Seventy Michelin stars is an impressive number and a hopelessly blunt instrument for describing a festival.
It gives the third edition of Apapaxoa its headline, certainly. Yet the real measure of the programme lies in what Xcaret intends to do with all that imported firepower. From 18 to 23 September 2026, chefs from Copenhagen, Osaka, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Bogotá and São Paulo will enter restaurants already shaped by Mexican cooks, ingredients and regional identities. The encounter should be more revealing than the arithmetic.
Held across Hotel Xcaret Arte, Hotel Xcaret México, La Casa de la Playa and Xcaret Park, Apapaxoa brings together more than 50 guests for dinners, conversations, workshops, tastings, art, music, wellness sessions and a gastronomic book fair. The theme, The Colors of Mexico, could easily dissolve into resort-brochure language. The programme gives it substance through a wide spectrum of Mexican voices: internationally recognised chefs, traditional cooks, pastry specialists, bartenders, sommeliers, farmers, fermentation researchers and producers.
Xcaret defines Apapaxoa as an embrace with the soul. For six days, that embrace will require a very large kitchen brigade.
Mexico Keeps the Host’s Seat
The visiting cast carries formidable recognition. Dominique Crenn, Rasmus Munk, Quique Dacosta, Oriol Castro, Alex Atala, Paco Roncero, Diego Guerrero, Yusuke Takada, Paolo Casagrande, Jorge Vallejo and Álvaro Clavijo are among the chefs travelling to the Riviera Maya.
Their names will sell tickets. The structure surrounding them gives the festival its identity.
Apapaxoa is hosted by Xcaret’s 23-member Gastronomic Collective, whose restaurants cover a considerable map of Mexican cooking. Roberto Solís draws on Yucatán and its Lebanese history at Kibi-Kibi and Chi. Gabriela Ruiz brings the cooking of Tabasco and Veracruz to Costero. Lula Martín del Campo explores Puebla at Azul Nogada, while Mariana Valencia concentrates on Michoacán at Monarca. José Luis Hinostroza works with the seafood and fire of Baja California and Sinaloa at Arenal. Karime López, Martha Ortiz, Paco Méndez, Carlos Gaytán, Jonatan Gómez Luna and Andoni Luis Aduriz contribute their own restaurants to the network.
That resident infrastructure prevents Apapaxoa from becoming a travelling circus of famous chefs temporarily installed beside the Caribbean. Each visitor enters an operating restaurant with its own chef, context and culinary vocabulary.
The wider guest list expands the definition of gastronomic authority further. Traditional cooks Rosalba Morales, Luz del Carmen Gómez, Marcela Santillán, María Petrona Alvarado and Minerva Carrillo bring Purépecha, Guerrero, Colima, Campeche, Mayan and Wixárika knowledge into the same programme as the Michelin-heavy international contingent. Their presence gives “The Colors of Mexico” considerably more meaning than a line-up assembled entirely from award-winning dining rooms.
The Dinners to Watch
The festival opens on 18 September with a welcome dinner at La Casa de la Playa. On the following evening, Ellas Cantan gathers female chefs from across the Xcaret collective for a tribute to Dominique Crenn, this year’s distinguished guest. The dinner includes Martha Ortiz, Karime López, Lula Martín del Campo, Mariana Valencia, Gabriela Ruiz, Sheyla Alvarado, Fernanda Prado and Maribel Aldaco.
From 20 September, Apapaxoa breaks into simultaneous dinners across the Xcaret restaurants. Choosing will require some discipline.
At Xal, Rasmus Munk joins Andoni Luis Aduriz and pastry chef Antonio Bachour. The combination is unusually charged: two chefs who have spent years extending dinner into intellectual, visual and emotional territory, working inside one of Xcaret’s most private hotels.
At XAAK, Karime López cooks with Yusuke Takada of La Cime in Osaka. López’s return to Mexico after becoming the first Mexican woman to earn a Michelin star gives the pairing a personal undertow, while Takada brings a cuisine formed between Japanese sensibility and European technique.
On 21 September, Jonatan Gómez Luna hosts Quique Dacosta and Álvaro Clavijo at Le Chique. The same evening brings Alex Atala together with live-fire specialist Juan Emilio Villaseñor at Las Cuevas, and Paolo Casagrande with Massimiliano Delle Vedove, Carlos Gaytán and Antonio Bachour at HA’.
The following night, Paco Méndez welcomes Jorge Vallejo and Diego Guerrero to Encanta. It may be the programme’s most coherent three-chef proposition, connecting three highly individual approaches to contemporary cooking through Mexican ingredients, Spanish technique and years of exchange between both countries.
The most extravagant ticket is reserved for 22 September at Tlachco in Xcaret Park. Priced at MXN 35,000, the dinner assembles a vast group including Crenn, Dacosta, Atala, Aduriz, Mario Sandoval, Roberto Solís, Karime López and Jonatan Gómez Luna. With that many chefs involved, choreography will be as important as cuisine.
The Intelligence Between Dinners
Apapaxoa devotes much of its daytime programme to Relatos con Sabor, a series of discussions on artificial intelligence, culinary innovation, fermentation, wine, sustainability, wellness, territory and the relationship between food, culture and community.
The range is broad enough to invite several hours of empty conference vocabulary. The participants offer reasons to expect better. Fermentation specialist Esteban Rojas works between microbiology and Mexican food culture. Pablo Usobiaga, co-founder of Arca Tierra and Baldío, brings practical experience in regenerative agriculture and supply chains. Viticulturist Fernando Pérez Castro has helped advance organic winemaking in Valle de Guadalupe. Traditional cooks arrive with knowledge preserved through communities and daily practice, beyond the fashionable rediscovery of “ancestral” technique by expensive restaurants.
The book fair adds more than 70 titles, author signings and literary events. Workshops move through mole, chocolate, textiles, painting, Wixárika art, mezcal and tea. Breakfasts are organised around a single ingredient each morning, including honey, chocolate, eggs and lamb. The festival closes with a concert by Mexican singer Emmanuel, accompanied by food and mixology.
It is an enormous programme, perhaps excessively so. Apapaxoa’s challenge will be converting abundance into encounters that remain specific, allowing cooks and ideas enough space to register before the next famous name appears.
The architecture is promising. International chefs bring attention; Xcaret’s resident collective supplies continuity; traditional cooks, producers and specialists widen the conversation. The best festivals use imported fame to sharpen the place that invited it. Apapaxoa has assembled the cast. September will show what Mexico chooses to say with it.
Practicalities
Event: Apapaxoa GastroCultural Festival Xcaret 2026
Dates: 18–23 September 2026
Location: Riviera Maya, Mexico
Main venue: Hotel Xcaret Arte
Additional venues: Hotel Xcaret México, La Casa de la Playa and Xcaret Park
Individual festival day passes for 20–23 September are currently listed from MXN 450.
Full-day passes including one dinner begin at MXN 5,200,
The six-day Total Apapaxoa package costs MXN 16,500.
Separately ticketed dinners range from MXN 1,950 to MXN 35,000.
Full programme, accommodation and reservations: Apapaxoa 2026 official website
Check also: Chef's Table Festival in Park City
