There wouldn’t be much of a revived culinary scene in Mexico City without chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita. A kind of recipe detective and writer of several well-regarded Mexican cookbooks, including the superb Diccionario Enciclopédico de Gastronomía Mexicana, he has been even more successful in his restaurant ventures. After his humble Café Azul y Oro at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) received rave reviews, he expanded on its concept – a menu of traditional regional Mexican cuisine based on sometimes forgotten recipes he had gathered through his field research – by opening a larger restaurant in the hip Condesa neighborhood in 2010. Two years later, he opened a third location in a beautifully restored building in the Centro Histórico, which has proven to be his most successful venture yet.

The past year has been a very good one for food in Mexico City. We’ve had a wonderful time exploring new restaurants, tracking down exciting dishes and meeting great people along the way. There have been so many memorable moments over the past year that it was hard to sit down and come up with a list of the ones that really stood out the most. Through debate and discussion (and some revisits), we narrowed down the worthy field to our top favorites. Here are our Best Bites of 2012 from Mexico City. El Pozole de Moctezuma First up on our best food experiences of the year would have to be the pozole at El Pozole de Moctezuma. Located near Metro Garibaldi, the building is nondescript and shows no sign of the deliciousness that lies within, so if we hadn’t been taken there by a friend, we never would have known about it. But what a discovery! The friendly staff showed us exactly how to build the perfect bowl of pozole, from choosing the color and flavor of the broth to adding oregano, chili powder, lime juice and, of course, a splash of mezcal. A bowl of soup never tasted so good or filled us up more satisfyingly than that at El Pozole de Moctezuma. Best of all, the place is a long-term neighborhood fixture that celebrated its 65th anniversary in 2012, a fact that bodes well for future visits.