This Restaurant Is Built Into An Ancient Cave

Sophia Softky is an armchair philosopher and wayward American trying…

For some reason, ordinary activities like eating and drinking become 100 times more magical when you do them in a cave. That’s certainly the case for Alux, a restaurant and bar built into a 10,000 year-old cenote cavern in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico.

Cenotes – a type of underground limestone cavern that is formed over thousands of years by water dripping through the porous rock – have long held mystical significance in Mayan and Mexican folklore. In fact, the restaurant takes its name from a mythical Mayan elf that loves to play in cenote caverns at night.

Guests at the Alux Restaurant can choose among pre-Hispanic Mayan, contemporary Mexican and international cuisines, surrounded by a number of incredible rock formations: stalagmites, stalactites, columns, flowstones and draperies.

The cavern is separated into a number of natural “vaults”, each holding a separate dining room, with room to seat between 50 and 120 guests. One cavern has been consecrated as a Mayan ceremonial hall, where Alux offers Mayan wedding services, including a shamanic ceremony and entertainment in the form of dancers decked out in native ceremonial garb. How’s that for a date night?

(Photos: Alux Restaurant/Facebook)

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Sophia Softky

Sophia Softky is an armchair philosopher and wayward American trying to make her way in Melbourne. Sometimes she writes things, and sometimes they get published. She is a millenial and therefore lives inside of the Internet.