked together for more than five years. Their stated approach is what the hotel calls glocal: hyper-local ingredients handled with global flavours and French technique.

Produce comes from farms, cooperatives and fishers around Puerto Escondido, and the honey, vanilla and coffee come from Pueblo del Sol, the hotel’s sister project inland. The building itself is by Alberto Kalach, one of the best known architects in Mexico, whose work on this coast also includes Hotel Terrestre. The rough-luxe interiors are by MOB Studio in Mexico City.

Awards and press

• Michelin Key, 2024: awarded to Casona Sforza in the first edition of the Michelin Guide’s hotel distinction. This is a hotel award, not a restaurant star.
• Michelin Guide Mexico: Casona Sforza is listed in the guide’s hotel selection for Puerto Escondido, and La Bóveda is described there and in the guide’s Puerto Escondido travel coverage.
• MexBest 2025: named Best Boutique Hotel in Mexico in August 2025.
• Tripadvisor: La Bóveda by Casona Sforza holds about 4.6 out of 5, and roughly the same average across more than eighty OpenTable diner reviews.

How the menu works

La Bóveda is a la carte, not a tasting menu, and the card changes with the season and the catch. The fixed points are seafood, pasta made in house, a wood oven and a garden section.

• Breakfast, 8am to noon: the omelette with hoja santa, a large aromatic Mexican leaf, and quesillo, the Oaxacan string cheese, is the house signature. House bread and pastries.
• Lunch, 1pm to 5pm: ceviche of the day, garden salads, pizza from the wood oven.
• Dinner, 6pm to 10pm: a la carte only, with no tasting menu. Starters run from yogurt bread with hummus and eggplant to a catch of the day ceviche and a tiradito with XO and avocado. Then pasta and risotto, including spaghetti alla vongole with caviar and a huitlacoche risotto with black truffle tartufata, and mains from grilled local fish to rib eye tacos with tatemada sauce and a beef schnitzel with mashed potatoes.
• Drinks: natural Mexican wines, a mixology list and mezcal tastings. The bar pours until 11pm.
• Dietary: the printed menu asks you to flag allergies and dietary restrictions, and in the same breath says the kitchen declines changes to its dishes. Say what you need when you book rather than at the table, since the menu is small.

What I ate

I went for the food that the room is built for rather than the local classics. Two dishes stood out on the plate: a black pasta with caviar, which on the current card is the spaghetti alla vongole with caviar and Meyer lemon butter at 550 MXN, and a semifreddo for dessert, now listed as passion fruit and mango with coconut sorbet at 270. On taste I would argue with anyone who calls it Michelin level cooking, and I said so in the reel. What is not arguable is the setting, the service and the sunset, and those are the reasons to make the drive.

What it costs

The prices below come from La Bóveda’s own dinner menu. They are in Mexican pesos, IVA is already included and tips are not.

Item	Price
Yogurt bread, hummus and eggplant	190 MXN, about 10 USD
Eggplant soup, confit garlic, Picual olive oil	280 MXN
Catch of the day ceviche	405 MXN
Pesto pizza, white sauce, pistachio	460 MXN
Spaghetti alla vongole, caviar, Meyer lemon butter	550 MXN
Huitlacoche risotto, parmesan, black truffle	550 MXN
Grilled local fish, white wine and butter emulsion	675 MXN
Grilled rib eye tacos, tatemada sauce	680 MXN
Beef schnitzel, mashed potatoes, Dijon mustard	850 MXN, about 45 USD
Desserts	90 to 300 MXN
Three courses, per person	About 1,000 to 1,500 MXN, 53 to 79 USD, drinks extra

The cheapest thing on the card is the yogurt bread at 190 MXN and the dearest is the beef schnitzel at 850, so three courses land between 1,000 and 1,500 MXN a head before you drink anything. That is the top bracket in Puerto Escondido, and when I filmed in July 2026 it was the most expensive meal of my trip on this coast, in a hotel whose rooms start around 416 USD a night with breakfast. The restaurant also runs holiday set menus, priced in past years at 3,800 MXN for five courses and 6,800 for seven at New Year, and hires out a private seaside table for two at 3,000 MXN for three hours and a sunset beach table for a group at 5,000 for four hours. Prices move, so confirm the card when you reserve.

How to book

Reservations are strongly advised, for guests and non-guests alike. The dining room serves a hotel with eleven suites, so there is not much spare capacity.

• OpenTable: search for La Bóveda by Casona Sforza, Puerto Escondido.
• Phone or WhatsApp: +52 954 168 5652. The hotel also lists +52 1 954 118 6464 for reservations.
• Email: reservaciones@casonasforza.com.
• Instagram: @laboveda.casonasforza, the restaurant’s own account, separate from the hotel’s.

Ask for a table at 6pm or 7pm if you want the sunset, and mention dietary restrictions in the booking. Dress is what the hotel calls polished bohemian: no jacket needed, but this is not a beach shack.

Getting there

• Address: La Bóveda at Casona Sforza, La Barra de Colotepec, Puerto Escondido 70934, Oaxaca, Mexico.
• From Puerto Escondido airport: about 25 minutes by car. The hotel sells private transfers from about 25 USD each way.
• From La Punta Zicatela: about 15 minutes.
• Parking: on site at the hotel.
• Navigation: map apps lose the last section. When I drove in, the final stretch was an unpaved road with enough holes to slow a normal car to walking pace.

Go before dark. There is no street lighting on the approach, and the dirt road is much harder to read at night. If you have had wine with dinner, arrange the return car with the hotel rather than driving back blind.

Before you go

• Drive in daylight, leave with a driver. The last stretch is dirt and the route is badly mapped.
• Book the early dinner seating if the sunset over the beach is part of why you are coming.
• Bring repellent. You are eating in the open, a few yards from the sand and beside a river mouth.
• The kitchen does not do substitutions. Its own menu says it declines changes to the dishes, so raise allergies and dietary restrictions when you book. The same menu notes that prices include IVA but tips do not.
• Adults only at the hotel. Guests must be over 18, and the property is not suitable for reduced mobility. Confirm the rule for a restaurant booking with children.
• Set the taste expectation separately from the setting. The design, the service and the view are the strongest part of the experience.
• Pair it with the other architecture stops. Glou Glou at Casa TO is the concrete counterpart to these brick vaults, and Casa Wabi and Meridiano are the art foundations up the coast.
• Check the hours before you go. The hours on this page come from the venue’s public listings, which drift, so confirm on Google Maps or the venue’s own channels before a special trip.

Watch the visit

The reel above is the walk through the vaults and the plates, filmed in July 2026. For everywhere else I ate on this coast, open my map or browse the Puerto Escondido recommendations.