9 Best Restaurants in Los Cabos, Mexico

This alfresco dining experience is built right in the center of the self-sustaining Flora Farms. It's a charming oasis featuring a farm-to-table restaurant, spa, gift shop, cooking school, organic market, and culinary cottages (private homes), all under the Flora Farms brand. Meals are homemade including produce and meat (chicken and pork) grown on the property and bread baked on-site. Wholly organic meals include favorites like fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, massive pork chops fired in the wood-burning oven, butternut squash ravioli, and a selection of pizzas and seasonal salads. Even the sausages served with sweet potato chips are homemade. The adjacent Farm Bar serves unique takes on classic cocktails delivered in Mason jars, like the ginger and beet margarita or the Farm Julep (watermelon juice with basil, mint, and rum). Flora's is a wonderful learning experience for families by day and a romantic spot for couples by night. There's live music nightly at 7:30 and cooking classes Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10:30 to 2 pm (cost $115 includes lunch).

Bandido's has come a long way since opening nearly a decade ago with three plastic tables and a grill fixed under the hood of an old pickup truck. The unique truck-grill is still around, but the restaurant's latest alfresco setting suggests it may be transitioning from working-class pit stop into romantic burger joint. Red-and-white checkered tablecloths are scattered amid dozens of palm trees festooned with lanterns, and tropical breezes blow in past the nearby marina. Bandido's is very popular with locals, who crowd the place nightly for enormous half-pound burgers and barbecue ribs, ice-cold cervezas, and old-time rock and roll.

One of the more upscale choices near hectic Médano Beach, Edith's is the sister restaurant to popular The Office on the Beach. The Caesar salad and flambéed banana crepes are prepared table-side at this colorful and popular restaurant. Wally's Special, which includes lobster, shrimp, and fish, is also a popular menu item. The focus here is on Mexican ingredients—quesadillas feature Oaxacan cheese and are filled with seasonal zucchini flowers; meat and fish dishes are doused in local chili or tropical fruit sauces. Edith's air-conditioned wine room offers a large selection of domestic and imported wines and is ideal for hosting small intimate dinner parties of up to 10 people. Families dine in early evening, so come in later if you're looking for a less crowded experience.

Seafood soup and grilled fish are options at the "House of Lobster," but clearly the lobster, fried Puerto-Nuevo style, is the star. This is one of the best spots in town to try the deep-fried recipe created by Susana Diaz Plascencia in 1956; otherwise, try their fresh lobster steamed or stewed with seafood and salsa inside a traditional molcajete stone. Most wooden tables in the large dining room are covered with platters of fried or grilled lobster and all the standard accompaniments like rice, beans and paper-thin flour tortillas. Start with the clam chowder or jumbo shrimp wrapped in bacon. The medium-sized lobsters tend to be a bit more flavorful than the larger ones. There's an actual wine list here, and it has several Baja wines. On a hot day opt for the tart margaritas.

A former sugarcane mill dating back to 1888, this quaint restaurant is surrounded by farmland that provides organic fruits and vegetables to many of Cabo’s top eateries. Wildflowers in Mason jars and hand-painted clay dishes set the scene at this rustic spot where the menu is based on the season’s harvest. Start with heirloom-tomato soup and a microgreen salad with tamarind vinaigrette. For something fresh and innovative, try the shrimp tacos on thinly sliced jicama (instead of tortillas) topped with a pineapple salsa. A selection of pizzas, and slow-roasted meats like the pork shank with green mole and baked eggplant, are cooked in a wood-fired oven. One of the secrets to the fine flavors is the homemade herbal oil that is dribbled on breads and meats. A cooking class takes place at 10 and 5, by reservation only.

One of Cabo San Lucas's top restaurants is in a cobalt-blue adobe building painted with murals. Interior decorations range from Day of the Dead statues and silver crosses and hearts, to T-shirts and tequilas. The place seats up to 550 and is often full of tourists, but the menu is muy auténtico and filled with regional Mexican specialty dishes. Standouts include the molepoblano with chicken topped in a sauce made from dried peppers, seeds, spices, and chocolate; and chiles en nogada, poblano chilies stuffed with a meat-and-fruit mixture and covered with white-walnut sauce and sherry cream sauce. The tortilla soup is also recommended, as is the oven-roasted spare rib in chili and tamarind adobo. Mi Casa offers a variety of different fruit-flavored margaritas, and a wine list focused on Mexican, California, and South American wines. The large back courtyard glows with candlelight at night, and mariachis provide entertainment.

Owner Juan Calderoni has an enormous collection of tequilas, and an extensive knowledge of the stuff. His restaurant is something of a tequila museum, with a colorful array of hundreds of the world's top tequilas—many no longer available—displayed behind the bar. Sample one or two of the nearly 300 labels available, and you'll appreciate the rainbow-colored Oaxacan tablecloths, murals, painted chairs, and streamers even more than you did when you first arrived. Hungry, too? Try fresh local seafood and regional specialties like tortilla soup, chiles rellenos, or grilled pork shank in salsa borracha. For larger appetites, the Pancho's combo, which includes steak, quesadilla, chile relleno, and a chicken enchilada, is the way to go. Pancho's offers special and private tequila tastings, which will give you a greater appreciation of this piquant liquor from Jalisco.

Chef and owner Brian Solomon runs one of the most popular restaurants on the Cabo San Lucas Marina, supplementing great seaside views with first-class service and an enormous range of quality food and beverage. Fresh local seafood is the specialty of the house, but pastas, steaks, and traditional Mexican favorites are also staples of the lunch and dinner menus. For dinner, start with a traditional tortilla soup, enjoy a Caesar salad prepared table-side, then try the fresh catch of the day prepared in your choice of the restaurant's seven signature styles. Live music is featured on Saturday night, and visiting oenophiles should ask about monthly food and wine–pairing events.

Popular with the surfing crowd, this palapa-covered joint is right on Cabo Azul beach, just south of San José del Cabo. Though their burger is the reason to come, the aroma of grilling lobster and tacos, and a sound track of surf tunes are why many return. The crowd can get downright rowdy. There's no question that owner "Big Tony" feeds you well for your pesos. With half-pound burgers, slabs of prime rib, or steak and lobster for two at under $30, you'll leave the beach a glutton, albeit a jolly one. Bring the kids in the daytime; they'll enjoy running from the dining table to the sand between every couple of bites. Sporting events sometimes blare on the TV, and live music is offered nightly.