Clémentine Didi at Playa Viva

A New York Times recommended chef and designer brings her perspectives and flavors—a little of France, Southeast Asia and Baja California—to our coast

This weekend, from Friday to Sunday, eco-resort Playa Viva will host a residency with Clémentine Didi—the creative force behind Tiger Club in La Paz, Baja California Sur—with the Dijon, France-born Clémentine bringing her Southeast Asian–inspired cooking to our local coast for a series of lunches and dinners built around locally grown and sourced foods.

Published on

April 3, 2026

Southeast Asian food isn’t easy to come by around Troncones. You can find great seafood, good tacos, and many creative kitchens and tastes here, but the layered heat, acidity, herbs, and depth of Southeast Asian cooking is rare. This week will be different, at least for a few days, although it’ll take a quick 45-minute drive south to Playa Viva to satisfy that craving, and feel those flavors.

Playa Viva sits just beyond Zihuatanejo, near the village of Juluchuca, in a place where the coastline opens up and the landscape changes. It’s a shift in pace—less beach town, more open land—a stretch of protected coast backed by farmland and low jungle, where, right now, it’s a lot greener and less dusty than here.

The pool at Playa Viva. Photo by AVABLU. Provided by Playa Viva

One of the daily attractions of Playa Viva is its food. Almost all of what’s served in its restaurant is grown nearby or on-site. That farm-to-table approach is consistent with the resort’s core operational principles, which are based in environmental sustainability and which have earned it a much-coveted B-Corp certification. Clémentine’s cooking fits naturally into that regenerative environment.

She doesn’t describe herself as a chef in the traditional sense. Clémentine’s had no formal training, no conventional path, just a deeply intuitive approach shaped by travel and immersion. In a note by email, she explained, “I’m a highly creative person, and for me, cooking is just one of the mediums—like design or space-making. It’s how I express ideas, how I build atmospheres, how I tell stories.”

Clémentine’s time living and moving throughout Southeast Asia has left a clear imprint. Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese cuisines—each with their own balance of heat, acidity, sweetness, and texture—form the backbone of her approach. “It’s not just about eating,” she wrote. “It’s about understanding balance, restraint, heat, acidity, texture.”

What does that mean? Think, slow-cooked, spice-heavy bases softened by coconut or herbs. Bright, sharp salads layered with chili and lime. Broths that feel light at first, then deepen as you move through them. Food that wakes up your palate without weighing you down. That balance—depth without heaviness—is what Clémentine strives to bring to everything she does.

Based in Baja, she moves between food, design and hospitality. Alongside Tiger Club, Clémentine is also the creative visionary behind Casa Nopal and Nopal Interior Design, where her aesthetic leans toward natural materials and a quiet, effortless refinement. Cooking, for her, follows the same logic—intentional, but never overworked.

The Playa Viva residency came together for Clémentine rather simply—a visit, a conversation, then another visit—and a shared sense of alignment. “At first, I didn’t know much about Playa Viva,” she added, “but once I started looking into it, I was immediately conquered. The philosophy, the intention behind the place—it really stayed with me.”

During the residency, Clémentine will be cooking alongside Playa Viva’s Chef Jesús, building menus around what’s available in the moment. The format is intentionally loose—Southeast Asian–inspired dishes designed for sharing, shaped as much by place as by memory. She describes the foods she has planned as, “Very playful, a little funky. Bold flavors, texture, contrast—but in a way that still feels light, fresh, and easy to enjoy.”

Her special meals are open to both hotel guests and visitors, with the option to come down just for lunch or dinner, or to spend more time on the Play Viva property through a day pass. For those who haven’t been, it’s a chance to see what Playa Viva actually feels like—and not just the food—but the space and the way everything connects.

For Clémentine, home right now is in Baja—between La Paz and Todos Santos—where her projects live. But like her cooking, that sense of place is fluid, revealing, “Travel is a big part of how I stay inspired. It keeps my perspective fresh.”