Hotel El Ganzo review: Why this adults-only hideaway is the artsy hotel you’ll actually want to stay in

On paper there’s a bit to dislike about Hotel El Ganzo.

For starters, it’s classified as an art hotel – arguably enough to anticipate an air of snobbery.

It’s also the place Adam Levine – the whiny guy who fronts the god awful if wildly successful Maroon 5 - held his wedding party.

Further – the website boasts imagery of LA hipsters gathering on the roof top and laying about beside the infinity pool.

Hotel El Ganzo is located a 10 minute drive from Cabo’s “quieter” city of San Jose (the party town, San Lucas, is a 30 minute drive west).

Read the latest edition of ROAM by The Nightly here.

There’s no resorts here, just a marina of fishing boats and super yachts, including Dr Phil’s suggestively named “Bad Romance” (eww), amongst an otherwise humble fishing village (La Playa).

So it’s not the beach – though the upside is you snare your own piece of Cabo.

I feel that welcome detachment on walking through the property’s oversized reclaimed wooden front door.

There’s an air of peace and quiet that rides on the gentle sea breeze and the staff are smiley, not angsty.

Also – no facial piercings (though perhaps we’re overly playing with art hotel stereotypes).

Best – no SoCal-types down for a wedding, nor a single screaming child (El Ganzo is strictly over-18).

Look, I’m no art lover, but I do love the cool shit on these walls – the white walls seemingly acting as a canvas for visiting artists to express themselves, with a striking, two-storey Renaissance-inspired 65sqm mosaic mural by acclaimed Mexico City-based artist, Omar Rodriguez-Graham, on the roof top.

Speaking of the roof, there’s a vodka swim-up bar beside an infinity pool with 360 degree views across the marina to Cabo’s famous yellow-sand coastline, and behind to the Sierra de la Laguna mountains.

At sunset, guests gather with cocktails while a visiting funk band (who are using the hotel’s recording studio downstairs, which has been used by the likes of Slash and Irish folk/ rock star, Damien Rice) play a free set.

Music seems to fuel Hotel El Ganzo. At dinner, on a patio beside the water (there’s four dining options, including a food truck serving tacos) middle-aged ex-pats play swamp blues - the singer stopping to advise Dr Phil to “turn his TV off and come and dance”.

It’s a fun scene. Though not too much fun.

Members of a wedding party (there had to be one) come and go, though they’re mostly boozing at the hotel’s Beach Club - which you reach by boat from the marina. And the live music unplugs at respectable o’clock.

ROAM’s room is Mexican minimalism done well - walls are white, with a bed frame of rough, hand-hewn timber and a colour combination replicated across a bathroom with a standalone bath deep enough to drown in.

There’s fine Italian sheets and bespoke white armchairs – but the hero is the ocean view which washes over the pleasure boats of the marina (if you’re a dawn riser, you’ll like the action below as fishermen prepare their boats for a day’s catch in the Cortez Sea beyond).

San Jose is a handsome historic town stacked with suave cocktail bars which don’t stay open all night, like in San Lucas. Nomada Bar de Origen is a dark and moody beacon – and aim for a Nomada (local mezcal and agave syrup, mixed with pitaya puree, lemon juice and grasshopper salt).

Rooftop terraces are plentiful too, offering views over old town squares and cobbled streets with Baja Brew Company proving Cabo’s first micro-brewery.

San Jose’s historic art district comes alive each Thursday evening for an Art Walk - galleries open until late and the streets filled with musicians and artists-in-residence.

Just beyond San Jose, on dusty dirt back roads which wind between brown-grass valleys, you’ll find some of Mexico’s best farm-to-table restaurants - like Flora Farms, which raises its own cows, pigs and chickens and grows more than 100 varieties of vegetables and herbs.

Hotel El Ganzo provides a sanctuary of sorts; especially to those who already sampled the frenetic energy of San Lucas. There’s always some form of action - should you care for it - but it’s contained and rather damn cool.

Hotel EL Ganzo Boulevard Tiburon, La Playa, San Jose, Cabo, Mexico Price From about $290 per night.

Insider: Aim for a Jacuzzi King room, which has a hydromassage tub on its own private ocean-facing terrace. Also steer for “shoulder season” – May / June, and October / November. The best rooms are cheaper and the weather’s brilliant – with average high temperatures in the high 20s and barely a chance of rain (know summer is wet and winter is high season).