CARBÓNCABRÓN

CARBÓNCABRÓN is chef Poncho Cadena's live-fire restaurant at kilometer 24.5 of the highway, in Cerro Colorado on the San José end of the Tourist Corridor. The room is dark and moody, and the design is built around stacks of mesquite firewood shelved like books in a library. The MICHELIN Guide selected it in its top price band. It serves dinner only, from 6 PM to 10 PM.

The menu is split into vegetables, seafood and what the restaurant calls black market meats. The dishes MICHELIN highlights are charcoal-tempura onion petals filled with habanero aioli, and tail-on shrimp over pork belly. There's a vegetable dish that the menu describes as a tribute to chef Roberto Solís of Néctar in Mérida, bone marrow, and big shareable cuts: a 26-ounce short rib and a bone-in steak the menu calls the T-Rex. There's also a chef's menu if you'd rather not choose. This is a place for a group that likes meat and doesn't mind a big bill.

Before you book: the restaurant closed from September 1 to 29, 2026, and its website says it is launching something new. Check the website or call before you plan around a specific dish, because the menu and even the format may have changed after the relaunch.

For a celebration with a group of carnivores, we think it's worth it, and at 25 to 30 minutes by car from Villa 1 it's one of the closer serious dinners on the San José side. If half your party would rather eat fish and vegetables, Nao Cabo downtown is a better fit. Book through the OpenTable widget on the restaurant's site, where availability is often limited, or by email.