Down on the farm in Cabo - Flora Farms

Flora Farms is a hand-tended 25-acre organic farm nestled in the foothills of the Sierra de la Laguna Mountains in San Jose del Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico, or as it’s more commonly known, Cabo. This tranquil sanctuary is just a mile from the Sea of Cortez and the Puerto Los Cabos Marina, near the well-known resorts of Cabo.

The Greenes founded Flora Farms in 1996 to supply their restaurant, Café Flora, a small organic restaurant, with the best locally sourced ingredients. They started growing organic vegetables on an estuary near the town of San Jose del Cabo where Café Flora was located. Slowly, they built up the soil with composting and cover crops. They founded a farmers’ market, offering breakfast and hosting charity events for the humane society.

Executive chefs from some of Cabo’s exclusive resort hotels took notice and started to seek them out for their organic and heirloom vegetables. When Charlie Trotter opened “C” in Cabo, he discovered the Greene’s produce. Trotter’s head chef at “C”, Guillermos Tellez, had gotten to know the Greenes through their restaurant, Café Flora. The Greenes started to supply Chef Tellez with vegetables and meat from the farm and were the first to provide a list of particular varieties of heirloom and organic varietals specifically grown for the restaurant.

The Greenes dreamed of being able to cook right on the farm where their organic produce was grown. They made their dream come true in 2010 and opened Flora’s Field Kitchen an open-air kitchen with a rotisserie in the middle of a field, where Chef Tellez (formerly of “C”) grills chickens and roasts vegetables in embers. His pizza oven is tucked away in an old-growth mango grove. As the farm became better known, other internationally known chefs such as Jean-Georges Vongerichten sought out the farm’s products. Eventually, Flora’s Field Kitchen became so popular that it had to keep all that the farm could produce for its own kitchens.

Flora’s Field Kitchen menu changes often, because it offers only handmade food using the farm’s fresh seasonal ingredients. The kitchen strives to serve only what they raise, and grow everything they need. All meats come from the Greene’s 150-acre ranch where animals are humanely raised on diets that contain no hormones or antibiotics. Various cuts of Heritage pigs are made into coppa, soppressata, and culatello cured meats. Beef is not on the menu—beef production is not sustainable in Baja because of the scarcity of water. However, the ranch has dairy cattle and the staff milks the cows themselves. The milk is made into butter, ricotta, and burrata for the restaurant, and an aged cheese is in the offing.

Both tourists and locals love the Farm Bar, an open-air bar with rows of vegetables growing just a few feet away as its backdrop. The Bar’s famous Carrot Juice Margaritas (Farmaritas) and Watermelon Juleps, served in humble Mason jars, are hugely popular. Flora’s Field Kitchen and the Farm Bar have become a Cabo institution; not only visitors but also long-time regulars fill the restaurant to capacity every night. 

A small market, Flora Farms Grocery, is also set amid the fields of produce. It’s stocked with produce, meats grown, butchered and cured by the farm—such as ham, bacon, and sausages—chicken, house-made baked goods, pickled products, sauces, dressings and preserves. The grocery’s vegetables, herbs, and flowers are picked daily, and fresh juice drinks are available, made from the farm’s organic produce. There’s also a microbrewery and interactive cooking classes offered in vegetable taco making, seasonal tamales, and regional salsas.

The Farm Spa is located in the middle of the Spa Garden. As guests stroll down the path to the tranquil Spa, they may hear chirping birds in the papaya trees overhead. The Spa uses the garden’s flowers and herbs in the spa treatments, with aromatherapy and the healing and restorative properties of nature being emphasized. Spa services include massages, facials, manicures, pedicures and hair services for both men and women. Spa classes include yoga, meditation, Pilates with workshops in whole-body wellness, meditation, breathing, nutrition, stretching, aromatherapy and more.

A community of 20 Culinary Cottages and Hillside Haylofts is hidden in a private section of Flora Farms. Due to demand, the popular Hillside Haylofts are no longer available to the general public. Culinary Cottages are for sale only to those who have received a private invitation. With the purchase of the luxurious cottages, guests get unlimited access to the farm’s organic fruits and vegetables from all Flora Farms Fields. Harvesting privileges are some of the most coveted amenities included in the Culinary Cottages and Hillside Haylofts ownership. There is also community pool and hot tub, and the Culinary Cottages have yet another special feature: access to private, unspoiled, serene beach frontage, and perpetual access to the private Beach Club.