For your lunch time salivating pleasure, here’s a three-course lunch presented from the poolside restaurant with a view at Four Seasons Punta Mita in Mexico. This is the Ketsi restaurant, overseen by Richard Sandoval. (I probably don’t have to tell you that it was all delicious.)

First course: smoked swordfish tostadas

Grilled red Snapper with chili morita Sauce, mango salsa, sweet corn tamal

Dessert: a heavenly Mexican chocolate tart

See more about the beachfront seafood grill (Bahia) and Aramara Asian restaurants at the Four Seasons Punta Mita dining page.

We like to circle back through hotels we’ve reviews in Luxury Latin America every couple of years to make sure they’re still pleasing picky guests and keeping things looking great. Sometimes we’re disappointed, but in some cases I know that I don’t have to worry—as with Villa Ganz in Guadalajara.

Despite having only 10 rooms, this fine inn frequently comes out on top in guidebooks and magazine articles as “the best hotel in Guadalajara” and you won’t get any argument from me on that point. In a city dominated by boxy chain hotels with little charm and historic buildings that have only half-heartedly been restored, Villa Ganz is a standout for its close attention to detail on the aesthetics and its excellent personal service.

It all depends on how you define luxury, of course, but to me—and I hope many of our readers—it goes well beyond chain hotel loyalty point upgrades and who has the biggest presidential suite. When you’re treated like a VIP no matter which room you are in and no matter how many nights you’ve racked up on someone’s computer readout, that’s a mark of a hotel that really gets it.

Villa Ganz gets it, and you’ll feel that as soon as you walk in the door. Book here with confidence when you’ll be in Guadalajara, next week or three more years from now.

The upscale inn we used to feature on Mexico’s Isla Mujeres turned into a vacation rental place late last year, but we’ve filled the gap with a bigger and better resort: Villa Rolandi.

Occupying its own private corner of this island just north of Cancun, Villa Rolandi offers huge rooms with plenty of amenities and the kind of peace and quiet you definitely won’t get in its overshadowing city nearby. Here’s what our reviewer had to say:

Though isolated, the setting, on a thin strip of land between the beach and a central lagoon, is superb. Direct yacht and catamaran service from Cancun brings you directly to the front door. Enter through a lobby full of stained glass that leaves an enchanting colored glow and to the left and above are the rooms, straight ahead are the three blue tiled pools, and to the right is the restaurant that extends dock-like over the Caribbean.

Rates start at just $280 with breakfast and a stocked minibar for the smallest rooms, but “smallest” is a relative term when they start at 450 square feet. If you want to take advantage of the convenience and reasonable flight prices for Cancun but don’t want to rub shoulders with the people that typically go to Cancun, Isla Mujeres is a nice alternative, especially with the tranquility this resort offers. See our detailed review of Villa Rolandi.

See other luxury hotels in Cancun and the Riviera Maya.