The Timeless Appeal of Puerto Vallarta

I first traveled to the Mexican resort town of Puerto Vallarta because of a decades-old, black-and-white movie. On a frigid winter night, as I was flipping channels in my Manhattan apartment, I stumbled across a showing of “The Night of the Iguana” on Turner Classic Movies.

This 1964 adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play, directed by John Huston and starring Richard Burton and Ava Gardner, was not exactly a film classic. The story was overheated; the acting even more so. But as it played out on my TV screen, I began paying less attention to the plot and more to the lush landscape on which it played out.

The coastal town, set in the Mexican state of Jalisco, and cradled by the gorgeous Bahía de Banderas to the west and the sweeping Sierra Madre mountain range to the east, was briefly a tourist hot spot in the 1960s and early ’70s, helped in part by the Hollywood crowd that flocked there after Huston, et al., came back and raved about it to their friends. Later, an international airport made it more accessible, and tourism boomed.

Over the years, though, Puerto Vallarta was eclipsed by Cancún, Cabo San Lucas, Tulum and even Sayulita, a surfing destination just a few miles up the Pacific Coast. Though undeniably beautiful, with access to fantastic beaches, those places felt to me blandly familiar — sprawling resorts that, for the most part, seemed to be offering a cocoon-like escape from the actual country of Mexico. I wanted something a little less predictable and, for lack of a better term, a little more “authentic.”

Plus, I was intrigued by the role that Puerto Vallarta played in what has often been called the romance of the 20th century — the scandalous affair between Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. The two stars, who met on the set of “Cleopatra,” turned Puerto Vallarta into their romantic hideaway in the early days of their clandestine relationship, when both were still married to other people.

They later returned time and time again, particularly when there were rough patches in their own marriage. Burton, especially, was enchanted by it. As he wrote in a 1971 travel article for Vogue, “The street we live on is a bewitchment invented by a genius with taste, endlessly fascinating, pastelled in blues and terra-cottas, blazing whites and duns, and there are laden burros and men from the hills going home asleep on walking horses and I could sit here forever as long as someone feeds me from time to time and plies me with drink.”

If it was good enough for Liz and Dick, it was good enough for me.

‘I dream about these tacos’

I’ve since been back to Puerto Vallarta five times since that initial trip in 2022, but it was wasn’t until my third visit that I finally found my way to Pepe’s. I had eaten well on my previous visits — from the freshly grilled marlin tacon (sort of a cross between an oversize taco and a burrito) at Tacon de Marlin that I grabbed while waiting for my Uber pickup at Gustavo Díaz Ordaz airport to the huge order of a whole fried red snapper I devoured at El Barracuda, picking apart its charred white flesh as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.

Several people had told me, however, that I had to make the trip to Pepe’s Tacos, in a neighborhood called 5 de Diciembre, for what they promised were the best tacos in Puerto Vallarta. As my traveling companion and I walked down a dusty side street off the busy Avenida de México, a long line snaking down the sidewalk greeted us, and the cavernous, bare-bones restaurant was jammed to capacity. As we waited patiently, an English-speaking local standing behind us overheard us talking about this being our first time at Pepe’s. “I dream about these tacos at night,” he said, guaranteeing the meal ahead of us was worth the wait. He said that the restaurant stayed open until 4 a.m. and that he and his friends frequently ended their nights there.

Minutes later (the line moved quickly), we were devouring two orders of tacos al pastor — the smoky flavor of the seared pork balanced by the sweetness of the grilled pineapple — and a shared crock of gooey queso fundido with crumbled chorizo, along with two bottles of icy Pacifico beer (total bill: under 300 pesos, or about $15). I don’t think we spoke a word over the next minutes, the idea of any conversation quickly sacrificed to the food in front of us.

Margaritas and people watching

As I returned to Puerto Vallarta over the past couple of years, I began to realize that the town hasn’t been totally immune to the kind of resort-ization that has spread among the other coastal cities in Mexico. But those high-end chain hotels are mostly located north of town, in the coastal communities of Nayarit and Punta Mita. The town also hosts cruise ships — and day-trippers flood the many tourist shops selling everything from tequila to silver jewelry. It is also home to a large population of expat retirees, drawn by the temperate climate, the relatively cheap living costs and the ubiquity of English-speaking tradespeople and taxi drivers. The town is also a major winter destination for L.G.B.T.Q. travelers, a sort of Provincetown south, with dozens of centrally located gay bars doing a brisk business during peak tourist season (roughly late December through early May).

But all seem to be absorbed almost seamlessly into this seaside resort a place where large families gather on the sidewalk for their evening meal, often cooked on open-flame grills, and where almost everyone, locals and tourists alike, seems to spend part of the day swimming in the bracing waters of Bahía de Banderas.

For me, any trip to Puerto Vallarta is based in the Zona Romántica, the aptly named heart of the Old Town, which, despite the cacophony of different languages on the busy streets, and the ubiquitous street vendors selling everything from colorful scarfs to skewers of grilled shrimp, feels as if you have been immediately transported back in time. Take a random left or right down one of the many narrow, cobblestone streets, and you will soon encounter a town very much like the one that first enchanted Burton and Taylor.

Moreover, after some research, I discovered that a house that Burton bought in the late 1970s as a present for his third wife, Suzy Miller, had since been expanded and turned into a hotel called Hacienda San Angel. A beautifully restored multilevel villa in the hills overlooking the Old Town, with roughly a dozen suites, three pools, a gorgeous rooftop restaurant, and lush, meticulously maintained gardens, it would serve as the base for my first trip, and would be a place I would return to over subsequent visits, even as I started renting Airbnbs for longer stays.

Though most tourists flock to the Malecón, a seaside promenade, I like to begin any trip to Puerto Vallarta with a walk down the urban artery Basilio Badillo, maybe popping into Eulo’s Bakery, where the aroma of freshly baked tarts and pastels is always irresistible, then grabbing a frozen mango margarita at Blondie’s, where the sidewalk stools provide a perfect spot to take in the surrounding scene.

When it’s time to catch the sunset, you could do worse than to reserve a beachfront table at El Dorado, where a meal of red snapper ceviche and the mesquite-grilled catch of the day make a perfect accompaniment to the blazing orange sun and the brief fireworks display that typically follows.

One last detour

Last March, on my final night of that month’s stay in Puerto Vallarta, I went to a cabaret on Basilio Badillo to see a singer perform a surprisingly excellent recreation of Linda Ronstadt’s “Canciones de Mi Padre” album. (I decided to skip the shows that featured “Tina Turner” and “Bette Midler.”) Then I hit a few of the busy clubs in the Zona Romántica, downing a bottle of Pacifico at each one, dodging the crowds of revelers on the sidewalk before flagging down a cab at around 1 a.m. and giving the driver the address of my Airbnb.

But as we headed home, I had a sudden craving.

“Señor,” I said, leaning over the front seat, “Pepe’s, por favor.”