El Adobe de Capistrano

The house

El Adobe is two historic adobes joined, dating to 1797 and 1812, across from Mission San Juan Capistrano. It was a favorite of Richard Nixon, which is a true story and not the interesting one. Staff and diners have long reported a headless friar in the older rooms and a woman in white in the courtyard, leftover from the mission’s harder centuries. The food is Californio-Mexican, unpretentious, and better than a haunted-house restaurant deserves. You come because the building is actually old, the mission swallows are across the street, and the house has never needed to hire an actor in a robe.

Get a table in the adobe, not the newer dining room. Order something with chile and beans that has been on this soil for two hundred years. Nachos if you want the Nixon footnote.

The Ghostly Gourmet