Santa María Huatulco

The Best Seafood Experience in Oaxaca Is Ay Caray Restaurant - Eater

"Head straight to that restaurant’s worn thatched roof and recline in one of its plastic chairs for a front-row seat to families playing in the bay’s gentle blue waters and the hum of the pangas whisking groups away for ocean excursions. As the micheladas, piña coladas, and shots of mezcal arrive, you sink deeper into the soft, golden sand, and you might just drift away entirely if it weren’t for the sudden gleam off a silver platter that is heading your way, laden with a pile of fat, spiny lobsters, shimmering parrotfish, and rosy red snappers — the catches of the day. You choose one or, better yet, all and sit back as your soon-to-be feast succumbs to the smoke and flames of the restaurant’s traditional clay oven, inlaid with stone, the way Zapotecos in the eastern Costa region have been cooking seafood here for hundreds of years — and now for you, here, at what’s probably the best seafood restaurant in all of Oaxaca." - Bill Esparza