On this culinary adventure, we’ll be lucky enough to explore Mexico City during the Day of the Dead and immerse ourselves in the complexities of this megacity during one of its most famous and colorful celebrations. The images are iconic: Revellers painted in skeleton-like “Catrinas” makeup, the streets and tables across the city awash with orange and yellow marigolds. Together we’ll celebrate this holiday as the locals do, with parades and celebrations, but also with the soulful, spiritual aspects that make this such a meaningful occasion for locals.
Over the next six days, we’ll also explore the breadth of Mexico City’s mouthwatering local gastronomy and experience those rare moments when the city’s eras of history and its different identities are in beautiful harmony and which are even more poignant and powerful during the Day of the Dead holiday.
We’ll also dive deep into Mexico City’s complex and fascinating cultural identity. It is a place where pre-Hispanic, Colonial, and contemporary influences collide in a riot of street food, and bustling markets. Here, the Aztec ruins of the city aren’t just buried under the surface, they become a backdrop to a thriving, ever-changing metropolis, a microcosm of many of the country’s diverse cultural and culinary identities.
We’ll spend time exploring some of these specific eras and their influences on modern Mexico City: from a heady Aztec brew, or a colonial-era mole recipe, to the unique, pre-Hispanic floating farms still in use today. We’ll head outside the center city to enjoy a boat ride to the floating gardens and green oasis of Xochimilco, where farmers preserve over a thousand years of agricultural legacy. We’ll also get a chance to see how families honor their ancestors during the Day of the Dead holiday, visiting a local home to see a colorful altar and stopping at a cemetery where some of the period’s rituals are most pronounced.
From street food to contemporary Mexican dining trends, and traditional restaurants to meals in local homes, our focus throughout will be food and the people who make it. On the ever-present periphery of our taste buds will be the history, art, architecture, landscape, agriculture, and street life that brings everything together during one of Mexico City’s most magical times.