Puerto Nuevo

Puerto Nuevo is a cluster of houses and restaurants on a low bluff above the Pacific, in the municipality of Playas de Rosarito, about 15 km south of Rosarito and 65 km north of Ensenada. Only 172 people lived here at the 2020 census, yet on weekends the place is packed: some 35 restaurants crowd four block-long streets, and nearly all of them serve one thing, lobster.

The village began with a few fishing families from the shores of Lake Chapala in Jalisco, who settled in this small cove and trapped California spiny lobster. The first modest eatery opened in the mid-1950s, and by 1970 several families were serving meals in their living rooms, with fishermen's wives cooking the day's catch. Juan and Petra Ortega and their ten children were among the first; the Ortega name is still on the signs of several restaurants here and in Rosarito.

Those home kitchens produced Puerto Nuevo-style lobster: split in half and fried, traditionally in lard, then brought to the table with fresh flour tortillas, refried beans, rice, limes, salsa and melted butter for dipping. Many places now steam or grill it too. Demand outgrew the local catch in the late 1970s, so much of the lobster is now brought in from elsewhere; visitors eat around 100,000 a year, often with a bottle of Valle de Guadalupe wine.

The Lobster Festival opens the season every October with food and folk dancing. The climate is Mediterranean and cool most of the year, with winter rain and dry Santa Ana winds in autumn. Surfers head five minutes north to the break they call Captain Ron's.