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The woven nest of the restaurant at Viceroy Los Cabos sitting low in a sheet of black water, with the white stepped blocks of the hotel rising behind it

Inspection · San José del Cabo, Mexico

Viceroy Los Cabos

White blocks standing in black water on the Sea of Cortez, by Miguel Ángel Aragonés, with three kitchens in it that do three different jobs.

Ocean View King Virtuoso

Book the Viceroy with me, through Classic Travel Register first, free of charge, and the rates and partner benefits open up, with the account linked to Wheresnik. Tell me your dates before you book and I will say which room to ask for here, and which week I would avoid.

Los Cabos is where Baja California runs out. The peninsula ends in a tumble of rock, the Pacific meets the Sea of Cortez around the corner, and the coast between San José del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas has filled up over thirty years with hotels that mostly look like each other. The Viceroy does not. Miguel Ángel Aragonés built it as a set of white blocks standing in sheets of black water, and the first thing it does is tell you that somebody had an idea and was allowed to finish it.

A timber boardwalk at Viceroy Los Cabos running between two strips of still black water planted with agave, towards the woven dome of the restaurant at the far end
The walk out to Nido. The water on both sides is shallow, black and completely still, which is the whole trick.

The building

Aragonés works with light and with volume, and here he had the sea to work against. The hotel is a run of stepped white blocks facing east over the water, cut through at ground level so that you can see the sea from inside the lobby, from the lounges, from the walkways. Between the blocks lie long flat sheets of dark water, shallow and still, which double everything standing in them. In the middle of one of them sits a woven dome that holds the restaurant called Nido.

A building this committed to its own geometry can be hard to spend four days in. This one is not, and I think the reason is that it is open on the side that matters. The public rooms have no wall facing the sea. You walk through them and the horizon is simply there, framed by columns and a slab of ceiling, and you keep stopping without meaning to.

The dark water at Viceroy Los Cabos curving away in a long arc with the woven dome of the restaurant at the end of it and the white blocks of the hotel behind
The water is shaped like a drawing. From a lounger it reads as a lagoon, from above as a line.
A view between white columns at Viceroy Los Cabos at sunset, with a bar table and stools in the foreground and the sea and the woven dome beyond
Every opening in the building is aimed at the water. None of them is an accident.
The timber boardwalk at Viceroy Los Cabos leading out between planted beds to the woven dome, under a clear blue sky
The same walk in daylight. In December the sun is low enough at four that the weave throws a pattern across the planks.

The room

I had an Ocean View King. The room is calm and restrained, pale and low, with a tub set against the glass and a sliding wall that opens the whole thing onto a furnished balcony over the Sea of Cortez. The balcony is the part I would protect. Mornings there were the best hour of each day, before the hotel was properly awake, with the water flat and the light coming in sideways.

At night the room changes, because the lighting scheme that runs through the whole building reaches inside it. Blue, then violet. You can turn it off. I left it on.

A bed with white linen and a blue patterned cushion at Viceroy Los Cabos, with a tub set against the window and the sea and pools beyond
The tub sits in the room and faces the glass. There is no wall between the bath and the view.
A white tub at the window of a room at Viceroy Los Cabos looking out over the oval pool and the sea
From the water in the tub you look down on the water in the pool and out to the water in the bay.
A room at Viceroy Los Cabos after dark, lit blue and violet along the walls and the ceiling, with the bed pale in the middle of it
The colour comes on at dusk and runs on a cycle. It is a switch, so it is a choice.

Where you sit before dinner

The ground floor of the hotel is one long open room with the sea on one side of it and no door between the two. It is furnished in sand and bone, deep sofas and low tables, a ceiling fan turning slowly, and it is used all day: coffee in the morning, laptops at noon, drinks before dinner. Most hotels of this size have a lobby you cross. This one has a lobby you sit in.

The open lobby at Viceroy Los Cabos with pale sofas and a timber floor running to an opening with no wall, looking out to the pools and the sea
No glass on the sea side at all. The weather comes in, and in December that is a feature.
Low sand-coloured sofas in the lounge at Viceroy Los Cabos arranged towards a wide opening with the woven dome and the sea visible through it
Sit here at six and the dome in the water turns gold before anything else does.
The lobby at Viceroy Los Cabos after dark with a single woven chair in the foreground and the walls lit blue behind the columns
The same room at nine. The furniture has not moved and the building has.

Casero, and the morning

Casero is the main room and the name means home-made. Breakfast is à la carte, which I prefer to a buffet and which here is the right decision, because the kitchen is doing something. Pressed juices, Baja produce, eggs done properly. The chef is Italian, Salvatore Morina, and the cooking sits somewhere between this coast and his own without announcing itself as either. The same room then carries on all day, into lunch under the overhang and into small plates in the evening.

I took breakfast outside every morning, at a table on the terrace above the water, and it set the shape of the day.

A menu in a brown card cover reading Casero Restaurant, lying on a marble table at Viceroy Los Cabos beside a fork and a glass
Casero means home-made. The kitchen takes the word more seriously than most places that use it.
A plate of eggs on toasted bread with hollandaise and a green salad at Viceroy Los Cabos, with a bottle of orange juice and a glass of water behind it on a timber table
Breakfast on the terrace above the water. The juices are pressed to order and it shows.
A plate of cut melon, papaya and berries with a small glass of granola at Viceroy Los Cabos, beside a pair of tortoiseshell sunglasses on a dark folder
The fruit plate is the one I ordered twice. Papaya here tastes like a different fruit from the one sold in Europe.

Nido, in the water

The dome is woven from branches over a frame and sits by itself in the black water, reached by the boardwalk. Inside it is one curved room with a long banquette down one side and a round opening cut through the weave at the end, which frames the sea like a lens. During the day the sun comes through the branches and lays a net of shadow across the tables.

The kitchen is Japanese and built around an omakase, working on seafood from this coast. It is spare, controlled cooking, small plates in sequence, and it asks you to pay attention. I would book it for the second or third evening, once you have stopped moving.

The interior of the woven dome at Viceroy Los Cabos with a long upholstered banquette and tables running down it, the sun through the branches casting a net of shadow across everything
Lunchtime inside Nido. The pattern moves across the room over the course of an hour.
Set tables and blue banquettes inside the woven dome at Viceroy Los Cabos, with a round opening at the end framing the sea and a parasol
The opening is cut to the height of somebody sitting down. Standing up, you lose it.
A small composed dish on a black tray at Viceroy Los Cabos with a glass of white wine and a bottle of mineral water on a dark table, the lit weave of the dome overhead
One course of the omakase. The portions are small, the sequence is long, and the evening is the unit.
The facade of Viceroy Los Cabos lit violet and magenta after dark, doubled in the still black water in front of it, with the woven dome dark in the foreground
Nine in the evening. The building is the entertainment, and this is the hour it performs.

Nidito, and the sand

Nidito is the little one, down at the beach and the pool, and it is the opposite of Nido in every way that matters. Lunch with your feet in the sand, tiraditos and tacos done the Baja way, margaritas, and plates brought out to the lounger if you cannot be bothered to move. It is where I spent most of the middle of the day.

It is also where the staff were the best in the hotel. I have put that in The Five because it belongs there and because it is the sort of thing people do not believe until somebody specific says it.

A dark stone table at Viceroy Los Cabos holding two small bowls of food and a tall glass of white wine, with a daybed, the sand and the sea behind
Lunch brought to the daybed. The table is volcanic stone and stays cool in full sun.
A white double daybed under a parasol standing directly on the sand at Viceroy Los Cabos, with footprints around it and the sea behind
The beds on the sand are first come. In December there were always some free after three.
A line of white parasols and loungers at Viceroy Los Cabos reflected in the dark still water beside the deck
The still water runs right up to the loungers, which is why the parasols appear twice.

What it costs you to be here

The hotel is a piece of architecture before it is anything else, and if that leaves you cold then a great deal of what you are paying for will be wasted. The rooms are good and the food is good, and neither is the reason this place exists. The reason is a man who wanted to put white blocks in black water on the Sea of Cortez and was given the budget to do it properly.

I came with that expectation and it was met. What I had not expected was how easy the building is to live in, and how much of the day I ended up spending on the sand with people who seemed pleased to see me.

The long infinity pool at Viceroy Los Cabos at sunset, perfectly still, with the hotel lettering on a white wall at the left and the mountains across the bay
Six in the evening, from the top of the steps. The water does not move at all at this hour.
The woven dome at Viceroy Los Cabos lit gold from inside after dark, standing in black water with the blue-lit blocks of the hotel behind it
And the same hour from the other direction, two hours later, with dinner going on inside the weave.

Before you book

The questions people send me about the Viceroy.

Which room should I book at Viceroy Los Cabos for the sea view?
I had an Ocean View King, which comes with a furnished balcony looking out at the Sea of Cortez, and that is the category I would take. The building is arranged in stepped blocks facing the water, so the view is the point of the room and the balcony is where you use it. There are larger categories in the hotel, two-bedroom suites, casitas, villas and a penthouse among them, and those carry more space and a second credit under the Virtuoso rate. For two people the Ocean View King did everything I wanted.
Where do you eat at Viceroy Los Cabos?
There are three places and they are genuinely separate. Casero is the main room and the name means home-made. Breakfast is served there, à la carte, with pressed juices and dishes built on Baja produce, and the same room carries on through coffee and lunch outdoors and into shared plates in the evening. The kitchen is run by an Italian chef, Salvatore Morina, and the food sits between the Baja coast and the Mediterranean without making a fuss about it. Nidito is the beach and poolside bar, lunch on the sand, tiraditos and Baja-style tacos and margaritas, with service brought out to the loungers. Nido is the woven dome standing in the water, Japanese, built around an omakase on local seafood, and it needs a whole evening.
What is the building actually like to stay in?
It is by Miguel Ángel Aragonés, and it is the reason to come. White blocks standing in sheets of still black water, long boardwalks running between them, and an oval pool with a ring of loungers around it that reads as a drawing from above. Buildings like this can be uncomfortable to live in for a few days. This one is not. The volumes open to the sea on every level, the public rooms have no walls on the water side, and the shade falls where you want to sit. At night the lighting changes the whole thing colour by colour, and that is worth staying up for.
Is December a good month in Los Cabos?
I went in December and it was the right call. Warm enough through the middle of the day to spend it on a lounger or in the water, and cool enough in the evening that dinner outside is pleasant without being cold. The light at that time of year is low and long, which is also why the photographs on this page look the way they do.
Is there enough at the hotel that I never have to leave it?
I can answer this one from experience, because I did not leave it once. The days went on the sand and in the water and on the balcony, the three kitchens covered every meal, and I never felt I was missing the point of being there. San José del Cabo has an old town and a gallery quarter, Cabo San Lucas and the arch are along the coast, and the grey whales come to this water in the winter. None of that is in this piece, because I did not go. If seeing Baja is the reason you are coming, build the days around the trips and treat the hotel as the place you come back to. If the building and the sea are the reason, the hotel is a complete holiday on its own.
Is there a spa, and how do you get to the hotel?
There is a spa and a gym on the property. I did not use the spa, so I am not going to tell you about it. On arriving: the hotel arranges transfers, and in my case they moved me across from another hotel in the area, which took one message to organise. Los Cabos airport is on the San José side, which is the side the hotel is on.

Something else you want to know? Write to me and I will answer it here.

The oval pool at Viceroy Los Cabos seen from above, ringed by white loungers and parasols, with the sea and the white blocks of the hotel behind A white moulded lounger with a curved back standing on the timber deck at Viceroy Los Cabos, with parasols and the pool behind it A wall of the hotel lit magenta after sunset at Viceroy Los Cabos, doubled in the still black water in front of it, with palms against the last light A shallow glass dish on the edge of a pool at Viceroy Los Cabos lit deep blue after dark, with small lights running along the rim A row of loungers and grey parasols on the timber deck at Viceroy Los Cabos with the sea beyond A cushioned daybed and a round timber table under a parasol at Viceroy Los Cabos, with the pool and more parasols behind

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