What is mole sauce?

Ever since the Coronado Club pizza debuted on the Beach Club menu earlier this year, it's raised plenty of eyebrows.

It features authentic mole sauce, roasted chicken, poblano peppers, onions, chihuahua cheese and fresh cilantro, and is as good as it sounds.


The name, which means "crowned" in Spanish, comes from Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, the 16th-century Spanish conquistador, whose expeditions across what's now the southern United States sought to conquer the mythical Seven Cities of Gold.

Well, Francisco never found his cities, but anyone who orders this pizza totally strikes gold.

The question we often hear, however: what's mole sauce?

Good news is it has nothing to do with a small, furry animals. Even better news is it's delicious.

Most regions of Mexico have their own versions of mole—a thick dark-brown or reddish sauce that typically starts with roasted and then ground peppers, like poblano, ancho, pasilla and chipotle. Mole poblano, featured on the Coronado pizza, is Mexico's premiere mole sauce.

Named for the state of Puebla in south-central Mexico, mole poblano is a nutty and robust spicy sauce that contains up to 20 different ingredients. Chief among them: chili peppers and chocolate. But don't expect a sweet chocolate fudge over your pizza. The light cocoa in mole works to tame the heat of the chili peppers and enhance their flavor.

Legend has it that mole poblano was made by 17th-century nuns in Puebla to braise turkey for a banquet in honor of a Mexican archbishop. We've found mole poblano works wonders with roasted chicken and gets just a little more kick with extra poblano peppers on top.

Pair the Coronado with a spicy rye stout, maybe even a hard cider. If you're really into the cocoa, try something roasted and almost chocolatey, like BBC Bourbon Barrel Stout (or tell us what you think tastes best!). Whatever the pair, the Coronado Club pizza is sure to raise your eyebrows with delight.