Sandra Acosta

Sandra is the home-style cook of this roster, and proudly so. She learned by doing — nine years across the cape’s kitchens under a mentor she still credits by name — and her rule is to cook every plate as if her own family were sitting down to it. She usually arrives with Jorge — who runs service beside her — so the drinks get mixed while the sopes fry, and nobody’s glass sits empty.

Her food is the Mexico people hope for on this coast: a bubbling surf-and-turf molcajete, cochinita sopes, corn cake with cajeta. Houses book her for the odd dinner and end up handing her the week — breakfasts, a long afternoon comida, and one guest still talks about the cocktails she improvised from whatever was left in the Airbnb.

Nine years in cape kitchens, self-taught under a chef she still calls the best she knows, usually cooking alongside her partner Jorge.