Auberge's Chileno Bay Resort & Residences is spending the last two months of 2026 on visiting chefs. Evan Funke, the pasta chef behind Mother Wolf and Felix, cooks at COMAL in the week before Thanksgiving. A month later, the chefs of Fauna come down from Valle de Guadalupe for a beach dinner in the first week of the December holidays. Both visits come from Baja Lab Kitchen, the resort's guest-chef series, and each falls in the opening week of one of the resort's holiday programs.
A Yearlong Series, Ending on the Holidays
Baja Lab Kitchen grew in 2026. Auberge describes the program as a yearlong series that now runs at two properties: COMAL at Chileno Bay and Cocina del Mar at sister resort Esperanza. Visiting chefs and winemakers cook in residence with the house teams and serve one-night-only menus.
Earlier in the year, the guests came to Chileno Bay one at a time. Auberge's 2026 calendar listed Val Cantú on April 4, Justin Cogley on May 28 and Tomás Bermúdez in June, all under Chef Yvan Mucharraz. The two remaining dates are timed differently. Each falls inside one of the resort's holiday programs, three days after that program begins.
| Dates | Program | Baja Lab Kitchen event |
|---|---|---|
| November 16–29 | Thanksgiving programming | Evan Funke, November 19–20 |
| December 14–30 | December holidays | Fauna with Bruma and Cervantes, December 17–18 |
| December 31–January 3 | New Year programming | None; dinners at COMAL and YAYA |
Both guest kitchens cook a dinner at COMAL, and Funke also teaches at YAYA. Those two restaurants serve the resort's holiday dinners too, so the visiting chefs work in the rooms where the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year menus will follow.
Thanksgiving Week Starts With Pasta
On Thursday, November 19, Funke and Mucharraz cook a four-course set menu at COMAL from 5:30 to 10 p.m. It is listed at $172 or more per person, with wine pairing available. The OpenTable listing for COMAL shows the price as MX$3,096 per person, takes parties of one to 11 and describes a menu built on Baja ingredients.
Funke learned pasta in Bologna under Alessandra Spisni at La Vecchia Scuola Bolognese. His restaurants include Funke in Beverly Hills, Felix on Abbot Kinney in Venice, Tre Dita at the St. Regis Chicago and the Mother Wolf locations in Hollywood, Las Vegas and Miami's Design District. He has cooked the Vanity Fair Oscar Party since 2022.
The next day is more hands-on. At noon on Friday, November 20, Funke leads a pasta masterclass at YAYA for $87 per person. The room fits the class. When Auberge opened YAYA in 2022, it described an indoor restaurant above the infinity pool with an open-fire kitchen. Today the resort describes YAYA's cooking as Mediterranean influences meeting Latin American flavors, using seasonal ingredients and an open hearth.
Mucharraz is a natural partner for an Italian guest. He is Chileno Bay's Culinary Experiences Director, and his résumé runs through L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Paris and Thomas Keller's The French Laundry. When Visit Los Cabos reported his appointment in August 2024, it credited him with developing COMAL's culinary identity.
The rest of Thanksgiving fills in around Funke's two days. The resort's holiday page lists Thanksgiving dinners at both COMAL and YAYA, along with Mexican cooking classes, cocktail classes, wine and agave tastings, and a pickleball tournament.
December Opens on the Sand
The December visit leans further into Baja. Auberge's event page calls the first night a way to "kick-off the holiday festivities," and it runs three days after the December program starts on the 14th.
The two nights are set up quite differently:
- Thursday, December 17, 5 to 9 p.m. A Baja beach dinner at sunset over the Sea of Cortez. Guests move between live cooking stations and meet the chefs and winemakers, with wines from Bruma Vinícola and Cervantes. $115 per person, reservation required.
- Friday, December 18, 5 to 10 p.m. A four-course dinner at COMAL, cooked by the Fauna chefs with the COMAL team and paired with Cervantes wines. $142 per person, reservation required.
Chef David Castro Hussong and his wife, pastry chef Maribel Aldaco Silva, founded Fauna in 2017 inside the Bruma Vinícola wine estate in Valle de Guadalupe. Castro Hussong grew up in Ensenada and cooked at Noma and Eleven Madison Park. Aldaco Silva was named Latin America's Best Pastry Chef in 2023. The MICHELIN Guide lists Fauna among its Valle de Guadalupe restaurants as a contemporary Mexican kitchen.
Bruma's winemaker is Lourdes "Lulú" Martínez Ojeda, an Ensenada native who spent more than a decade in Bordeaux studying viticulture and enology and working at Château Brane-Cantenac before coming home to Baja California. The beach dinner pairs Bruma with Cervantes, a winery from much farther north. Cervantes Family Vineyards is a family-owned estate in Pope Valley in Napa. Xavier and Cecilia Cervantes bought the property in 2012 and made their first vintage in 2015 with winemaker Andy Erickson. That means Thursday's glasses cover both Mexican and California wine country, and Friday's four courses are paired only with the Napa wines.
The Rooms That Carry the Rest of the Season
After the Fauna weekend, the holidays move back to the house kitchens. Once again, COMAL and YAYA split the big dinners. The resort's schedule runs like this:
- December 14–30: Hanukkah lighting, Santa's arrival, a tree lighting and posada, whale watching, pickleball, cooking classes and family activities.
- Thursday, December 24: Christmas Eve dinner at YAYA, on a day that also includes cocktail classes, Lotería, caviar hour and s'mores.
- Friday, December 25: Christmas dinner at COMAL.
- December 31–January 3: New Year dinners at COMAL and YAYA, the Midnight Pearl party on La Playita, an after-party at The Bar Downstairs, a sunset dinner series, and poolside bubbles and oysters.
Auberge describes COMAL as an oceanfront restaurant on three levels, open indoors and out, serving regional Mexican and Latin American dishes such as ceviche, crudo and Baja-inspired cooking. Fauna's chefs cook in that room on December 18, and the COMAL team serves its own Christmas dinner there a week later. Funke's class at YAYA comes five weeks before the Christmas Eve dinner in the same room.
Reserving a Seat
The November 19 dinner is the only event so far with an outside booking page, the COMAL listing on OpenTable. For the YAYA pasta class and both December nights, Auberge points guests to [email protected]. The Baja Lab Kitchen page also gives a restaurant reservations line at 833.941.1354 and the address [email protected]. When this was written, Auberge's site said online booking was temporarily unavailable and asked guests to call the property at (844) 207-9354. Prices, times and who can book can change before December, so confirm with the concierge before making plans around a date.
If you split your year between Chileno Bay and somewhere else, the season's calendar can help you decide when to arrive. Corcoran The Baja Real Estate Co. follows life in the resort communities along the Corridor closely and is glad to talk through which weeks at Chileno Bay best suit the way you like to spend the holidays. Explore Baja Properties.
