Mexico City

La Chubechada: Michelada Madness

On a neighborhood back street, hemmed in by cars on both sides, sits a house-turned-secret dance club, a girl selling Maruchan soup-in-a-cup under a pop-up tent, and La Chubechada – a tiny storefront with a cutout window just big enough for Maria Guadalupe to poke her head out and take your order. When your drink comes up and she hollers out your name, you better be quick on your feet to go pick it up. For tourists venturing out of the center of Mexico City, La Chubechada feels far from the trendy spotlight and more than a little intimidating, but upon arrival the place hums with a neighborhood vibe – kids hanging out and getting tipsy on the sidewalk with their friends, locals stopping by to say hello.

Mexico City

Chicozapote: A Fruit For All Occasions in Mexico City

It’s finally hot in Mexico City. We’re smack dab in the middle of that two-month window between March and April that brings a dry, summer heat before the snow has even started to melt in some northern climates. The city is steaming, and chilangos are hunting down their favorite cool foods and the ubiquitous agua frescas sold in outdoor markets. We’re scouring the market, too, in search of our favorite hot weather treat, a cold chicozapote. A palm-sized oval with a rough brown exterior and an interior similar to a cooked pear in consistency, the chicozapote is not a fruit you find outside of many tropical or sub-tropical climates. Called a different name in almost every Caribbean and Central American country, this fruit and its cousins trail down the continent.

Mexico City

Forte Bakery: Maintaining the Ritual of Rosca de Reyes

“You can’t call yourself Mexican if you don’t eat rosca de reyes,” jokes Rafa Rivera, head baker and owner of Forte Bread and Coffee in Mexico City. Distracted, he stops grating orange peel long enough to muse about the king’s cake he is making. Only 29, he already has several businesses under his belt, and is about to open a second Forte location in Colonia Juarez. Rafa opened the flagship Forte in the Roma Norte neighborhood, serving up delicious pastries and coffee, with beans from Pólvora Coffee Roasters – where his brother Julián is the lead roaster. (In 2017, Julián won first prize in the Mexican Brewers Cup Championship with his Pólvora beans.)

Mexico City

Bread of the Dead: Jamaica Market’s Pop-Up Pan de Muerto Stands

“Caliente!” Juan calls out, and we all duck to avoid the steaming hot pan as it floats across the kitchen. He holds one side with a folded up towel, the other with a pair of pliers. Kitchen might be a bit of a misnomer. The small stall sits on the sidewalk, with a temporary tin roof overhead and brand new white tarps tied tightly to the back to protect against Mexico City’s afternoon thunderstorms. Each day for the three weeks leading up to Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead holiday, Tito Garcia, the stand’s owner, and the rest of the crew, will make hundreds of pan de muerto sweet rolls, as part of the Jamaica Market’s holiday romería.

Mexico City

Restaurante ICHI: Mexico City’s Japanese Oasis

The bubbling of a miniature waterfall melds with the twitter of birds and the sounds of the cats that chase them in the Asociación México Japonesa (The Mexican Japanese Association)’s outdoor gardens. A hodgepodge of cypress trees, elephant’s foot plants, and ferns frame the koi ponds surrounded by red umbrellaed tables. Once an area strictly for members of the AMJ, the outside patio now fills with diners of all stripes enjoying an afternoon at Restaurante ICHI, the association’s highly acclaimed restaurant. It all started in July of 1956 when a group of 20 Japanese immigrants and local Mexicans interested in Japanese culture decided to form the Asociación México Japonesa on a plot of land in the Las Águilas neighborhood.

Mexico City

Malportaco: New Wave Tacos

“People say, when are you going to expand? when are you going to change locations?... never.” Chef Selene Montero sits at one of the eight tables that comprise her restaurant Malportaco – a play on the word malportado, or “badly behaved” in Spanish. Multicolored ribbons hang from strings attached to the wooden rooftop that covers the sidewalk diners. Around us waiters weave among regulars, handing out Barrilito beers, aguas frescas and Mexico City’s best vegan tacos. “My goal is for people to taste something here they can’t anywhere else, not because we are particularly badass, but because I have studied a lot about how to get to this point,” says Chef Selene, who started out post-college with a marketing degree that she says made her father happy but no one else, including her.

Mexico City

Best Bites 2022: Mexico City

2022 has been another challenging year in countries around the world. Mexico is no exception, but here in Mexico City we’ve seen our megalopolis gradually return to the normal chaos we are used to. We were happy to see museums opening their doors, busy neighborhoods, streets teeming with people, businesses coming back to life, tourists in the trendy barrios and colonias, and more tour requests as Covid-19 restrictions were lifted little by little. People seemed anxious to get back out in the streets, parks and open spaces. Probably one of the few good things about the lockdown here was that many restaurants were allowed to set up tables on the sidewalks or even on the streets.

Mexico City

Bread of the Dead: Jamaica Market’s Pop-Up Pan de Muerto Stands

“Caliente!” Juan calls out, and we all duck to avoid the steaming hot pan as it floats across the kitchen. He holds one side with a folded up towel, the other with a pair of pliers. Kitchen might be a bit of a misnomer. The small stall sits on the sidewalk, with a temporary tin roof overhead and brand new white tarps tied tightly to the back to protect against Mexico City’s afternoon thunderstorms. Each day for the three weeks leading up to Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead holiday, Tito Garcia, the stand’s owner, and the rest of the crew, will make hundreds of pan de muerto sweet rolls, as part of the Jamaica Market’s holiday romería.

Mexico City

Expendio de Maiz: Tortilla Rebels

Tucked against the back wall of the Expendio de Maiz kitchen are three massive metal pots. Containing cloudy mixtures of corn kernels and limestone water, they seem to sit unattended, when in fact intermittent yet constant attention is being paid to their progress. What is happening is one of the most ancient and important processes birthed by Mesoamerica: nixtamalización. For a people whose main staple was corn, the discovery of nixtamalization was just as important as the domestication of corn itself. This process of mixing corn kernels in an alkaline solution not only loosens the husks of the corn kernels, making them easier to grind, but also provides all kinds of additional nutritional value.

Mexico City

La Opera: Booths and Bullet Holes

As you step into one of the gleaming chocolate-colored booths and slide along the ruby-red upholstered cushions, the nostalgia that permeates La Opera Bar is palpable. From an intimate corner booth you watch the hustle and bustle of the dining room, but remain inside your own dining world. One of the few centenarian businesses in Mexico City, the booths of La Opera have served as the meeting place of notable journalists, politicians, scoundrels and authors. Gabriel Garcia Marquez once refused some fans an autograph on a napkin, left the bar and returned an hour later with signed books for them. A faded newspaper clipping on the wall shows Carlos Monsiváis, José Luis Cuevas, Fernando Benitez and Carlos Fuentes seated around a table, deep in discussion.

Mexico City

Nicos: Slow Food Staple

It’s hot in Mexico City and Gerardo Vazquez, head chef of Nicos Restaurant, is thinking about cooling off. “Spring in Mexico City is hot,” he says, “And for me, it is very connected to Lent…so, fresh foods, cool things, vegetable-focused dishes.” Tostadas are on the menu at Nicos today – crunchy baked tortillas, one with a cobia fish ceviche, and another with smoked trout, yogurt, arugula and tomato – as well as an Acupulco ceviche with olives and capers, and a cool mango ceviche.

Mexico City

El Cardenal: Capital Classic

Sunlight filters through turn-of-the-century stainglass windows as the Cardenal waiters descend in but-ton-down white dress shirts and black vests. They offer a coffee, a concha, a hot chocolate – and in a flurry of dining activity you suddenly feel like the only person in the room. One of Mexico City‘s most well-loved eating establishments, El Cardenal overflows with extended families having Sunday lunch, tourists gawking at the restuarant‘s dining room murals, and long-time clients greeting the hos-tess by name as they pass by on the way to their favorite table. There’s a reason why El Cardenal is always mentioned in the best of the best restaurants in Mexico City. From humble origins, the restaurant has transformed into a veritable institution and has remained an iconic part of the community for over 50 years.

Mexico City

Cafe Allende: A Mexico City “Cafe Chino” Holds On

Cafe Allende’s manager, Roberto Hernandez, stands behind the counter, serving customers pan chino out of a display case grown foggy from the warmth of the fresh pastries inside. “The idea was to come and study, finish school, and work as a technical engineer. But it didn’t work out that way. This pulled me in,” he says, gesturing around the cafe. “Now it's my life.” Roberto had come to Mexico City as a boy, moving in with a sister 20 years his senior and her husband, Jesús Chew, a Chinese immigrant and the owner of Cafe Allende. Welcomed into their family as another son, Roberto worked at the cafe and spent many evenings with Jesús, learning Mexican-Chinese recipes like the varieties of pan chino, which means “Chinese bread” in Spanish.

Mexico City

El Hidalguense: Homegrown Barbacoa

Barbacoa – pit-roasted lamb or goat – is a Mexico City weekend essential. Stands pop up all over the city on Saturdays and Sunday selling the soft-as-butter meat on a warm tortilla, topped with a sprinkling of cilantro and raw onion and one of the many smoky salsas that generally accompany this dish. Even more, barbacoa broth is a well-known hangover cure, among the ranks of menudo (tripe soup) and pozole (hominy and meat soup). Before the city’s Roma neighborhood became the hip, bohemian mecca that it is now, Moises and Norma Rodriguez opened El Hidalguense, an unassuming spot on one of the neighborhood’s quieter streets. Now, 30 years later, it is known far and wide for roasting some of the best barbacoa in the city.

Mexico City

Forte Bakery: Maintaining the Ritual of Rosca de Reyes

“You can’t call yourself Mexican if you don’t eat rosca de reyes,” jokes Rafa Rivera, head baker and owner of Forte Bread and Coffee in Mexico City. Distracted, he stops grating orange peel long enough to muse about the king’s cake he is making. Only 29, he already has several businesses under his belt, and is about to open a second Forte location in Colonia Juarez. Rafa opened the flagship Forte in the Roma Norte neighborhood, serving up delicious pastries and coffee, with beans from Pólvora Coffee Roasters – where his brother Julián is the lead roaster. (In 2017, Julián won first prize in the Mexican Brewers Cup Championship with his Pólvora beans.)

Mexico City

Bread of the Dead: Jamaica Market’s Pop-Up Pan de Muerto Stands

“Caliente!” Juan calls out, and we all duck to avoid the steaming hot pan as it floats across the kitchen. He holds one side with a folded up towel, the other with a pair of pliers. Kitchen might be a bit of a misnomer. The small stall sits on the sidewalk, with a temporary tin roof overhead and brand new white tarps tied tightly to the back to protect against Mexico City’s afternoon thunderstorms. Each day for the three weeks leading up to Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead holiday, Tito Garcia, the stand’s owner, and the rest of the crew, will make hundreds of pan de muerto sweet rolls, as part of the Jamaica Market’s holiday romería.

Mexico City

Mis Mezcales: Liquid Roots

Has mezcal gone the way of avocado toast, an item that’s become shorthand for cliched hipster trendiness? If you think yes, a visit to Mis Mezcales in Mexico City’s Colonia Roma may be in order. There, you will find Omar Trejo sitting behind his unassuming makeshift bar, parceling out sips to the uninitiated and reminding everyone who stops by his small liquor store devoted to small-batch Mexican distillates that before it became a “buzzy” spirit, mezcal was an elixir heavily-rooted in the soils and stories of Mexico. As Omar makes clear to those who come in, every bottle of mezcal tastes different, even from the same brand, the same agave variety and same year. It’s one of the drink’s greatest strengths and probably one of the greatest frustrations for drinkers who expect the standardization of tequila.

Mexico City

Joe Gelato: Experimental Scoops

Black ice cream is not an easy sell, but Jose Luis Cervantes, AKA Joe Gelato, is a persuasive guy. It’s not just his million-dollar smile or easygoing nature, but also the passion that he clearly feels for his gelato. “Before I went to Italy, I knew about the concept of gelato,” says Jose, “but I had no idea how good it would be. I had only tasted what was available in Mexico at time. I went there and felt the fat in my mouth, the sugars, I can’t explain it – I love it. I love the whole culture around gelato.”

Oaxaca

El Rey Zapoteco: The Matron of Mezcal

“When you like what you do, and you're young, nothing is impossible,” says Doña Juanita Hernandez, one of a handful of female master distillers in Oaxaca, the heart of Mexico’s small-scale mezcal industry. She sits, tiny and relaxed on a wooden bench as we sip mezcal in her distillery, El Rey Zapoteco, in the Oaxacan town of Santiago Matatlan. Doña Juanita herself was just a young girl when she started filling and labeling the bottles at her uncle’s distillery. He was the first person to bottle in the town, which has a long-held tradition of mezcal production. “[His brand was] Mezcal Matatlan,” she remembers. “He bought a bottling machine – a tiny one for four bottles at a time, and he had me fill the bottles and put on the labels.”

Mexico City

Fun Guy: On the Trail With Mexico City’s Longtime Mushroom Hunter

When Andres Contreras brings wild hongos (mushrooms) down from the forest, everyone starts preparing for a feast. “I learned everything from my dad. The categories of mushrooms, which were edible, everything,” says Andres on the day we trekked through those same woods he walked as a child, discovering the secrets of hunting for fungi. He makes quick work of the kilometers to the top of the section we are walking, with a hawk-like accuracy for spotting mushrooms and a soft gait despite his chunky rain boots. The area, about an hour outside of Mexico City in Mexico State, has been home to mushroom hunters for over a hundred years and is a parcel jointly owned by several communities in a cooperative structure known as an ejido.

Mexico City

Buggin’ Out: Mexico City’s Edible Insect Renaissance

During the dry season in Mexico’s Mixtec highlands, when it’s windy, bugs called chinches (or jumiles in other regions) are ready to be collected from the epiphytic bromeliads – dramatic plants that grow on trees or other plants – where they live. “Children climb the trees, grab the epiphyte, bring it down to the ground and shake it until all the bugs fall from it. They eat them alive; and appreciate them for their spicy taste, reminiscent of chilli pepper,” write the scholars Esther Katz and Elena Lazos in an article that’s part of the 2017 book Eating Traditional Food. Scorpions, ants, crickets, grasshoppers, worms from the maguey plants – Mexico is the Latin American country where the most bugs are eaten according to Katz and Lazos.

Mexico City

Quesadillas La Chaparrita: Cornering the Market

“Do you want fat on those?” At Quesadillas La Chaparrita in Mercado Jamaica, the correct answer is always yes. At the nod of our heads, the young woman manning the grill splashes a little melted lard onto each of our quesadillas with her spatula and slides them over into the hot center of the concave grill top. Somehow she keeps each bunch of quesadillas or gorditas separate from the next as three other women buzz around her – one prepping fillings, one making tortillas on a hand press, and one to her right making change and wrapping up to-go orders. It’s a perfectly timed culinary dance.

Mexico City

Chicozapote: A Fruit For All Occasions in Mexico City

It’s finally hot in Mexico City. We’re smack dab in the middle of that two-month window between March and April that brings a dry, summer heat before the snow has even started to melt in some northern climates. The city is steaming, and chilangos are hunting down their favorite cool foods and the ubiquitous agua frescas sold in outdoor markets. We’re scouring the market, too, in search of our favorite hot weather treat, a cold chicozapote. A palm-sized oval with a rough brown exterior and an interior similar to a cooked pear in consistency, the chicozapote is not a fruit you find outside of many tropical or sub-tropical climates. Called a different name in almost every Caribbean and Central American country, this fruit and its cousins trail down the continent.

Mexico City

Super Seed: One Mexico City Family’s Amaranth Artistry

Nodding to a table laid with bars of alegria, rainbow-colored obleas, and packages of churros and chicharon made with amaranth flour, Alma Rocha says she can remember her grandmother making sweets from amaranth seed, but nothing like the repertoire that she and her husband, Arturo, have now. Everything is shiny and neatly packaged below the D’Alva Productos de Amaranto sign in the cooperative’s workshop, which is located inside the home of 43-year-old Alma and 58-year-old Arturo. “They taught us [recipes] in a certain sense,” Arturo says, referring to the generations of amaranth farmers that came before them, “And we have tried to modify them. For instance, this one here that we are making now, uses honey [instead of regular sugar], the chocolate one here, that’s local chocolate from Oaxaca.”

Mexico City

Tizne Tacomotora: Where There’s Smoke, There’s Tacos

With its neo-industrial decor, Tizne looks like a lot of new Mexico City restaurants and shops riding the “rough hewn” interiors wave. Metal chairs, uncovered cement walls and digital art work give the place the feeling of a warehouse or underground club, albeit one that happens to have amazing tacos. Tizne’s full name, Tizne Tacomotora (“the taco motor”), explains some of the machinery references in their decor. Partners Pilar Canseco and Jorge Vaca started their business with a bike cart outfitted with a meat smoker that they would cart around from music festival to music festival, selling three of what would become their limited (and heavenly) menu of smoked-meat tacos.

Mexico City

Essential Bites: Getting Creative with Chilaquiles in Mexico City

Making chilaquiles always seemed a little out of my reach. I’m familiar with the dish’s humble beginnings, invented as a way of making use of day-old tortillas, but it still held some element of mystery for me: Under the practiced hands of locals, what seemed to be normal, everyday ingredients – fried tortillas, cooked salsa, raw onion, fresh cheese, double cream – transformed into a blend of flavors that felt impossible to recreate. This is a dish that I came to love after moving to Mexico City, where it quickly became my go-to when I sat down at a restaurant for breakfast. If I couldn’t find anyone to accompany me, I would often go out to breakfast alone just to eat chilaquiles.

Mexico City

Making Their Stand: Mexico City’s Street Food Vendors Grapple with Covid-19

Before the pandemic, the night shift that Juan and Hugo work at a 24-hour taco stand in Mexico City’s Del Valle neighborhood did a booming trade. From 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., they served office workers on their way home, locals having dinner and the late-night party crowd soaking up the alcohol. Nowadays a trickle of evening diners stop by for a taco, but the crowds of last year are mostly gone. It’s a common scene across the city, where those who can are mostly working from home (and no longer reliant on street food for a cheap meal) and the number of tourists, who were increasingly coming to sample the city’s food, has fallen significantly. Many street vendors are still operating but struggling to make ends meet.

Mexico City

Bread of the Dead: Jamaica Market’s Pop-Up Pan de Muerto Stands

“Caliente!” Juan calls out, and we all duck to avoid the steaming hot pan as it floats across the kitchen. He holds one side with a folded up towel, the other with a pair of pliers. Kitchen might be a bit of a misnomer. The small stall sits on the sidewalk, with a temporary tin roof overhead and brand new white tarps tied tightly to the back to protect against Mexico City’s afternoon thunderstorms. Each day for the three weeks leading up to Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead holiday, Tito Garcia, the stand’s owner, and the rest of the crew, will make hundreds of pan de muerto sweet rolls, as part of the Jamaica Market’s holiday romería.

Mexico City

Staying Afloat: One Family Farm’s Pandemic Struggles in Xochimilco

Like a lot of us, the Galicia family was looking forward to 2020. Farming along the city’s southern canals for generations, they are stewards of the chinampa agricultural system, one of the oldest on the planet. For the past eight years they have been slowly converting their man-made plot – built on top of the city’s shallow lakebeds – into a fully organic farm. When they first started they could barely afford a hose to water the plants. Now they have their own DIY biodigester (a device that turns decomposing matter into natural gas), several biofilters on a small side canal that runs along their property and a large greenhouse that covers one section of the harvest during Mexico’s hottest months.

Mexico City

Mercado La Nueva Viga: Mexico City’s Hall of Fish

The place smells like a wet dog. The fishmongers have long grown accustomed to it, but the uninitiated are assaulted by the full force of La Nueva Viga’s funky barnyard smell almost from Eje 6, the congested avenue were we turn into the entrance. The trick, we find, is to walk quickly into one of the long, narrow corridors of the fish market's three massive buildings, so that the smell of salt and sea and freshly crushed ice fills up our nostrils so completely there is room for nothing else.

Mexico City

Fonda Margarita: Pilgrimage Site

With a simple façade, the unassuming Fonda Margarita sits next to a carwash and wouldn’t attract much attention if it weren’t for the line out the door and around the block by the time it opens at 5:30 a.m. Construction workers come at the crack of dawn, office workers arrive in shifts and sleepy teenagers meander in just before they close at 11 a.m. “We’re traditional,” says owner Richard Castillo when we ask him why his restaurant, which only serves breakfast, is so popular, “and there aren’t many traditional places left in Mexico City. We still cook using clay pots and 100 percent coal-fired grills.”

Mexico City

Best Bites 2019: Mexico City

It’s almost 2020, and Mexico City continues to be one of the best eating cities in the world. So maybe you won’t find world cuisine the likes of New York or London, but instead you will be bowled over by a deep culinary tradition, genius chefs who were self-taught and a delicious meal waiting on every corner (and we mean every). No “best of” list will ever cover all the deliciousness awaiting you in Latin America’s foodie megalopolis, but here are a few places that we fell in love with in 2019.

Mexico City

Bread of the Dead: Jamaica Market’s Pop-Up Pan de Muerto Stands

“Caliente!” Juan calls out, and we all duck to avoid the steaming hot pan as it floats across the kitchen. He holds one side with a folded up towel, the other with a pair of pliers. Kitchen might be a bit of a misnomer. The small stall sits on the sidewalk, with a temporary tin roof overhead and brand new white tarps tied tightly to the back to protect against Mexico City’s afternoon thunderstorms. Each day for the three weeks leading up to Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead holiday, Tito Garcia, the stand’s owner, and the rest of the crew, will make hundreds of pan de muerto sweet rolls, as part of the Jamaica Market’s holiday romería.

Mexico City

Wine Harvest 2019: In Mexico, A Winemaking Tradition Reborn

The wine harvest is about timing. The time it takes for a grape to ripen to optimal sweetness, the moment they are cut from the vine, the days or weeks that each mix of crushed grapes and juice sits in fermentation tanks or oak barrels. Timing is everything and to get it right, you not only have to be obsessed with accuracy, but also have a passion for perfection. Alejandra Cordero, the winemaker at Tres Raices, a winery in Dolores Hildago, located in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, has both. Wearing a black lab coat, her hair in a tight bun and her hands stained ruddy red with wine, Cordero is testing the sugar levels of the latest batch of Tres Raices wine. This year’s harvest went fast. There was little summer rain and the grapes matured quickly. They started cutting in July and were finished by the start of September. Timing was vital.

Mexico City

Expendio de Maiz: Tortilla Rebels

Tucked against the back wall of the Expendio de Maiz kitchen are three massive metal pots. Containing cloudy mixtures of corn kernels and limestone water, they seem to sit unattended, when in fact intermittent yet constant attention is being paid to their progress. What is happening is one of the most ancient and important processes birthed by Mesoamerica: nixtamalización. For a people whose main staple was corn, the discovery of nixtamalization was just as important as the domestication of corn itself. This process of mixing corn kernels in an alkaline solution not only loosens the husks of the corn kernels, making them easier to grind, but also provides all kinds of additional nutritional value.

Mexico City

Tlacoyografía: Putting a Neighborhood’s Street Snack Vendors on the Map

When Liz Hillbruner moved to Mexico City in 2010 from the United States, she found herself obsessed with tlacoyos, the little football-shaped street eats she saw cooking on griddles around her neighborhood. They were a perfect package of corn dough, wrapped around beans or cheese. As she ate her way through the neighborhood, she simultaneously enrolled in a master course on Mexican cuisine. When it came time to formulate a final project, it seemed only natural to study what was already on her mind. She decided on a map – the Tlacoyografía – a tool for the community and street food-loving transplants to find all the tlacoyo stands in the tlacoyo paradise that is the San Rafael neighborhood.

Mexico City

Market Watch: El Negrito, the Elder of Mercado Medellín

“What year did you marry your wife?” we ask Rafael Hernandez, known as El Negrito of Mercado Medellín, one Saturday afternoon at his vegetable stand. “I don’t know!” He breaks into uncontrollable laughter, “She knows though!” “What year did we get married, Gorda?” he asks the woman next to him. Her hair is tightly permed and her hands are ever-busy sorting vegetables and tallying accounts “I was 21 and you were 25, Negro – so more than 50 years,” Josefina says. Rafael, now 79, with a shock of white hair and an easy smile, happily bustles around his stand.

Mexico City

Mis Mezcales: Liquid Roots

Has mezcal gone the way of avocado toast, an item that’s become shorthand for cliched hipster trendiness? If you think yes, a visit to Mis Mezcales in Mexico City’s Colonia Roma may be in order. There, you will find Omar Trejo sitting behind his unassuming makeshift bar, parceling out sips to the uninitiated and reminding everyone who stops by his small liquor store devoted to small-batch Mexican distillates that before it became a “buzzy” spirit, mezcal was an elixir heavily-rooted in the soils and stories of Mexico. As Omar makes clear to those who come in, every bottle of mezcal tastes different, even from the same brand, the same agave variety and same year. It’s one of the drink’s greatest strengths and probably one of the greatest frustrations for drinkers who expect the standardization of tequila.

Mexico City

Las Tlayudas: Oaxacan Perfectionists

Alex Montes and his business partner, Askari Mateos, have spent years fussing over their recipes for tlayudas: large, thin corn tortillas topped with various ingredients. So what is the secret to a great tlayuda? Montes thinks for a moment. “The asiento [the unrefined pork lard that covers the tortilla],” he finally says, “and the beans, always with avocado leaf.” “The great thing about a restaurant,” he continues, “[is that] you make the same dish over and over so you have endless chances to perfect it.” We’d say that Montes and Mateos have done just that – the Oaxacan food at Las Tlayudas, the duo’s restaurant in Colonia del Valle, is pretty much perfect.

Mexico City

Chilakillers: Breakfast Bomb

When Brenda Miranda and her partners started Chilakillers seven years ago, it was on a lark. They were freelancers – like so many young professionals in Mexico City – who needed some extra cash and thought, “Who doesn’t love chilaquiles?” The only problem? None of them had much experience in the kitchen. But the mother of Brenda’s ex agreed to give them her salsa secrets – verde, mole, refried beans with chipotle, and a super spicy version (to which they would later add an avocado salsa and a vegan salsa). Plus, while Brenda may not have cooked much growing up, she did know meat – her father worked as a butcher all through her childhood in Mexico City’s Obrera neighborhood.

Mexico City

Chilakillers: Breakfast Bomb

When Brenda Miranda and her partners started Chilakillers seven years ago, it was on a lark. They were freelancers – like so many young professionals in Mexico City – who needed some extra cash and thought, “Who doesn’t love chilaquiles?” The only problem? None of them had much experience in the kitchen. But the mother of Brenda’s ex agreed to give them her salsa secrets – verde, mole, refried beans with chipotle, and a super spicy version (to which they would later add an avocado salsa and a vegan salsa). Plus, while Brenda may not have cooked much growing up, she did know meat – her father worked as a butcher all through her childhood in Mexico City’s Obrera neighborhood.

Mexico City

Eating Juárez: A Forgotten Neighborhood’s Comeback

Colonia Juárez – our 2019 “neighborhood to visit” in Mexico City – was a forgotten district for many years, known more for its karaoke bars and strip clubs than its charming plazas or cafés. Originally founded as an illustrious upscale neighborhood for the city’s industrialists, the area saw an influx of Asian immigrants mid-century, abandonment after the 1985 earthquake, and then fame as the city’s LGBTQ hangout in the 2000s. Over the past decade, the neighborhood has been turned upside down – newcomers are clamoring for a chance to reside behind one of its gorgeous French architecture facades, and restaurateurs, having taken note of Juárez’s rising popularity and its unique mix of old and new, are flocking to the area. Like the hood itself, the best off-the-beaten-path places include a little of the traditional and some new strokes of genius. Here are some of our favorites.

Mexico City

Tamales Doña Emi: The Tamal Dynasty

Tamales Doña Emi, a tamal mecca in Colonia Roma, was our first foodie obsession in Mexico City. But really, we were just the most recent converts in a long line of devotees. For the unaccustomed palate, a tamal – steamed corn dough wrapped in a corn husk or banana leaf, with some type of filling at its center – may not sound like much. But anyone who has found that tamal, the one they can’t live without, knows that it is no mundane snack. Doña Emi’s was our game-changer. Big and fluffy, and just moist enough without being greasy, Doña Emi’s tamales are a solid meal, with a current list of wild flavor combos never imagined by the original entrepreneur, Ermilia Galvan Sanchez (Doña Emi).

Mexico City

Joe Gelato: Experimental Scoops

Black ice cream is not an easy sell, but Jose Luis Cervantes, AKA Joe Gelato, is a persuasive guy. It’s not just his million-dollar smile or easygoing nature, but also the passion that he clearly feels for his gelato. “Before I went to Italy, I knew about the concept of gelato,” says Jose, “but I had no idea how good it would be. I had only tasted what was available in Mexico at time. I went there and felt the fat in my mouth, the sugars, I can’t explain it – I love it. I love the whole culture around gelato.”

Mexico City

Fonda Margarita: Pilgrimage Site

With a simple façade, the unassuming Fonda Margarita sits next to a carwash and wouldn’t attract much attention if it weren’t for the line out the door and around the block by the time it opens at 5:30 a.m. Construction workers come at the crack of dawn, office workers arrive in shifts and sleepy teenagers meander in just before they close at 11 a.m. “We’re traditional,” says owner Richard Castillo when we ask him why his restaurant, which only serves breakfast, is so popular, “and there aren’t many traditional places left in Mexico City. We still cook using clay pots and 100 percent coal-fired grills.”