(Photo illustration by Los Angeles Times)
17 new and old favorites from a seasoned Mexico City expert
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Yes, you should visit Mexico City. Don’t overthink it and don’t delay. Despite excessive tourism and rising gentrification fears, the seething capital of Mexico — 25 million souls strong — remains a top-tier international destination for any committed food lover. And the intensity of its dining scene seems to be only growing.
Sure, a wave of privileged remote workers oozing dollars and euros may have dampened the vibe for Mexico City natives, leading to protests. The post-pandemic issues of housing displacement and rising costs for locals are serious challenges that political leaders must address. Yet time and again, on every visit, the resiliency and passion that original defeños have for their gastronomical paradise proves to be boundless.
I have traveled to Mexico City regularly since 2002 and lived there for nearly a decade. I won’t feel slighted if you prefer the dining advice of current residents, or from any of the numerous local dining guides online. But one thing about me, I have an aversion to hype, and tend to avoid the city’s contemporaneous food magnets where the ratio of foreigners to locals is too out of whack. (No, the Michelin-starred taqueria was never extraordinarily better than any others in its bracket.) Where my native friends go, I go.
Here are highlights of my top, top, top recommendations from my L.A. Times restaurant guides on Mexico City, plus a few more favorites. My goal here is to distill down your options for a concentrated, food-centric visit, from nostalgic jewels beloved by hardscrabble chilangos to the celebrated shrines of high-end chefs reaping the bounties of the Valley of Mexico.
Showing Place Places
Mi Compa Chava
Seafood Restaurant $$
(Daniel Hernandez/Los Angeles Times)
The lines and wait times are mythical at the Roma Norte location of seafood champion Mi Compa Chava. If you’re on Team Don’t Wait in Lines, just head south and treat yourself to chef Chava Orozco’s aguachile negro, which is inky black and ringed with slim slices of cucumber, or the grilled camarones zarandeados. The second home of the marisquería is on a leafy block in Coyoacán, and is thankfully easy to walk up to and snag a table just about anytime. Either way, you’ll need a mezcal-spiked michelada.
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Contramar
Seafood Restaurant $$$
(Marcus Nilson)
This restaurant’s logo is almost like a sigil for Mexico City’s triumphant dining itself. Even more than Pujol, the unequaled monarch of the city’s restaurants, Contramar by Gabriela Cámara excels at making you instantly feel like a welcome participant in this place. The sister restaurant Entremar, plus the chef’s new outpost in Las Vegas or any other of her projects are surely on par — but every meal at Contramar specifically somehow feels suffused with buoyancy and celebration. Cámara has made three Contramar dishes international legends: her pescado zarandeado, tuna tostada, and cold fig tart. Get them all.
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Voraz
Mexican $$$
(Daniel Hernandez/Los Angeles Times)
A brutalist, idiosyncratic gastropub that fills a gap between casual fine restaurant and scenester’s paradise, Voraz is chef Emiliano Padilla’s buzzy locale in Roma Sur. Not all diners may take to his cooking — you could call it a Tex-Mex fantasia refracted through moody Mexico City — but it’s the quirks and cocktails that keep me coming back. The churro salado comes with aged cotija and the “taco McAllen” is Padilla’s take on a double-stacked taco from Taco Bell, with a soft flour tortilla wrapped around a crispy corn tortilla and marinated Angus beef, shredded cheddar cheese, mezcal-caramelized onion and lettuce. It’s interesting, but really, I can’t stop thinking about the bar’s hilariously named Whitexican: a tequila-based take on a white negroni. The name doesn’t lie, and over dinner one night, I may have emoji-giggled my way through three.
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El Moro
Desserts $
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
El Moro is heaven for churro and chocolate lovers. You can find two places in Southern California where El Moro has opened in the last two years: a stand inside Mercado González in Costa Mesa, and a full churrería in Echo Park. The original location in downtown Mexico City has operated proudly on busy Eje Central, just south of the Torre Latinoamericana, since 1935. Go to savor the atmosphere of its azulejo-tiled interior and the warm, enveloping aroma of sugar and cinnamon. A secret treasure is El Moro’s street-facing savory food stall. It sells delicious tortas de pierna en mole, one of the city’s best.
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Danubio
Seafood $$$
(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 napkins signed by luminaries now adorn the walls of this downtown institution. Danubio, founded by Basque émigrés in 1936, is beloved for its Spanish-Mexican seafood menu with crowd-pleasers such as langostinas al mojo de ajo and sopa verde, a bubbling soup with a parsley base of shrimp, crab, snook and oysters.
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Limosneros
Mexican $$$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
An enigma: a contemporary, upscale Mexican restaurant in an ancient building in the Centro Histórico, named “Beggars” (a historical trivia point related to the 17th-century walls), although the prices certainly exude “Benefactor.” Chef Atzin Santos celebrates native ingredients with favorites like escamoles with bean puree, Mexican duck foie gras, tacos of squash blossom and peanut mole, and tableside guacamole and salsa service al molcajete. The menu is almost too expansive — a la carte, but also a chef’s tasting menu, a taco tasting menu and a vegetarian tasting menu? The folkloric design systems also border on kitsch. Looking past all that, this is a true gem that stands refreshingly far from the tourist bubbles of Roma and Condesa.
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Covadonga
Mexican Bar/Nightclub $$
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
On any expectantly charged afternoon, this cantina’s high ceilings and formica-topped tables draw older Spanish Mexican gents who use the space largely to play dominoes. At night, Covadonga becomes a magnet for younger creative types in the mood for boisterous socializing. Food-wise, this is classic Spanish and Mexican fare like tortilla española and sopa Azteca. Tortas are great. The play here is to drink and be merry with tequila straight up and the “little flag” of lime and tomato juice on the side. (My go-to sipping tequila in Mexico among the mainstream labels is Herradura Blanco, which somehow has a stronger cinnamon note than the Herradura blanco manufactured for the United States.)
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El Caguamo
Mexican Seafood $$
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(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
Mexico City, though far from any ocean, is obsessed with seafood and seemingly always has been. Modest in appearance and wedged against a coffee shop, this stand offers the best seafood in the central core. In nearly five decades of service, the proprietors have tried to open storefronts — currently there is one a half-block away. But these never really catch on with the barrio: We all still huddle around the original stand, with pedestrians elbowing past your shoulder. The quick tostadas of fish, shrimp, pulpo or jaiba are a steady draw. I often indulge in a full plate of breaded shrimp or tilapia, with plenty of sides. On mornings after a big party night, I’d find solace in an off-menu oyster cocktail — hold the ketchup — brimming with chopped onion, cilantro and olive oil. Add a lava-colored Mexican soft drink, and reviving might feel possible again.
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El Pozole de Moctezuma
Mexican $$
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
The first time I visited El Pozole de Moctezuma, I faced a drab, gray building with blank door and standard buzzer board for each apartment number, but one of them was the word “pozole” instead of a digit. Buzzed inside, I discovered a wonderland: a warmly decorated, almost soothing interior space, serving delicious Guerrero-style, green or white pozole with all the fixings in large ceramic bowls. Fresh sides of crema, avocados and crispy chicharrón adorned the dish. One custom of eating this pozole 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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San Ángel Inn
Mexican $$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
This palatial hacienda dating to 1616 is wonderfully maintained as a restaurant that feels like the prototypical setting for a noirish telenovela. San Ángel Inn is a destination for upper-crust locals attracted to its unabashedly old-school approach to food, cocktails and service. Everyone here swears by the stately margarita service or a frosty martini, the kind that conjures images of Prohibition-era afternoons spent betting on the races in Tijuana. The menu feels like a journey over the greatest hits of classic Mexican fine dining: oysters, snails, escamoles and fideo seco with foie gras beckon as starters. Taco service is family style, in orders of three to eight, of prime rib-eye, arrachera, shrimp, lengua, duck, chicharrón and so on. Mains are Falstaffian in size, from lengua de res a la veracruzana to chateaubriand bouquetiere.
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Ticuchi
Mexican $$$
(Eunice Adorno / For The Times)
Enigmatic and achingly cool, Ticuchi is Enrique Olvera’s late-night mezcal den in Polanco. Behind a street-facing kitchen with a stone comal and a curtain is a seductively candlelit space with a bar in the center. Everything is black. The distillate selection is pristine and rightly leans toward Oaxacan producers. Cocktails branch away with Mexican gin, rum and whiskey 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. 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 crispy herbs. 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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Rosetta
Mexican $$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
In 2023, Elena Reygadas was named best female chef by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants body, reflecting a rich career lifting notions of modern Mexican dining with her restaurants and bakeries. At her flagship Rosetta, Reygadas’ reputation has grown on her mastery of pasta and making vegetables shine on the powers of their flavors first. Beet tartare al pastor, white mole with discs of fermented carrot, tacos of curly cabbage with a pistachio pipián sauce and an endive nogada salad with pear and pomegranate left me momentarily forgetting that meat even existed. And these were just starters. She excels at meat dishes as well: A pappardelle pasta with pápalo leaf and minced duck made my eyes pop. There is a whimsy, a palpable Mexican-ness that courses through the cooking, cocktails and desserts at Rosetta, where Reygadas continuously makes the case that she just might be the best chef in Mexico, period.
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El Cardenal
Mexican $$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
A favorite of downtown bureaucrats and white-collar office workers, El Cardenal is a white-tablecloth affair with multiple locations, specializing in lavish Mexican-with-a-capital-M breakfast guisados. I prefer the one at the Hilton Mexico City Reforma: The dining room is a large hall that clanks with the energy of spirited gossip. Start with the hand-whipped chocolate instead of coffee — servers treat you with the extravagant yet modest ritual of an arcing pour — and natas (sweet milk curds) with warm pan dulce. Watch the rotating carta for seasonal flourishes, and come hungry. On a recent visit, I had the omelet de huitlacoche, which came with a small, mound-shaped corn tamal for extra flair.
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Pujol
Mexican $$$$
(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
Enrique Olvera repeatedly has been named one of the best chefs in the world, has opened restaurants in New York and Los Angeles, published books, and just seems to loom large over everyone else in this town. His newer late-night mezcal spot, Ticuchi, also is a growing star. Although I can sense some exasperation in the air over all of Olvera’s successes, it is hard to deny he’s still riding high on a crescendo of excellence. It all started here at Pujol. The taco omakase is legendary, along with the mole madre/mole nuevo, Pujol’s climactic signature: concentric pours of Olvera‘s “new” and “mother” mole, the latter aged and reembodied for thousands of days. The chef’s devotion to local ingredients, sustainable sourcing and equitable partnerships has not wavered. And all of it culminates in a nightly display of standard-setting cooking and service at Pujol. Serious yet playful, gregarious yet minimalist, it retains its crown — or let’s say, penacho — as the best restaurant in Mexico City.
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El Califa
Mexican $$
(PJ Rountree / For The Times)
The model of the modern Mexico City taco, I believe, was set by El Califa when it opened in 1994 on a corner on the southern end of the then-unpolished bohemian neighborhood Condesa. Most new-school taquerías today emulate it: a freshly handmade tortilla instead of a machine-made pile of teeny ones, a single slab of meat instead of a handful of chopped bits and an emphasis on multiple salsas of scaling heat and textures — unless it’s al pastor, that means no guacamole, cilantro or onion. Crucially, Califa stayed open very late. Years later Califa is going strong and still reliable as the original fast-yet-upscale taquería with Mexico City classics: al pastor, costilla (I get mine with cheese), frijoles de la olla, jugo de carne and my all-time favorite appetizer anywhere, chicharrón de queso, which was popularized here. This is basically a slathering of melty cheese on a griddle, toasted as a sheet until just before burning, scraped off in one piece and molded into an extravagant cylinder as it cools. Snap into it, break its form and crunch away. Multiple locations.
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Ricos Tacos Toluca
Mexican $
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(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)
An open-air storefront that is constantly sizzling and jammed, Ricos Tacos Toluca is a neighborhood institution: The Rossano family treks in daily from Toluca, about an hour west of Mexico City, with delicious varieties of Toluca-style artisanal embutidos, including green chorizo, spicy red chorizo and longaniza, as well as strips of salt-cured cecina steak and more elaborate sausages like obispo and head cheese. Any Argentine or Italian sausage snob would be won over here. The green chorizo is especially enticing, with its mix of green chiles and herbs for color, as well as cinnamon, golden raisins and almonds. Try a taco of obispo if you’re adventurous: pork offal blended with a bounty of nuts and vegetables; the taste is somehow Christmasy. Whichever of the meats you order, your taco will get even better once you pile on still-bubbling fries and grilled onions. This is a Toluca-style taco, perfected. Back when I lived on this street, I often took a half-pound or so of the green chorizo home, to mimic the tacos at my leisure, or to toss together with cactus and eggs.
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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. 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 more than eight years. 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 bad, it was fresh, tart and deliciously funky.
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