Rancho Santa Marina

What Rancho Santa Marina is

Rancho Santa Marina is a working ranch in El Marqués, half an hour from Querétaro city, that does four things on one property: makes cheese, grows grapes, cooks lunch and rents two rooms. It calls itself agroecological, and the traceability claim is easy to check on site, because the animals, the dairy, the ageing cave and the kitchen are all within a short walk of each other.

The cheese is the reason it is known. Rancho Santa Marina matures in a natural cave, unusual in this part of Mexico, and works with goat, sheep and cow milk across a range that runs from a three-week goat pyramid to a two-month semi-aged sheep cheese. In 2023 it swept the top two places at the national artisan cheese competition, which is what put it on the map beyond the state.

The visitor side is the restaurant La Ordeña, a farm-to-table dining room whose wine cellar is installed in the ranch’s old milking room. It serves à la carte at lunch and dinner from Friday to Sunday and a buffet brunch on weekend mornings. Two hotel rooms sit behind it for anyone who wants to stay.

Who is behind it

The ranch was founded about twenty years ago by Javier Pérez Rocha, who started with cheese from goat, sheep and cow milk and later added rural tourism and natural wine made from syrah grapes grown on the property. The vineyard is small and feeds the wine list rather than a commercial label, and the vine ash even ends up on the surface of some of the goat cheeses.

The dairy itself is run by master cheesemaker Lola Olguín, whose name is on the house range. The recipes are European in style, crottins, perails and pyramids rather than Mexican fresh cheeses, which is what let the ranch compete against the traditional producers at a national level and win.

Awards and press

• Mejor Queso Artesano de México, 2023: first and second place, at the Viva el Queso festival held in October 2023 at Cava de Quesos Bocanegra near Tequisquiapan. The winner was a crottin-style cheese aged about twenty days, in a 50 to 60 gram format. Sources disagree on whether the second-placed piece was goat or sheep milk, so take the pairing as first and second overall rather than two goat cheeses.
• Festival Viva el Queso 2024: the ranch lists a first place for its Crotán, a pressed sheep cheese.
• Covered as a rural tourism and organic production case study by Animal Gourmet and Noticias de Querétaro, and listed by the El Marqués municipal tourism office.

How a visit works

The ranch runs on set services rather than open gates, and most of them are weekend only.

• Brunch buffet: Saturdays and Sundays, 10:00 to 13:00. Organic eggs, sourdough breads, fruit, garden salad, yoghurt, hotcakes, stews and broths, handmade tortillas, chilaquiles, roast meats and vegetables, plus honey and a spread of the ranch’s own cheeses. Unlimited servings.
• La Ordeña à la carte: Friday to Sunday, 13:00 to 20:00, ingredients from the ranch and nearby producers.
• Cheese and wine tasting: the house range paired with the ranch’s own natural wines, from the cellar in the old milking room. Book it with your table.
• Ranch tour: the animals, the dairy and the ageing cave. Animals can be petted, which is the part children remember.
• Kids’ area: staffed with carers during brunch.

What I ate

The brunch buffet, which is the most popular service and the one to come for. Roast meats, vegetables, eggs, fresh pastries, fruit, and a lot of the ranch’s own cheese and honey, with unlimited servings for the flat 390 pesos. The two hotel rooms are modern, cosy and extremely silent at night, silent enough that staying there alone might feel eerie rather than restful. The cheese served here is the same range that turns up at Lotti in Mexico City, which is how a lot of people meet it first without knowing where it comes from.

What it costs

Figures below are what I recorded when I filmed, in Mexican pesos.

Item	Price
Brunch buffet, per person, 13 and over	390 MXN, about 20 USD
Children under 13, buffet	Free
Unlimited bar with the buffet	160 MXN extra, about 8 USD
Buffet if you stay overnight	Included in the room rate
La Ordeña à la carte, tasting, ranch tour	Priced separately, ask when booking

The buffet is the best value on the property: unlimited servings of food that mostly came from within sight of the table, for about the price of a main course in central Querétaro. Some older listings quote 320 pesos for the same buffet, so the 390 figure is the current one rather than a mistake. The ranch does not publish room rates, tasting prices or tour prices online, so ask on WhatsApp for those.

How to book

• Website: ranchosantamarina.com, with a reservation form.
• WhatsApp: +52 55 3200 7491, which is the fastest channel.
• Phone: +52 442 250 5014.
• OpenTable: La Ordeña is listed under Restaurante La Ordeña, Atongo.
• Instagram: @ranchosantamarina and @restaurantelaordena.

Reserve for brunch, always. It runs a three-hour window, twice a week, in a small dining room, and the weekend Querétaro crowd knows about it. If you want the tasting or the ranch tour, say so at the same time so the staff can slot you in around service, and ask about the two rooms well ahead if you want to stay.

Getting there

• Address: Carretera Atongo km 3.5, El Marqués, Querétaro 76258, Mexico.
• From Querétaro city: about 30 minutes by car.
• From Mexico City: roughly two and a half to three hours.
• From Querétaro international airport: about 20 to 30 minutes.
• Parking: on site.
• Public transport: nothing practical. Drive, or take a taxi from Querétaro and arrange the return before you head out.

Before you go

• It is a weekend place. Brunch is Saturday and Sunday mornings only, and the restaurant runs Friday to Sunday. Midweek needs arranging.
• Book the buffet, not the à la carte, on your first visit. It is the service that shows you the whole cheese range at once.
• Bring a cooler bag. You will buy cheese, and it is a warm drive back.
• Wear farm shoes. The tour goes through the animal areas and the ageing cave.
• Chain it to the cheese and wine route. The festival where the ranch won was held at Cava Bocanegra, which is a good second stop, and Finca VAI near Colón is the cow-milk counterpart. For the wine end, Ruinas at Puerta del Lobo is 20 minutes away in the same municipality.
• 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 short version of the ranch, the cheese and that buffet. For everything else in the state, open my map or browse the rest of the Querétaro recommendations.