A Local’s Guide to Falling in Love with Mexico City
Growing up in Mexico City, I’ve always been drawn to the contrast of its cuisine. You can find melt-in-your-mouth carnitas doled out from a street stand just steps away from pools of deeply complex mole served on fine china. It’s a quality I’ve always loved about my hometown, and it’s one of the reasons why CDMX has become a must-visit destination among chefs and food lovers in the last few years: Contrast, delicious contrast. From a lively, interactive seafood counter serving the most pristine aguachile to a quaint French-Italian bistro, here are the 10 restaurants that will make you want to book a trip to Mexico City ASAP.
Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock1/10Don Vergas Mariscos
If you see a bar seat open at this tiny restaurant (there are only eight!), jump on it. Chef Luis Valle serves the freshest seafood in the city at his daytime-only counter hidden inside San Juan’s market. Once you’ve settled in, just ask Valle and his team what they’re into and prepare yourself for a casual tasting menu experience. (Trust him, he’s from Sinaloa, a coastal district in northwest Mexico.) He might start with spicy shrimp aguachile or crunchy crab tostadas, then slip in a plate of giant chocolatas, tender clams sourced from the Cortez sea, or gobernador tacos, which are filled with juicy shrimp, tomato, and cheese—all for around $25 total. No matter what you get, you’ll leave happy and full.
Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock2/10Café Milou
How does Mexico City do French food? Look no further than this refined café in the buzzy Roma Norte neighborhood. Owner Isabel Castillo and restaurateur Thierry Chouquet have conjured a bit of Paris in CDMX, with housemade charcuterie and bacon-studded quiches, but they do it with local produce, sourcing from nearby farms like La Grande, just north of the city. Swing by for breakfast, lunch, or dinner—or stick around for all three. It’s easy to spend all day in this cozy space.
Photo by Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock3/10Fonda Margarita
Forget avocado toasts and açai bowls. The best breakfast in the world are frijoles negro con huevos, a small football-shaped mound of scrambled eggs and pork fat-laden beans. It’s the reason why people line up early for breakfast at Fonda Margarita. While you’re there, you can’t go wrong with any of the stews, specifically the pork simmered in a verdant green salsa, meat “tortitas,” a.k.a. pancakes in a spicy red sauce, and the chicharron with spicy salsa verde. Pro tip: Line up early; Fonda Margarita typically runs out of food by 10 a.m.
Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock4/10El Huequito
If you know anything about Mexico City, you probably know about tacos al pastor, a spit-roasted pork taco crowned with charred pineapple—a Mexican riff on the lamb shawarma brought to town by Lebanese immigrants in the late 1930s. The best version is found at this 59-year-old hole-in-the-wall restaurant on Ayuntamiento Street. (Don’t be confused by other location; this is the first and original Huequito). Here they have perfected the formula for making tacos al pastor: The pork is slow cooked; served with grilled onions, spicy red sauce, avocado sauce (not guac!). It’s then rolled into a crispy corn tortilla and grilled for a few minutes to perfection.
Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock5/10Masala y Maíz
Chefs Norma Listman and Saqib Kebal never planned on opening a restaurant together. But after spending a night cooking dinner and sharing recipes, they realized the flavors they grew up with (Mexican and Indian) made a perfect pairing. Their restaurant resides in the artsy neighborhood of San Miguel Chapultepec, where they weave together Indian and Mexican flavors through dishes like patra, an hoja santa leaf filled with chickpeas and coconut chutney, and duck tetela with coloradito, a deep-fried tortilla stuffed with duck and mole.
Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock6/10Máximo Bistrot
The sleeper hit of Mexican fine dining, this Roma restaurant is home to one of Mexico’s most prominent chefs, Eduardo García. Located in a small house, Máximo Bistrot is distinctive for its French and Italian influences and its thoughtful use of seasonal products. The menu changes constantly, but dishes such as the oven-roasted suckling pig, pappardelle with mangalitsa pork ragu, and the young corn with hollandaise and chives are so well-loved that they remain constants on the menu.
Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock7/10Molino El Pujol
Enrique Olvera’s fine-dining gem Pujol is one of the city’s most coveted reservations, but shelling out for a six-course tasting menu isn’t the only way to experience the ambitious chef’s cooking. At his modest restaurant Molino El Pujol, he focuses on heirloom corn, cooking up dishes like squishy huitlacoche tamale, cheesy epazote quesadilla, and esquites. Bonus: You can buy his masa, warm tortillas, salsas, and mole (Pujol’s specialty) to go.
Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock8/10Le Tachinomi Desu
This Japanese wine bar is one of the best places to drink and snack in the city. Don’t trust us? Consider its status as the spot where the who’s-who of the local restaurant industry gathers for all their late-night hangs. Le Tachinomi Desu, which means “standing bar” in Japanese, pours an impressive line-up: Japanese and Mexican sake and lots of very funky natural wine. It also serves a daily-changing omakase. But the plentiful omurice, topped with softly curded eggs, Parmigiano, and foie gras—and the juicy Wagyu burger—never leave the menu.
Photo by Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock9/10Pizza Félix
Chef Adriana Lerma isn’t just making the best pizza in the city; she’s making Neapolitan-style pies that would make any DOP-certified pizzaiolo proud. (After all, she did spend months researching in Naples and Rome.) Lerma’s all-day restaurant serves pizzas using quality ingredients and a wood-fired oven, which makes for beautifully charred and puffed pizzas, like the carbo bianca, covered in crispy guanciale, pecorino, and a sunny side egg; and the fungi, loaded with local wild mushrooms. Other dishes, including tagliatelle with a Wagyu ragu and the tender sardines, are also not to miss.
Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock10/10Los Picudos
Charcoal just makes everything better. Case in point: the al carbon tacos that this restaurant has been making for almost 50 years. When you visit, keep an eye out for specials like the volcan, a hand-size tostada topped with melty cheese. Stock up on the special salsa, which is every housemade salsa (tomato, pico de gallo, habanero with onions) combined, and then smoked over charcoal. You haven’t had salsa until you’ve tried this.
