Marco Ortlam Caps Arte Culinaria at 70 Guests in Los Cabos

Marco Ortlam, managing director of Montage Los Cabos, set the working scale at seventy seats before a knife was lifted. He built Arte Culinaria over Memorial Day weekend, May 22 to 25, with attendance capped at 70 guests. Ortlam frames the limit as a way to keep the chefs and bartenders in contact with every guest, not across a distant stage but through the work of cooking, pouring and hosting.

Ortlam built the festival with the Los Cabos Tourism Board and a roster that moves between Mexican kitchens, international tasting-menu rooms, cocktail bars and cellars. Daniela Soto-Innes of Rubra in Punta Mita, Dominique Crenn of Atelier Crenn in San Francisco, Jorge Vallejo of Quintonil in Mexico City, Julien Royer of Odette in Singapore, Manu Buffara of Restaurant Manu in Curitiba and Richard Lee of Saison in San Francisco form the chef bench.¹ The drinks side brings in Mexico City's Handshake Speakeasy, Tlecan and Licorería Limantour, Bar Crenn from San Francisco, and Jesse Katz of Aperture Cellars in Healdsburg, Sonoma.

Ortlam's 70-Guest Cap Sets the Method

Ortlam's cap changes the mechanics for the people doing the work. Four-hands menus can remain close to the cooks who designed them. A cocktail team can pace a room by reading faces, not only tickets. A winemaker can pour with enough proximity to talk through vineyard, blend and release rather than disappear behind a service station. For guests, the scale means the useful view is bench-side: close enough to watch the hand that plates, pours or cuts.

Ortlam's question for the weekend was practical: how to join Mexican chefs and the country's food culture with an international turn. His answer sits in the pairings. He does not treat Mexican restaurants and bars as decoration around visiting names; he places them in shared structure with Crenn, Royer, Buffara, Lee and Katz.

The three-day frame Ortlam built carries meals, tastings, art, a yacht outing and a pool cabana reserved all day with complimentary light bites and drinks. The point is not volume. It is a controlled field of makers, guests and repeated contact.

May 23 at Arte Culinaria: Crenn, Royer, Vallejo and Soto-Innes

On May 23, Crenn and Royer cook Origins, a five-course lunch. Later that day, Vallejo and Soto-Innes present Roots of Mexico, Presented by Tequila Reserva de la Familia, a five-course dinner accompanied by cocktails from Handshake Speakeasy.

The lunch places Crenn and Royer, two chefs from precise, highly worked restaurants, into the four-hands format. The dinner turns the focus toward modern Mexican cuisine, with Handshake Speakeasy inside the meal rather than attached after it. The bar's role is part of the architecture: course, glass, pause, next plate.

Guests tracking the day should follow the sequence, from the five-course lunch to the five-course dinner, then outward to the terrace and residence events. Breakfast programming includes a Dom Pérignon tasting that follows the maison through vintages and culminates with Plénitude 2. On May 23, hors d'oeuvres are served on Marea's ocean-facing terrace. On May 24, Kaviari caviar, Krug and a plated Baja-tinged menu from Royer move into one of the hotel's residences overlooking Santa María Bay.

May 24 Lunch: Lee, Buffara and Katz at the Table

Lee and Buffara take the next lunch service, also in five courses. Lee brings the California side of the conversation; Buffara brings a plant-forward kitchen from Curitiba. They built their menu around landscapes that inspire them, with Aperture pours from Katz alongside.

Katz's place in Ortlam's program is part of the cellar work. He produces Montage International's private Montage Estate wine collection⁴ and was named Wine Enthusiast's 2025 Winemaker of the Year.² On May 23, he also leads a tasting of Collage, made from 200 acres of vineyards across five Sonoma County appellations. The pour to watch is Collage, because it gives Katz room to talk through vineyard, blend and release inside the same weekend as the lunch service.

The final dinner, Ember & Sea, gathers all the chefs around live fire. Each prepares a dish over an open flame, and guests move between stations for tastes. Tlecan handles drinks, with wines from emerging regions around the world.

The Arte Culinaria Bar Program Takes Its Own Station

Late on May 23, Handshake Speakeasy, Licorería Limantour and Tlecan take over the hotel's Mezcal bar for Late Night Latin Grooves. Mexico City electronic duo Sotomayor provides the sound: Afro-Latin percussion cut with contemporary beats. The late slot suits guests who want to read the bar teams on their own terms, without waiting for a dinner pairing to introduce them.

Ortlam's drinks schedule does not lean only on the dinner pairings. On May 24, a master distiller leads a tasting of rare and unreleased tequilas. That same day, Hues of Gold and Blue pairs Château d'Yquem, the only designated Premier Cru Supérieur in Sauternes,³ with blue cheeses that move from delicate to bold.

Bar Crenn completes the named bar roster, extending the beverage program beyond Mexico City while keeping the emphasis on makers with their own point of view. Ortlam treats the glass as a craft station, not a courtesy pour.

May 24 on the Water with Crenn and Soto-Innes

A 112-foot luxury yacht carries one of the May 24 events to the Cabo Arch, with Crenn and Soto-Innes hosting. They serve light ceviche with champagne and rosé, and the soundtrack comes from chef-curated selections.

The outing shifts the tempo after the denser service work of May 23. The destination is fixed, Crenn and Soto-Innes are named as hosts, and the food remains part of the event rather than an afterthought to the setting. For guests choosing pace over another seated progression, this is the softer May 24 thread: ceviche, champagne, rosé and the Cabo Arch.

That same day also holds some of the most tactile programming off the plate: distillation, Sauternes and cheese, caviar and Krug, and the residence lunch looking out over Santa María Bay. The weekend keeps changing rooms without dropping the thread of craft.

What Guests Can Follow Through 70 Seats

The opening-night soiree, Welcome to Baja, Presented by Capital One, brings in Cris Hanhausen of Momiji in Mexico City and Erick Bautista of NOL in Mérida from the S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy. Their role is generational: Baja-inspired dishes from two young cooks, served with free-flowing Ruinart.

For a guest who wants to study the weekend, the useful route is not celebrity-spotting. It is tracking how each maker handles constraint. Crenn and Royer ask for sequence in a five-course lunch. The chefs around live fire ask for timing and control. Katz asks for attention to release and distillation in a rare-tequila tasting. The bar takeover asks for rhythm.

Canvas & Jicaras, held May 23 with Mexican painter Gennaro Garcia, adds another hand process. Garcia introduces his work, then teaches a painting class on the central lawn, with a tasting of Mexican spirits folded into the session. Guests looking beyond the plate get a clear station here: brush, jicara, spirit, lawn.

What Ortlam Wants After the First Edition

Ortlam wants Arte Culinaria to become annual, and the future plan already points beyond the plate. Later editions may lean further into art, with artisans from Guadalajara for pottery workshops; agriculture, with farm outings that show regional produce; and a stronger social component, including the possibility of repeating a prior hotel initiative to build a new kitchen for an underprivileged school.

The first edition's strongest argument is scale. Ortlam knows a festival can collect famous names and still lose the work. Here, the format asks the chefs, bartenders, artist and winemaker to remain legible to a small audience.

If Ortlam holds Arte Culinaria to that method, the reason to return will not be the number of names on a schedule. It will be the number of times a guest can connect a taste, pour, brushstroke or flame to the person who made the choice.