No Menu, Just Delightful Dining

The Wall Street Journal has discovered restaurants without menus. This may be news in New York, but not in San Jose del Cabo, where for five years this month Casiano Reyes has eschewed menus at his intimate Restaurante Casianos.

We returned to the restaurant last night for our Valentine's Day dinner. The restaurant is in a depressed office and commercial complex on the southwest side of town, just above a urine-scented access to the beach. But once through the restaurant's curtained entry you're in a different world, where polished sophistication holds forth. The classy design runs vaguely to French and Spanish traditionalism. Black-clad servers were attentive and smart. For some reason, whenever we visit Casianos I expect to see George Clooney, a not-infrequent visitor to Los Cabos, according to the local press. Last night, however, no George, but there was some guy with the heft and confidence of a professional football player, though I couldn't place him without his jersey.

At any rate, diners are greeted with a parmesan breadstick that would please Biba Caggiano, a tray with a selection of fresh lemon, lime or mint to go in your glasses of water, and a question about whether you have any dietary restrictions. No menu is handed over, just an opportunity to specify whether you want the three-course meal or the five course.

Once that's resolved, a basket with four kinds of warm breads arrive, followed soon after by plate after plate of what Reyes calls "spontaneous cuisine." His intent is to surprise guests and leave them delighted by both their adventurous spirit and his precise cookery, perhaps best classified as New-Wave Mexican. Traditional staples of the Baja diet make their appearance, but in totally original presentations. Sweet scallops were sweetened even more with a concentrated puree of sun-dried tomatoes. The brightness and juiciness of finely diced watermelon contrasted with the crackle of its accompanying fried goat-cheese ravioli. A creamy corn sauce and a puree of beets lit up the lobster medallion with their earthy sweetness. A filet of sea bass covered with lentil scales floated on a sea of pureed green beans.

Filet mignon and New York steak aren't my favorite cuts of beef, but both were handled with imagination and care, the former exceptionally tender and rich, the latter succulent and smoky, its red-wine-and-rosemary sauce the perfect accompaniment.

The most unusual dish was a cylinder of poached potato filled with foie gras and blueberry. The foie gras, said our server, was produced at Guadalajara.

Dessert consisted of two kinds of cake (white chocolate for one, red velvet for the other) accompanied by two kinds of ice cream (rose petal for one, tequila for the other), both paired with pears that had been marinated in orange and thyme, then topped with feta.

Restaurante Casianos isn't inexpensive - 900 pesos per person for the five-course selection (about $75 at the current exchange rate) - but then Valentine's Day comes around just once a year. We stuck to wines by the glass, including a minerally and lemony Chilean chardonnay and a quiet Chilean pinot noir, after finding the restaurant's wine list to be the weak link in the operation. In excitement, the wine selection isn't up to the same level as the food, with most of the choices pedestrian and overpriced. The Bogle chardonnay is a fine take on the varietal, but not at the 700 pesos (nearly $60) that the restaurant expects to get for it. Nevertheless, Restaurante Casianos at five years old is continuing to meet its exacting standards.