The best restaurants and bars in Mexico City: 34 spots that aren’t tourist traps
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In Mexico City, markets are bursting with fruits and spices and everything is ridiculously fresh and oozes flavor. An excellent street taco can beat out a Michelin-starred restaurant almost any day. It’s all part of the magic of this high-altitude urban valley. Can there be a better metropolis in the world to eat right now? I’m willing to be persuaded — but I lived in Mexico City five years longer than I intended to because of the food.
This is a list of restaurants and bars that offer a portrait of a metropolitan dining scene flourishing in new ways but also resilient in its traditions, molded by more than 20 years of life and travel there.
I privilege the city’s classics — intentionally outside of the current expat bubbles — and my personal gems. I have also found revelatory dining experiences at well-known restaurants that have earned their stars and airfare-level prices. You’ll see returning spots from my 2023 Mexico City guide and plenty of new ones. The international genes of the capital are also represented here.
Mexico City is attracting food lovers and digital nomads from all over the world. But is it now gentrifying? These are the myths and realities in this booming culinary destination
Keep in mind that there’s also a lot of properly bad food in Mexico City, like anywhere else. My rules are: Avoid food stalls too close to moving traffic or smelling mostly of oil; if a place is always empty, neighbors are letting you know for a reason.
Everyone’s experience unfurls differently. You might stumble upon the best Lebanese meal of your life in a fonda libanés in Colonia Narvarte. Or enter a nirvana induced by quesadillas at a stand outside the Merced market. My list ultimately is for tourists with a local’s mindset. The shape of your dining experience is entirely up to you. Explore faithfully — and mindfully.
Showing Place Places
Nicos
Mexican $$
(Daniel Hernandez/Los Angeles Times)
The menu’s opening page declares Nicos the home of “Cocina Mexicana Chilanga,” defining itself with a once negative, now-appropriated slang term for a Mexico City resident, chilango, a “city rat” type. In this context, Nicos is declaring its pride in the foods of urban chaos — the constant churn of tradition and improvisation, core customs and ecstatic alternatives that typify the vibe here. Fair, but at its core, this remains a traditionalist’s destination for fine Mexican homestyle cooking known for its high-level execution that rivals El Cardenal or El Bajío. Open for decades in working-class Colonia Clavería, Azcapotzalco borough, Nicos is open for breakfast and lunch, allowing for leisurely comidas of large families or long-time regulars that stretch for hours. I love the morning scene, for a full breakfast of fruit, cafe, fresh pan dulce and huevos Azcapotzalco, two fried eggs between two fried tortillas, drenched in a sauce of tomato and epazote, with frijoles de la olla and queso cotija on top.
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El Pozole de Moctezuma
Mexican $$
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
The first time I visited this restaurant hidden in an apartment block, I faced a blank door with a standard buzzer board for each apartment number — except for one that displayed the word “pozole” instead of a digit. Buzzed inside, I discovered a wonderland: a warmly decorated, almost soothing space, serving delicious Guerrero-style, green or white pozole with all the fixings in large ceramic bowls. Fresh sides of crema, avocado and crispy chicharrón adorn the dish. The family behind this beloved stalwart sustain pride in Guerrero’s pozole superiority, and the regulars, mostly white-collar workers from the government buildings in the area, abide. A Guerrerense custom of “pozole Thursdays” is dousing your bowl with a few spoonfuls of mezcal, practiced liberally here, even by the folks in office attire who still have an afternoon of work ahead of them.
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Limosneros
Mexican $$$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
An enigma: a contemporary upscale Mexican restaurant in an ancient building in the Centro Histórico, named “Beggars” (a historical trivia point related to the 17th century walls mishmashed with volcanic stone and adobe) although the prices certainly read “Benefactor.” There is ambition here — and an impressive wine cellar. Chef Atzin Santos celebrates native ingredients with favorites like escamoles with bean puree, Mexican duck foie gras, tacos of squash blossom and peanut mole, and tableside guacamole and salsa service al molcajete. The menu is almost too expansive — a la carte, but also a chef’s tasting menu, a taco tasting menu and a vegetarian tasting menu? The folkloric design systems also border on kitsch. Looking past all that, this is a true gem that stands confidently next to places like Máximo or Rosetta. And refreshingly far from the tourist bubbles of Roma and Condesa.
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La Corte
Mexican $$
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
If you want to get a sense of what a hard-core downtown denizen feels in their DNA at lunchtime — that is, 2 p.m. — a fonda like La Corte, tucked away on a street south of the Supreme Court building, might just be the apogee of the experience. This high-ceiling cafe, founded by a clan from the Gallegos region of Spain a century ago, is easily the most elegant yet unpretentious execution of “comida corrida” that I know in the city. There are latent Spanish touches in the daily-changing menu, but the fare is largely classic diner Mexican dishes such as meatballs in chipotle sauce or croquetas de jamón. Desserts rotate, but one that is always present is the flaky house-made ice cream served with a hefty slice of La Corte’s bright yellow pound cake. It’s only lunch, but at La Corte it feels like a gala affair.
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Al Andalus
Lebanese $$
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(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
Del Valle and Narvarte are the middle-class Lebanese neighborhoods of Mexico City, reflected in a thread of Lebanese restaurants, butcher shops, barber shops and other businesses. But the pinnacle of the Lebanese Mexican dining experience is found in this Centro jewel that sits on the outskirts of the Merced market, in the southeast quadrant of downtown. Al Andalus whips up fantastic falafel, shawarma, keppa, za‘atar and all the pita your heart could desire, and a delicious date pie. To get there for lunch, it’s best to walk in from Avenida 20 de Noviembre and head east for three blocks, through sidewalks jammed with vendors, to an imposing colonial building. From a cool stone courtyard, take the staircase to the dining room and find a seat near a window overlooking a corner that’s been around for a handful of centuries. The hum of downtown is almost intoxicating. A classic Lebanese feast awaits.
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Las Dietéticas de Coyoacán
Mexican $
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(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
A traditional Mexico City street quesadilla is a freshly molded blue corn tortilla filled with any kind of savory goodness, from tinga de pollo to crispy chicharrón, huitlacoche to squash blossom. It is lightly griddled or fried, hopefully over coals, in a mercado or on a street corner. Cheese is requested, not baseline. At social media superstar Quesadillas Jenni in Roma Norte, hordes of tourists, digital nomads and influencers have mobbed the quesadillas — mystifying neighbors. Yes, Jenni makes excellent quesadillas, but there are easily thousands of quality quesadillas that would be just as worthy of the ’gram. Here’s my favorite: Las Dietéticas de Coyoacán, inside the little-known Mercado de Comida near the central church of Coyoacán. This puesto dating to 1955 specializes in flash-fried quesadillas prepared in a huge cazuela of oil over fire. Irma Ramirez, a ferociously skilled “keka” maker for 25 years, sits on a throne-like chair maneuvering between the cazuela and the tortilla press, forming each quesadilla that she fries without mercy. I go for huitlacoche, and cool it down with a mini-Mexican flag of red salsa, green salsa and a spoonful of white crema. Quesadilla heaven.
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Tetetlán
Mexican $$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
More than a restaurant, Tetetlán is a dazzling amalgamation of dining establishment, bar, library, bazaar and even yoga studio. Anchoring it all is a glass floor overlooking the jagged natural forms of the Pedregal neighborhood’s prehistoric volcanic terrain. The building is the former stables of the Luis Barragán-designed mansion next-door, Casa Pedregal (get a tour if you can wing it); it’s operated as Tetetlán for eight years. It’s a nice option in the city’s south in an eye-popping setting, with an expansive Oaxaca-centric menu. I was taken recently with the tetela, a triangular maíz pocket filled with ayocote beans and smothered in mole oaxaqueño, and surprisingly, a glass of pulque curado. Defying the expectation that pulque in restaurants is usually underwhelming, it was fresh, tart and deliciously funky.
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San Angel Inn
Mexican $$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
This palatial hacienda dating to 1616 is wonderfully maintained as a restaurant that feels like the prototype setting for a noirish telenovela, where sleek-haired businessmen and heirs negotiate their fortunes and the future of the country over hours consumed with cigars and tequila. San Angel Inn is a destination for upper-crust locals attracted to its unabashedly old-school approach to food, cocktails and service. Everyone here swears by the stately margarita service or a frosty martini, the kind that conjures images of Prohibition-era afternoons spent betting on the races in Tijuana. The menu feels like a journey over the greatest hits of classic Mexican fine dining: oysters, snails, escamoles and fideo seco with foie gras beckon as starters. Taco service is family style, in orders of three to eight, of rib-eye prime, arrachera, shrimp, lengua, duck, chicharrón and so on. Mains are Falstaffian, from lengua de res a la veracruzana to chateaubriand bouquetiere. The wine list leans heavily Mexican, followed by Spanish, Argentine, American and Chilean — just as it should be for this hemisphere.
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Pujol
Mexican $$$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
Pujol turned 25 this year — a feat for any restaurant, but in this case, a milestone for fine dining in Mexico in the 21st century. Enrique Olvera’s internationally admired temple to Mexican ingredients has morphed into a group of 11 restaurants, including Damian and Ditroit in Los Angeles and Cosme and now Atla in New York City. His kitchens have launched multiplying culinary careers, including fellow two-star Quintonil a few streets away from Pujol in Polanco, and he’s won pretty much every award there is to win for the leading chef of his generation. Olvera’s groundbreaking restaurant offers a tasting menu that includes its famous smoked baby carrots presented in a gourd, or the taco omakase at the stone bar, both extraordinary experiences. The mole madre remains Pujol’s climactic signature, a pair of concentric pours of Olvera‘s “new” and “mother” mole, the latter aged and reembodied in one continuously fed mole since March 2013, or more than 4,500 days. Pujol’s devotion to local ingredients, sustainable sourcing and equitable partnerships has not wavered.
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Quintonil
Mexican $$$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
The lore is that the legendary mole madre at Pujol was made during the first anniversary celebration of nearby Quintonil, founded by Pujol alum Jorge Vallejo and Alejandra Flores. The continuum is evident in the professorial adulation of native ingredients. With touches of French and Japanese techniques, the tasting menu in mid-August began its seduction with a buñelo de plátano macho with escamoles and a cream infused with melipona bee honey, compressing Yucatecan Maya ingredients into a poppable few bites. This was followed by a “sea mole” served in a teensy tostada and topped by two mussels and tiny flowers. Insects and larvae are used liberally. At around $277 per person, plus a wine or non-alcoholic drinks pairing ($100 to $380), it’s a decadent prospect certainly for most people’s budgets. Then again, Quintonil, which bears two Michelin stars, this year came in at No. 3 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.
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El Cardenal
Mexican $$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
El Cardenal is a white-tablecloth affair with multiple locations, specializing in Mexican-with-a-capital-M breakfast. Start with the hand-whipped chocolate (pronounce that in Spanish in your head) instead of coffee. Servers treat you with the extravagant ritual of an arcing pour. Add natas with warm pan dulce to dip into the chocolate. Visitors can get a nice pulse on the vibe of the city on any morning at the location in the lobby of the Hilton Mexico City Reforma, facing the Alameda Central. The dining room is a large hall decorated with a large replica of Rivera’s “”Dream of a Sunday Afternoon at Alameda Park” (viewable at a museum across the street), and the room clanks with the energy of warm and spirited gossip.
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La Catedral del Pulque
Mexican $
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(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times )
If you’re a pulque fan or budding connoisseur, or are simply curious about this ancient viscous artisanal beverage of fermented aguamiel, La Catedral del Pulque (also known as El Salón Casino) in working-class Colonia Obrera is an excellent place to start a pulque crawl. Open since 1947, this pulquería is traditional in the best ways, with old photographs, mural art and decorative sayings hinting at the sly, poetic humor of pulquerías of old. Tables are close and everyone is here for one thing: possibly the most reliable pulque available in the city. If I start drinking pulque early in the day — it’s a great breakfast — I go for the curados of oatmeal, amaranth, coconut or any berry flavor. If I start a little closer to lunch, my favorites, when available, are the more “savory” pulques of celery, tomato or peanut.
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El Califa
Mexican $$
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
The first Michelin star for a taquería went to El Califa de León in Colonia San Rafael, a somewhat dingy hole-in-the-wall open since 1968, causing shock waves in the restaurant world. But with a recent re-visit, I cannot say that taquería is particularly outstanding. Still, it served as a reminder: The distinctive “gaonera” taco style, said to be invented there, is a single slice of beef filet seasoned only with salt (instead of heavily seasoned meat chopped into bits), on a fresh corn tortilla. It’s the essence of a clean taco, meat and maíz. Generations of new-school taqueros have adopted its approach, maybe without even realizing it. But one chain for my money does it better than the original: simply El Califa, launched in 1994. The name won’t be unfamiliar — there are now 14 locations in the metro region, from Palmas to Pedregal. I have vivid memories of late-night visits to the first shop in Condesa, back when the neighborhood was rougher around the edges; there was thumping electro music and a partyish vibe. Almost anything on this menu is excellent and the consistency here is what keeps people coming back: Don’t miss the frijoles de la olla and the head-turning chicharrón de queso, popularized here. It’s a slathering of shredded cheese on a griddle, toasted as a sheet, scraped off in one piece and molded into an extravagant cylinder as it cools. Crunch away.
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LagoAlgo
Mexican $$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
Set in a Modernist building right on the shore of the paddle-boat lake in Chapultepec Park, LagoAlgo has been a dining establishment or events space in some form since 1964 and reopened after a renovation in 2022. Since then, it’s been a go-to locals’ spot for a breakfast or lunch date that can feel like a quick getaway. The menu is anchored by what are standard offerings in a modern Mexico City kitchen at this point: caldos, tostadas, seafood plates and shareable meat dishes galore. And then there’s the view. Settle in with a cocktail or glass of wine, order around dispassionately between surf and turf — maybe the aguachile of dried shrimp with cecina — and let the soothing gurgles of the Lago de Chapultepec carry your afternoon away.
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Ticuchi
Mexican $$$
(Eunice Adorno / For The Times)
The front of Ticuchi, Enrique Olvera’s late-night mezcal den, looks like a conventional kitchen, open to the street. Yet something more is hinted by a dramatic branch of ripened plátanos dangling over the heavy stone comal, as if begging to be charred. Behind a curtain is a seductively candlelit space with a bar in the center. Everything is black. This is Ticuchi, Olvera’s first bar — and a keeper. The distillate selection is pristine and rightly leans toward Oaxacan producers. Cocktails branch away with Mexican gin, rum and whisky drinks like the Brujo del Tiempo with Condesa Clásica, herbs, hoja santa sour and Prosecco. You almost don’t realize the menu is pescatarian. Savory items keep you going, like a tostada de pulpo or the off-menu tamalito de esquites, a beloved item by locals kept on from the bar’s pandemic-era predecessor. It joins the spice, sourness and sweetness of the esquites snack in the tenderness of a tamal. There’s an amusing chicharrón de arroz that appears like a single plate-size rice wafer with splotches of chintextle de chapulín, an avocado sauce and a crispy herb. Mature plátanos are cooked on the comal and arrive half-open with a swipe of chintextle. Over multiple visits, staff members somehow magically establish an inviting, genuine vibe in every interaction, which is truly rare.
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Entremar
Mexican Seafood $$$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
You will not be a failure if you don’t get a table at Contramar in Roma Norte. No one can. Gabriela Cámara’s now-classic mariscos restaurant caused a palpable discord in the matrix of Mexico City fine dining when it opened back in 1998. Now, it has reams of devoted regulars, well-connected Mexican elites who just must have their customary tables, and plan on sitting for hours and hours. Your best chance to enjoy Contramar’s tostadas de atún is to beg for a bar seat. Or you could just go to Entremar in Polanco. It is also a Cámara restaurant and has exactly the same food, menu and decor — and there are tables, with a second-story balcony overlooking Plaza Uruguay. The vibe is refreshingly less scene-y or competitive than at Contramar on Calle Durango. You can lounge again with Cámara’s food, bask in its casual luxury. Order the showstopping pescado zarandeado upon sitting, and maybe a mezcal negroni?
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Nevería Roxy
Ice cream $
(PJ Rountree / For the Times)
For a truly retro soda fountain experience, visit the postwar throwback of Nevería Roxy, with multiple locations. This is a shrine to traditional Mexican-style milk-based helados and water-based nieves, with excellent classic or seasonal flavors like mamey or arroz con leche, plus other sweet treats. Take a sugar plunge with an American-style sundae or banana split, or try a Roxy milk shake. There are trendier or more elaborate ice cream shops by now in Mexico City, for sure, but Roxy holds its own with a comforting dessert experience that takes you back to the 1950s in the sweetest way. A new kiosk location is drawing daytime crowds at Chapultepec Park.
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El Pialadero de Guadalajara
Mexican $$
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
The torta ahogada is a Jalisco favorite: a messy, punishingly spicy torta of carnitas in a salsa-drenched birote salado roll from Guadalajara. A cold beer on the side is almost required. Locals regard El Pialadero as home to the best tortas ahogadas in Mexico City, with elaborate offerings of Jalisco-style aguachiles and barbacoa. You sit in western-style patio chairs that would be familiar to anyone who’s ever lounged on a deck overlooking Lake Chapala. Get the medium spicy. It will still make your eyebrows and nose sweat, but it won’t make you momentarily lose consciousness like the extra picante threatens. Say yes to the disposable gloves that are offered. You’ll appreciate them when you start tearing into your “drowning” torta.
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Cana
Modern Mexican $$$
(Eunice Adorno / For The Times)
It is warm, understated, and feels like it’s lived in some corner of the imagination as the ideal place to get an extraordinary yet casual meal in the middle of the biggest city in North America. With Mexican-tinged European dishes, Cana by chef Fabiola Escobosa stands out amid the saturation of new restaurants in Colonia Juarez. The restaurant feels almost native to its shady corner facing a pedestrian promenade, though it’s only been open since 2023. The simplest dishes are those that fans most rave about: Escobosa’s fried shrimp heads, bright Caesar salad and a signature beef tartare with soba cha, cornichons and a pearl of Dijon mustard. In that intangible way, something special is going on at Cana.
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Cantina Tío Pepe
Bar/Nightclub $$
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
Swinging doors that probably have been around since the Mexican Revolution are your portal to what is now considered the oldest cantina in operation, since 1869 or by the Tío Pepe name since 1872. William Burroughs wrote about it in “Junky,” and, following the practice of many other cantinas, women were not allowed inside Tío Pepe until 1982. The bar itself is one of the most spectacular in the city, a deep mahogany edifice — the surface slanting here and there with the decades — with stained glass details and a central panel reading “Hennessy.” It’s not the most formal or elaborate cantina, and it doesn’t offer food. Tío Pepe is a place for an afternoon drink among afternoon drinkers. I will duck in alone sometimes between appointments and lean upon the bar, standing, for a tequila and beer. Ask for peanuts.
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El Moro
Desserts $
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
Another unmissable downtown classic, El Moro is heaven for churro and chocolate lovers. It has operated proudly on the busiest block of Eje Central, just south of the Torre Latinoamericana, since 1935. Go to this original location to savor the atmosphere of its tiled interior and the enveloping aroma of sugar and cinnamon. Its Centro location is open 24 hours a day, and is beloved for late-night stops after a successful date, or as the first place to hit from the airport after a red-eye flight. (Other locations close at 11 p.m.) A secret treasure is El Moro’s street-facing savory food stall. It sells a delicious torta de pierna en mole, one of the city’s best.
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Danubio
Seafood $$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
In 1983, the Nobel Prize-winning Mexican writer Octavio Paz was so enraptured by a meal at the classic seafood restaurant Danubio that he signed a square white table napkin with a note befitting of a world-class wordsmith — “Al Danubio, que sabe que la cocina es el primer y el último arte humano (To Danubio, which knows that cooking is the first and last human art).” The moment sparked a tradition that is unmatched in Mexico City dining lore. Hundreds of signed napkins now adorn the walls of this downtown institution, including authors (Gabriel García Márquez), politicians, recording artists, industrialists (Carlos Slim), athletes (Pelé) and famed journalists. Danubio, founded by Basque emigrés in 1936, is beloved by locals for its Spanish-Mexican seafood menu with crowd-pleasers like langostinas al mojo de ajo and sopa verde, a bubbling soup with a parsley base of shrimp, crab, snook and oysters. The service, not for nothing, is proud and peerless.
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Ricos Tacos Toluca
Mexican $
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(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
Any Argentine or Italian sausage snob would be won over here. The Rossano family treks in daily to downtown Mexico City from the metro area of Toluca, the capital of the State of Mexico (yes, there’s a country, a state and a city all named Mexico), with their exquisite varieties of Toluca-style artisanal embutidos. The stars are their green chorizo, spicy red chorizo, longaniza, salt-cured cecina and other Tolucan delicacies like obispo (a handsome pork offal with vegetables and nuts), and queso de puerco, or head cheese. The green chorizo is especially enticing, with its mix of green chiles, green herbs, cinnamon, golden raisins and almonds for a symphony of flavor that is totally singular in the universe of sausages. Eat them as tacos in a distinctly Toluca style — overloaded with multiple salsas (I mean it, use any salsa or guacamole that’s available), grilled onions, and super-hot fresh fries. If the stand employed handmade fresh tortillas and not industrial, I’d unilaterally crown it the best in the world. But it gets mighty close with that green chorizo alone.
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Em
Modern Mexican $$$$
(Eunice Adorno / For The Times)
Contramar’s isn’t the only show-stopping tuna tostada in this town. The tostada at Michelin-starred Roma restaurant Em, by chef Lucho Martínez, has quickly become one of the city’s most photogenic dishes. The pearls of blue fin tuna sit on a tostada covered by a layer of delicate avocado, trimmed in slices to look like a blanket of leaves or feathers. On top sits a mound of black caviar. The tostada arrives with the opening “snacks” portion of the tasting menu, along with a fragrant dashi broth. By the end of the meal, a diner will see how this almost monastic haven of Mexican ingredients and Japanese/French techniques has become one of the admired restaurants in the city. Martínez’s sense of reserved precision relative to peer establishments is unmissable. One-up all your friends who’ve already been to Contramar, Rosetta or Pujol — consider making this your visit’s fine-dining splurge.
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Xel-Há
Mexican $$
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
You could almost miss the Yucatecan cantina Xel-Há when passing by on Avenida Michoacán in the heart of Condesa. This simple cantina offers spirits and beer and terrific Yucatecan food in an inviting setting that hasn’t changed in decades. I gather here with disparate friends when searching for a central, spontaneous get-together. The antojitos are exceptional, transporting you back to the Yucatán peninsula if you’ve ever eaten there. I usually go for the complex sopa de lima, the traditional chicken broth with lime and tortilla strips, the tortas, especially cochinita pibil. Be bold and behold the incredible relleno negro, pork and turkey meatballs in a bold ink-tinted sofrito, with a hard-boiled egg thrown in. It’s easily one of the most fascinating dishes in all of Mexico. Xel-Há executes it perfectly.
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Bar El Bosque
Mexican $$
(Eunice Adorno / For The Times)
A nice cantina is a magical place conjured in Mexico where you sit around an old room, sip on tequila, and order antojitos or big savory dishes from gentlemanly waiters till your heart’s content. There are hundreds in Mexico City; picking the best would be impossible. But Bar el Bosque sits among a handful that would be good contenders. Hidden on a side street near Chapultepec Park (and close to another place with a confusingly similar name), the cantina has maintained its dark-wood interior and neighborhood vibe since opening in 1939. The corner room is loud and cramped while the restaurant through a hallway next-door has a bar and tablecloth settings with live piano on busy days. Star dishes include the salt-baked fish, lavishly deboned right at the table, camarones al chipotle, or the cantina’s chamorro, served with a pile of tortillas “para taquear,” or for making a table-ful of dainty drinking tacos.
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Nadefo
Korean Barbecue $$
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
An eater raised on L.A.’s Koreatown might not want to go out for barbecue here on a tight trip. I still suggest a visit to established favorite Nadefo for a peek into how the ever-growing Korean Mexican community does casual dining. It’s been a fixture facing Avenida Chapultepec since 2012, one of the first modern outposts of Korean food in the budding “barrio coreano” of Colonia Juárez. Most of the clientele is Korean and I suspect one key factor may be that Nadefo still uses mesquite coals, brought to the table while crackling hot, for its all-you-can-eat barbecue special. Mesquite is a rarer sight than ever in L.A., where we’re gradually losing access to those unmistakable flavor notes. In Juárez, all the satisfying banchan are laid out before you, and you can order Korean beer and spirits and also have stone-bowl bibimbap. Korean culture, music and food is booming in Mexico City, and while Nadefo isn’t the splashiest Korean (or Japanese or Chinese) restaurant in a city sprouting with them, it does the trick for a mid-range rollicking feast with a bunch of friends in Asian Mexico City.
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Máximo Bistrot
Mexican $$$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times )
A flat stone facade amid the hustle of Avenida Álvaro Obregón beckons mysteriously. Is this a nightclub, a concept store, a gallery? Walking in, the first thing you spot is a window into a dry-aging refrigerator, dangling with ducks and hunks of jamón Ibérico. This is Máximo, chef Lalo García’s and Gabriela Lopez’s updated bistro that is still hitting all the best buttons of Mexico City’s current culinary peak. The restaurant’s space in a large single room with a metal hangar roof is a showcase for García’s well-known starters, such as roasted baby corn (from chinampas in Xochimilco) and kampachi with ginger vinaigrette and avocado, before you venture toward something like a lacquered duck breast or Wagyu cross beef cheeseburger. The desserts shine; a goat cheese ice cream over phyllo and guava arrives as a finely shaped orb with a button-size pool of olive oil on top. The chef’s compelling personal story — he is a former agricultural worker in the U.S. and a deportee — is the subject of a James Beard Award-winning book by Laura Tillman, “The Migrant Chef,” making the case that García is the chef of the Mexico City zeitgeist.
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Masala y Maíz
Mexican Indian $$$
(Eunice Adorno / For The Times)
The inside feels like a brutalist cafeteria and the medium-loud music is bound to weave in ‘80s hits and ‘90s hip-hop. Multiple languages fill the room. There’s an international air to every customer and server inside Masala y Maíz, founded by Norma Listman and Saqib Keval. No, it’s not necessarily packed with locals. Yet something here feels different, distinct from any other restaurant, and I mean anywhere. A sense of earnest egalité on the floor, with revolutionary slogans plastered even on the napkins. The restaurant, a supernova in the culinary world, is settling into its third space in a dicier part of downtown on a clearer mission than ever. Its sloganeering might feel tedious if you consider yourself an apolitical diner, but Listman and Keval want you to confront the fact that food and restaurants are pure politics. The menu conjures Mexican, South Asian and East African flavors. The (Kenyan-style) kuku poussin is a stand-out: A whole baby chicken about the size of a large softball is brined for two days, poached and fried, seasoned with (Ethiopian, Mexican-made) berbere spices, served over a camote puree, with a side of jicama-avocado leaf pickles. In another lens, Masala y Maíz is actually deeply Mexico City, a punk-rock creature, born in the culture of defiant creativity that brews in any place this big. It’s migration cuisine, but make it chic.
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El Bósforo/Sin Nombre
Bar/Nightclub $$$
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(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
When the mezcalería Bósforo opened officially around 2009, it was already well known to some of us in the neighborhood. The bar for about a year prior lacked all its permits, so you had to knock on a heavy unmarked metal door, wait a while and someone might let you in. I spent many nights here, with friends and live music, and the most excellent varieties of mezcal found nowhere else. For 16 years, founder Arturo Dozal has sourced each mezcal personally, with maestros from Oaxaca, Guerrero, Durango and other states. I fell in love with many of his offerings of madrecuishe, tepextate, mexicano, verde and especially puntas varieties. Dozal also happens to be an excellent DJ of vintage, pan-Latin vinyl. He spins whenever he’s there or invites neighborhood luminaries during the week, like the vinyl-only master Tropicaza, a die-hard Centro local. For snacks there is one reliable item on the menu, the original since Day 1: a fantastic blue-corn quesadilla of crispy chapulines, queso Oaxaca, fava beans and one full, fragrant hoja santa unifying the whole thing. Bósforo has no social media, no website. It doesn’t need any. This is where I learned to not just love mezcal but truly know it.
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El Caguamo
Mexican Seafood $$
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(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
Mexico City, though far from any ocean, is obsessed with seafood and seemingly always has been. And El Caguamo, a stand modest in appearance and wedged against a coffee shop, offers the best seafood in the central core. In five decades of service, the proprietors have tried to open storefronts, but these never really catch on with the barrio: We all still huddle around the original stand, pedestrians elbowing past your shoulder. The quick tostadas of fish, shrimp, pulpo or jaiba are a steady draw. I often indulge in a full plate of breaded shrimp or tilapia, cooked at an upstairs kitchen out of view by a staircase in the building directly in front. On mornings after a big party night, I’d find solace in an off-menu oyster cocktail, brimming with chopped onion, cilantro and olive oil — hold the ketchup. Add a lava-colored Mexican soft drink, and reviving might feel possible again.
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Rosetta
Mexican $$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
It could have been a daunting, maybe even unwelcome honor: In 2023, Elena Reygadas was named best female chef by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants body (as opposed to what?), reflecting a rich career lifting notions of modern Mexican dining with her restaurants and bakeries. At her flagship Rosetta, Reygadas’ reputation has grown on her mastery of pasta and making vegetables shine on the powers of their flavors first. Beet tartare al pastor, white mole with discs of fermented carrot, tacos of curly cabbage with a pistachio pipián sauce and an endive nogada salad with pear and pomegranate left me momentarily forgetting that meat even existed. And these were just some of the starters. Yet she excels at meat dishes as well: A pappardelle pasta with pápalo leaf and minced duck made my eyes pop. There is a whimsy, a palpable Mexican-ness that courses through the cooking, cocktails and desserts at Rosetta. Here, Reygadas continuously makes the case that she just might be the best chef in Mexico, period.
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Covadonga
Mexican Bar/Nightclub $$
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
This old-school Asturian Spanish cantina and events space is a beloved institution in Roma Norte. In the daytime, it is crowded with the aging Spanish exile community that holds the fort here with dominoes and tequila (Americans are woefully undereducated on the Spanish Civil War, urgently so in this era). In the evenings, the tables begin to fill up with the Gen X and millennial creative elites of the neighborhood, and everything that you love about Mexico City’s old and new cultures converges into one loud, boisterous party. Friends run into each other and holler hellos across the banquet hall-sized room. The kitchen has classic Spanish and Mexican fare like tortilla española and a house favorite, the sopa azteca. Plus the tortas are great. But really, it’s about the vibe here. Expect to drink and be merry with tequila straight up and the “little flag” of lime and tomato juice.
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El Huequito
Mexican $
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
Everyone seems to have strong opinions about who has the best al pastor. Thousands of trompo spits must be spinning around the clock in this sea of 22 million. Who’s to know? Yet everyone can agree that one of the oldest and most nostalgic spots for al pastor is the original location of El Huequito, opened in 1959. A literal hole-in-the-wall, as its name suggests, El Huequito is considered the standard, a place where you walk up to a man in a paper butcher’s cap spinning a trompo directly off the sidewalk and ask for a plate of three for “el huequito,” or the “little space” between meals, while standing. Now the tacos are served inside a former cantina that sits besides where the original once stood. The dark orange salsa de chile de arbol is what deserves praise. El Huequito’s salsa is considered the Mexico City al pastor standard.
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