The True Story of Gonzalo Guerrero & Zazil Ha: The History Behind Our Restaurant
By the Founders of Gonzalo & The Princess | San Pedro, Ambergris Caye,Belize
Every restaurant has a name. But very few have a soul. When we set out to open Gonzalo & The Princess here on Sea Grape Drive in San Pedro, we knew from the beginning that we didn't just want to build a good restaurant. We wanted to build something that meant something — something that reflected who we are as Belizeans, what we believe about food, and the culture we have the privilege of calling home every single day.
The story we chose to anchor our restaurant isn't a marketing concept. It isn't a theme. It is one of the most remarkable, most human, and most Belizean stories ever told — a true account of love, loyalty, and the birth of a people. And yet most visitors to Belize have never heard it.
That ends here.
A Spanish Ship, a Caribbean Storm, and a Twist of Fate
The year is 1511. A Spanish vessel sailing from Panama to Santo Domingo is caught in a violent Caribbean storm and wrecked on a reef off the coast of what is now the Yucatán Peninsula. Of the crew, only a small handful of survivors manage to reach shore — exhausted, starving, and completely at the mercy of a land they do not know. Among them is a Spanish soldier named Gonzalo Guerrero. Born in Palos de la Frontera, Spain — the same port town from which Columbus had set sail just two decades earlier — Guerrero was a seasoned warrior, a man of the sea, a product of the age of conquest. He was not supposed to stay. He was supposed to be rescued, returned to Spain, and folded back into the great machinery of empire. But fate, and one extraordinary woman, had other plans. The survivors were captured almost immediately by the local Maya. Several were sacrificed. Others died from exhaustion and brutal treatment. Guerrero and a Franciscan friar named Gerónimo de Aguilar managed to survive — but were separated, held by different Maya lords across the peninsula.
The Warrior Who Chose a New World
What happened next is the part of the story that sets Gonzalo Guerrero apart from almost every other figure of the colonial era. Where Aguilar clung to his Spanish identity, counting the days until rescue, Guerrero did something that had almost never been done before: he chose to become Maya. He learned the language. He studied the customs, the warfare, the ceremonies, the rhythms of daily life. He proved his courage in battle time and again, eventually earning his freedom by demonstrating such extraordinary military skill that he rose to the rank of war captain — nakom — under the Maya lord Nachán Can, governor of Chetumal, in the region that encompasses what is today northern Belize. He was so deeply trusted, so genuinely part of the community, that Nachán Can offered him something no outsider had ever been offered: the hand of his daughter in marriage. Her name was Zazil Há.
The Princess and the Warrior: A Love Story for the Ages
To call it a love story almost undersells it — though love it certainly was. Zazil Há was a Maya princess, the daughter of one of the most powerful lords in the region. And she was not passive in this story. Far from it. The historical accounts describe a woman of fierce intelligence, deep loyalty, and tremendous strength of character. When Spanish forces later arrived on the peninsula and sent Guerrero's old companion Aguilar to convince him to abandon his Maya life and return to Spain, Zazil Há reportedly stepped forward and addressed the Spanish messenger directly — in her own language, with unmistakable fire in her words. She told him, in effect, to stop bothering her husband and to leave. She did not need to. But she did. Guerrero, facing the offer of a full pardon from the Spanish crown and a safe passage home, looked at his tattooed skin, at his pierced ears, at his three children playing nearby, and at the woman standing beside him — and he wrote back to say that he had a wife and children here, and that he had no intention of leaving. Together, Gonzalo Guerrero and Zazil Há had three children. Those three children are recognized by historians as among the **first Mestizo children ever born in mainland America** — the first human beings to carry both European and Maya blood in a region that would, over the following centuries, see Mestizo culture become the heartbeat of much of Central America. Today, roughly half of Belize's population is of Mestizo heritage. That lineage traces back, in no small part, to one shipwrecked Spaniard and the Maya princess who chose him. Guerrero went on to fight alongside the Maya for the rest of his life — not as a traitor to Spain, but as a man who had found his true home and was willing to die defending it. He almost certainly fell in battle in Honduras in 1536, fighting to protect the people and the world he had given everything for. He was approximately 66 years old. Statues of Gonzalo and Zazil Há stand today in Mérida, Yucatán — symbols not of conquest, but of the remarkable, complicated, deeply human story of how two worlds collided and, in one extraordinary family, chose love over empire.
Why We Built a Restaurant Around This Story
We are Belizeans. This is not an abstract history for us — it is our history. The Mestizo culture, the blending of Maya and Spanish traditions, the food, the music, the language, the way we celebrate and mourn and cook and gather — all of it carries the fingerprints of that first union between two worlds. As a husband and wife ourselves, we found in the story of Gonzalo and Zazil Há something that resonated far beyond history. We found a love story. A story about a person who chose to rebuild their entire identity around the place and the people they loved. A story about a woman who stood firm beside the man she believed in, who was unafraid to say *this is my family and we are not going anywhere.
We found ourselves in it.
When we began planning this restaurant, we knew we wanted it to be more than a place to eat. Belize already has wonderful places to eat. We wanted to create an experience — something that would stay with guests long after the last bite, something that would make them want to understand this island, this culture, and the extraordinary story of how Belize came to be. Every element of Gonzalo & The Princess is a deliberate echo of that story. Our menu fuses Spanish culinary tradition with Maya ingredients and Belizean soul — the same fusion that Gonzalo and Zazil Há embodied in their family. The Mestizas appetizer, with its crispy plantain and spicy chorizo. The Zazil's Crown, named for the princess herself. El Guerrero, our ceviche, named for the warrior who chose the sea and never went back. These are not just dishes. They are chapters. The ambiance, the art, the way we have designed the space — everything is meant to transport you to that crossroads of two civilizations, to make you feel, even for one evening, the beauty of what happens when different worlds decide to meet each other with open arms rather than closed fists.
An Experience, Not Just a Meal
We are proud Belizeans. We are proud of our heritage, our culture, our island, and the extraordinary people who have shaped this corner of the Caribbean over five centuries. And we are deeply proud to have built a restaurant that tells their story. But more than that, we are a husband and wife who believe, with everything we have, that a great meal shared with people you love is one of the most human things there is. We built this restaurant the way Gonzalo built his life in Chetumal — with full commitment, with no plan to look back, and with the person we love standing right beside us. Every time you walk through our doors on Sea Grape Drive, we want you to feel that. We want you to taste the history in the food, feel it in the warmth of the room, and carry a little of it home with you when you leave San Pedro. Because that is what Gonzalo and Zazil Há did. They took two worlds and made something new and beautiful and lasting. We are just trying to do the same — one plate at a time.
Gonzalo & The Princess is open every evening from 5pm on Sea Grape
Drive, San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize. Reservations are recommended.
Book online at gonzaloandtheprincess.com or call us at +501-609-0392.*
We would love to share our story with you in person.
