Cozy and serene and surrounded with simple elegance and chic, Richard’s restaurant offers an atmosphere so intimate and comfortable, time and repartee seem to fly.

There’s a story about the restaurant Tio Domingo that goes something like this: Over ten years back, the patrons of the restaurant so loved the place that, when they heard owner Salvador could not afford to keep it open and arranged to close, they rallied together at one last Christmas Eve fiesta there. As the party ended late that night and the farewell salutes were being made, patrons coyly and secretively filled a stray, empty bucket with cash as they left, lots of cash. From that evening on, by all accounts, Salvador, filled with gratitude at the bequest, found himself unexpectedly rescued. And, in felicitous reciprocation, he has continued serving the Ajijic public to this day.

If a Mexicana were to open a “diner” in Ajijic, Josy’s would be it. The building construct even has the shape of what we expats know as the classic compact diner, long and rectangular. (Note: Early 20th Century food-service trucks or wagons with “walk-up” windows took prepared food to remote, rustic workplaces; later truck designs were inspired by rail cars with the same function.)

Although the 40-day period of Lent is meant to be a time of penance and fasting, one of the guilty pleasures of the season is savoring the wonderful culinary specialties Mexican cooks whip up only at this time of year. 

At Ajijic’s Hacienda del Lago you enter a spectacular centuries-old world of Spanish mission and colonial architecture – broad arched entrances, an arcade running the length of one wing while an elegant rectangular dining room complete with fine 19th Century furnishings and elaborately sculpted fireplaces makes up the other wing, both flanking a courtyard-like central garden with its working well from the 1800s. Heavy carved wooden doors, ornamental  moldings, decorative iron work, tower-like chimneys all complete the trip back into Mexico’s past. 

There’s a bright, youthful, sporty quality about Gaucho Tequila restaurant. A soccer game was on the TV; young people were nuzzling away in intimate nooks on the outside patio. This appeared to be territory for the young, or for the “young at heart.”