Culinary Weekend Has Found Its Season at Tortuga Bay

Tomorrow, Friday, November 20, and Saturday, November 21, Brazilian chef Tássia Magalhães and her São Paulo restaurant Nelita host the fifth Culinary Weekend at Tortuga Bay Puntacana. Last year's edition ran November 21 and 22. Both years, the event took the Friday and Saturday before U.S. Thanksgiving week. After two and a half years of shifting dates, Puntacana Resort's guest-chef series now has a settled place on the calendar, and its format has narrowed to one visiting kitchen and two nights.

Five editions, one guest list getting shorter

Five chefs took part in the first weekend. Over the next four editions, that dropped to a pair and then to a single kitchen. The dates moved from March to December and January, back to March, and then to the third week of November twice in a row. If the 2027 edition keeps the pattern, it falls on the weekend before Thanksgiving again.

The first weekend was built like a festival

Diario Libre's coverage of the March 2024 debut lays out a four-day schedule. It opened on a Thursday with cocktails and appetizers from Marsia Taha and Benjamin Nast. Mitsuharu Tsumura cooked a Friday dinner, Janaína Rueda and Marsia Taha shared a Saturday experience, and Álvaro Clavijo and Benjamin Nast closed on Sunday. The same coverage captioned one of the experiences at Brassa, the resort's steakhouse, so the program moved around the property.

With five chefs across four days, the debut worked like a sampler. Since the second edition, the event has stayed at Tortuga Bay. From the second edition through the fourth, it was held in a single room, Bamboo.

Why Bamboo became the host

Bamboo holds AAA Four Diamond recognition, which Arecoa reported on October 30. Tortuga Bay itself holds AAA Five Diamond status. Óscar de la Renta originally designed the dining room. The kitchen pairs local ingredients with Mediterranean influences, and the resort's dining page says some of the produce comes from Puntacana's own organic gardens.

A two-night residency fits a room like that. A visiting chef cooking in an established fine-dining room, with its own service staff, can stage a complete tasting menu. The fourth edition's notice describes the format of the single-chef years as themed dinners, tastings and small, intimate gatherings with the guest chef.

The November guest list reads like a ranking

The two November chefs come from the top of the list-driven world of Latin American dining.

Last year's guest, Jaime Rodríguez, brought Celele from Colombia under the theme "Avant-garde Flavors." According to the edition announcement published by Puntacana Hits, Celele was then ranked No. 48 on The World's 50 Best Restaurants. It was the only Colombian restaurant on that list, and it had won the 2025 Sustainable Restaurant Award.

This year's guest arrives with a similar résumé. Puntacana Resort's announcement gives these details about Tássia Magalhães:

• Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants named her Latin America's Best Female Chef in 2025.
• In 2026, Brazilian magazine Prazeres da Mesa named her Chef of the Year at its Melhores do Ano da Gastronomia awards.
• Nelita currently sits at No. 12 on Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants.
• Nelita opened in 2021 in São Paulo's Pinheiros neighborhood, and its kitchen team is made up entirely of women.
• Before Nelita, she trained at Pomodori in São Paulo and then in Europe at Geranium in Denmark, Kadeau, Amass and the Summerbird pastry shop.

Her cooking reworks Italian tradition with contemporary technique and Brazilian ingredients. The resort says the menu for Tortuga Bay was created for this occasion, so it is not a copy of the Pinheiros menu. The release states the aim directly: to bring the chefs who are changing international dining closer to the Dominican public.

The calendar slot and the guest list go together. The weekend before Thanksgiving comes just ahead of the holiday rush, and a chef ranked in the top tier of a regional list is a reason to book a specific weekend instead of just turning up during the season.

The rooms around the dinner are being redesigned

Culinary Weekend also comes as the resort presents a new look for its two most social buildings. Puntacana Resort has announced a redesign of Tortuga Bay and of the Casa Club at La Cana Golf & Beach Club. Dominican interior designer Jorge Brown Cott leads the work, which the resort calls a reinterpretation of Óscar de la Renta's legacy. According to the resort's design announcement, Tortuga Bay keeps its exclusive character while picking up "new design codes," and the La Cana Casa Club is being turned into a social hub organized around food, nature and design. Dominican artists, artisans and designers made pieces for both spaces.

Bamboo already has its Four Diamond recognition and Tortuga Bay its Five Diamond status. The redesign shows the resort putting more into the same buildings that host its culinary calendar.

Reserving, and the rest of the week's table

Culinary Weekend seats have been handled through Grupo Puntacana directly. The resort's events booking page has sent reservations to the Visitor Center Puntacana and to the Call Center at 809-959-2714. With the first dinner one day away, calling is the most direct route.

The resort's other kitchens handle the rest of the week. The resort's restaurant directory currently lists these:

• La Yola at the marina, for local fish and seafood with Caribbean and Mediterranean influences
• Brassa Grill, a contemporary steakhouse for grilled cuts and seafood
• BAO, Pan-Asian dishes meant for sharing
• Mare, coastal Italian seafood
• Playa Blanca, a beachfront restaurant and bar for local seafood, grilled meats and cocktails
• The Grill at La Cana Golf & Beach Club, Caribbean-inspired, with golf-course and sea views. Lunch runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the restaurant is closed for dinner.

The resort's chefs page names José Luis Abreu Abikarram at Playa Blanca and John Marcos de la Rosa at both BAO and Brassa.

Thanksgiving follows five days after Culinary Weekend. The Westin Puntacana lists a Thanksgiving dinner at Ananí on Thursday, November 26, from 6:30 to 10 p.m. It costs US$85++ for adults and US$45++ for children, and reservations are required. The same holiday listing has more dates for December:

On this calendar, the season's dining starts with a guest chef at Tortuga Bay on November 20 and runs through the New Year's Eve countdown on the sand.

At Auburn Lucas, we follow how the resort's culinary calendar and design investments shape life inside Puntacana Resort & Club, from Bamboo's dining room to the La Cana Casa Club. If you would like to spend next November's Culinary Weekend in a home of your own near Tortuga Bay, Receive Exclusive Listings and our senior brokers will be in touch personally.