We spent a month eating in Mexico City with the goal of exploring Mexican food and ingredients. We tried everything from street vendors to the city’s most famous restaurants and found a thriving food scene and an incredible depth of places to explore at every price level. We had many amazing dishes with quality generally high across the board, but we also experienced fair bit of underseasoned food, served too cold, and with the occasional dish too bitter. Prices were also a bit of a surprise with some meals feeling expensive compared to Europe and taxes pushing wine prices to unattractive levels.

I’ve written about nearly every place we visited, except for some street food where we didn’t save the location, and separated out our absolute favourites. All the places we visited were picked after a lot of research and I’ve included links at the bottom to the sources that we used for that.

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Favourite Food

Mi Compa Chava Marisquería : This marisquería serving variety of tostadas, tacos, and cooked seafood was easily one of my favourite places in Mexico City with its very precise cooking, reasonable prices, and outstanding dishes. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how much the little details matter. Here the tostadas are piled high with fresh fish and seafood that work together to create a sum that’s greater than the parts. Or it’s the noticeably above average breading on the fish taco elevating the whole. Then there were the perfectly cooked and seasoned prawns. I could go on. Guacamole and beans are available off menu for vegetarian options. It gets very busy so you should consider going at off peak times. And then you should go again.
Expendio de Maiz Sin Nombre : This no menu restaurant asks your dietary requirements and proceeds to bring you one corn based dish at a time until you’ve had enough. We found all of the dishes here creative, thoughtful, well balanced, and a clear step above your typical tacos. One of our favourite places and highly recommended.
Contramar : It’s hard to believe that this seafood restaurant can somehow live up to the boundless hype about it, but somehow it does. Every single dish, including a salad, was precisely put together, well balanced, and simply tasted great. The service was efficient, the cocktails were decent, and the prices reasonable. To quote a friend, “I could eat here every day”. Contramar is extremely hard to book, but they have another restaurant named Entremar, which I understand to be largely the same and is much easier to book.
El Sirloin de Roma : Come here for sirloin tacos cooked on the trompo, in the way of al pastor. The meat is cut to order ensuring it’s served hot, with plenty of crust, and the meat appropriately pink. A a larger than normal selection of high quality salsas and toppings brought it all together resulting in one of the better tacos I had.
Taqueria El Jarocho : Longstanding taqueria serving variety of guisado tacos. The guisado tacos here were some of the best that I tried with a great depth of flavour. The chilli relleno was one of the better examples we had too.
Comal Oculto : "You’re not doing this place justice”, was the feedback I got on my first draft of comments about this humble sidewalk restaurant serving modern Mexican classics. The feedback wasn’t wrong. We found everything here was precisely cooked and seasoned. The moles had excellent depth of flavour, the salsas were vibrant, the gordita great, and so on. All the food here was among the better examples of each dish that we had and prices were reasonable.
Quintonil : We enjoyed all of the dishes at this Mexican fine dining restaurant with the highlight being some stunning sauces, but felt a couple of the dishes didn’t come together quite as much as we would have liked. We were impressed with the effort into the vegan menu and thrilled with the two Mexican whites we ordered from the lower end of the wine list. Ultimately, it was a good meal, though maybe not the best value for money.
Fugaz : Small plates Italian Mexican fusion with weekly changing menu. We ate here twice due to being blown away by our first visit, with the first time leaning Mexican and the second time more Italian. Get the avocado tostado, which is a fixture on the menu. We weren’t too excited about the cocktails and dearly wish they’d get some proper wine glasses, but it’s worth it for the food.
Taqueria El Gran Abanico : We found this large, bustling carnitas specialist extremely generous and inexpensive. The fatty cuts were tender and very flavourful, but the leaner cuts were a touch dry and could have used some seasoning. Salsas and toppings were fresh and the tortilla soup is also worth a try. You can order sides and they’ll give you tortillas if you need vegetarian options.
Tacos Nena : Take a seat at a side walk table and enjoy a seemingly rare view at a taqueria in CDMX, the charcoal grill. Tacos were mostly rather good with a decent cook, hot serving temperature, and the smoke from the grill really elevating them. We did experience some inconsistency here, but still liked it a lot. The arrachera con queso was my favourite.
Cariñito Tacos : The Thai fusion tacos here were assembled precisely with balanced flavours, textures, and appropriate temperatures. I particularly liked the Thai sourness, spiciness, and saltiness juxtaposed against tortillas and beans.
Rosetta : All of the dishes at this Italian Mexican fusion restaurant were well judged and had all of the details right, with enough Mexican ingredients and dishes on the menu to interest us. Pastas, perfectly cooked, provided ample inspiration with their use of chiles. On top of that, the pricing seemed quite reasonable compared to what we consider comparable restaurants. It really does live up to the hype.
El Pescadito : Come here for Baja style fish tacos and dress them from the huge topping and salsa buffet, including the largest collection of hot sauces that we’ve seen. The toppings were fresh and the fish and prawns well cooked. The batter was average and the tortillas themselves a touch rubbery and in need of toasting, but the tacos still came together and the overall result was great.
Tacos Hola El Güero : This taqueria offers a daily selection of guisados including numerous vegetarian options. All the tacos were served with beans and a fresh crumbly cheese on top, which added texture and depth. The guisados were all well seasoned and the tortilla itself was perfect. Our only complaint was that some of the guisados could have been hotter.
Tacos Los Juanes : We finished one of our taco crawls at this late night street stall serving a variety of tacos. The mushroom and the al pastor were excellent, with the lengua leaving me slightly disappointed. Toppings were very fresh, temperatures hot, and general level of execution rather high. Worth trying.
Siembra Taqueria : We thought this taqueria served some of the best versions of the dishes we ate. We felt everything was more refined, with higher quality ingredients, and better executed than other places. There’s a fantastic beer selection too. Prices are high, but seem fairly justified to us.
El Turix : Small taqueria serving only cochinita pibil. I had a taco and a panucho here, both served with plenty of a vinegar sauce on top. The panucho was the star with the meat, vinegar, and the spicy salsa I put on top balancing nicely with the beans and fried tortilla.
Em : A modern restaurant using international techniques with local ingredients. We had the a la carte and were very impressed with all of our dishes and thought they were all very good. Service was thoroughly haphazard and disorganised including serving a dashi to the vegetarian diner despite us previously informing them. It did seem a bit on the expensive side and we were disappointed to see the wine list starting at 1600 pesos. Their bar upstairs, 686, is excellent, and we wish the cocktails they served in the restaurant were even half as impressive. Overall, this was some of the best cooking we had in CDMX and think the food is worth it despite the service and wine pricing.
Aleli Rooftop : Everything we had at this casual sister restaurant to Lorea featured wood fire cooking in some way. It was fun sitting at the bar watching the chefs cook and we liked all of the dishes we were served, with the grilled gem lettuce hitting memorable levels.
Caracol Del Mar : The food here was as good as at sister restaurant Contramar, including even better cocktails and interesting desserts.
Tizne Tacomotora : Everything I had at this modern, fusion taqueria was innovative and interesting with an overall high level of execution.
El Moro : The churros at this historical churroria chain were exactly what you hope for, with each churro sweet, crisp, and fluffy. We didn’t try the hot chocolate, but the coffee wasn’t very exciting.
Casa Jacaranda : This full day cooking class and market tour was a bit more expensive than some of the other cooking classes we found, but it felt worth it. The pace and level of involvement was perfect, Emilio, our chef, was great, the food we prepared was very good, and we were impressed with the quality of the drinks.
Club Tengo Hambre : We did the Mexico City Street Food Essentials as that was the only tour where they can accommodate vegetarians. The experience itself was well paced, the guide was knowledgable, and it was a useful overview of a variety of tacos found in CDMX. The cost of the food was a pretty small fraction of the tour, so if you’re looking to save money then you could consider creating your own.

Favourite Drinks

686 : Walk through the kitchen and up the stairs at Em and find yourself in this low key speakeasy. This was a fantastic cocktail bar with an interesting menu and serving world class cocktails.
Handshake Speakeasy : This is another world class cocktail bar and served my favourite cocktail of our visit. Make sure you book upstairs as the downstairs seems to be different and I saw bad reviews about it.
Sombra Roma : We were very impressed with the drinks here, but the pricing was noticeably higher than the rest and we didn’t love the seating.
Hanky Panky : This was the most energetic of the bars that we visited and probably my favourite atmosphere wise. The drinks were very good, but we weren’t blown away by any drinks like we were at the other places in this section.

Other places we tried

El Hidalguense : The barbacoa at this famous weekend only taqueria was moist and had a nice depth of flavour, but everything else we ordered was a bit average. Prices were also on the higher end and we were a bit put off by the aggressive selling of take away spices and desserts. Despite that, I think you’ll be pretty happy if you order the barbecoa by the kilo along with some accompaniments.
Cafe Tacobar : The chef’s cooking at this cocktail bar serving tacos was precise and well seasoned, but we found the tacos a bit plain. We also would have liked to see more than a lone salsa and the cocktails were only decent.
Mux : We were pretty excited to try some of the traditional Mexican dishes here, but we left disappointed. For us the vegetable dishes were a bit bland and we found the red mole far too bitter (and we don’t feel this way about the other red moles we’ve had), nevermind that it was served completely tepid. We had mixed feelings about the cocktails as well.
Amaya : Hip, small Mexican Mediterranean small plates with a large natural wine list. We left with mixed feelings, because we weren’t too excited about anything we ate, despite the actual cooking being rather good. It probably didn’t help that their glassware didn’t match the ambitions of their excellent wine list.
Maiz de Cacao : We had dinner here one night, but I forgot to take notes and all I can recall is that we found it a bit flat.
Taqueria Orinoco : We saw glowing recommendations for this taqueria everywhere, but we found it a bit lacklustre. Our experience of it was so different to what we had read that we had to try it again, but we felt the same the second time around.
El Inicio : We had breakfast here one morning and it was ok, except for the coffee, which I didn’t like very much.
El Califa (Roma) : We saw this popular chain taqueria recommended in a few places so we decided to give it a try, but we found it rather disappointing. Fantastic beer selection, though.
Pollos Poncho : We had some tacos and the vegetarian bowl at this polloria and we weren’t big fans of either.
Pargot : We stopped at this four table sidewalk restaurant serving modern Mexican food one night and had a few dishes. A Fish ‘crisp’ was great, while we liked a fig tartare less because we found it bit sweet for a savoury dish. Overall, execution seemed very high and we enjoyed what we had. Worth considering.
Taqueria “Los Amigos” : All the tacos I had at this inexpensive taco stand between Roma and Condesa were good and tremendous value at 12 pesos per taco.
El Vilsito : Given the reputation of this garage turned taqueria, we found the tacos here a bit disappointing. The gringa almost lived up to the hype, but the regular al pastor was a bit dry and bland while the vegetarian tacos were dominated by far too much cheese.
Tacos Tony : We appreciated the selection of offal at this late night taqueria just down the road from El Vilsito and thought the tacos were generally well executed. The tongue and head were standouts here, with the tripe a bit chewy and lacking in flavour.
El Cardenal : We had an early dinner at this chain serving a selection of traditional Mexican dishes. Most of what we ate was quite flavourful and decent, but serving temperatures - including outright cold rice - and some unevenness, made it all a bit dull.
Taqueria Alvaro Obregon : We liked the selection of carnitas here and thought the cook of the meat, seasoning, and flavour was above average. Tacos are on the small side and maybe a bit pricey, but that probably just reflects its location.
Maximo : We had mixed feelings about our meal at this farm to table bistro as everything we ate was faultless and the room stunning, but on the other hand, service was over attentive, the menu wasn’t very ambitious or interesting, and pricing was rather high. For us, the price point wasn’t justified and we wouldn’t go back.
El Bajio : Our meal here was another attempt to find examples of traditional Mexican food, but we left unsuccessful as we found the food just average and served tepid like so many other places.
Paramo : We liked the decent, good value, cocktails, the buzzing room, and the ambitious menu of vegetarian and non-vegetarian tacos. We just wish they would heat their tortillas and taco toppings and prepare them a bit more precisely. That sloppiness ruined it a bit for us, but it’s a reasonably priced option with a lot to like.
El Parnita : Somehow even louder and busier than upstairs sister restaurant, Paramo, this restaurant serves a similar menu with similar results. We liked the ambition and selection of tacos, but found the execution a bit inconsistent and sloppy. Combine that with the overly loud room and we didn’t love our meal here. Yet, at the same time, it’s easy why it’s popular with its good menu, fun vibe, and reasonable prices.
Joe Gelato : We weren’t quite sure what to make of this place as the flavour of what we were served was quite good, but the crystally texture and the far too cold serving temperature ruined it a bit for us.
Pasillo de Humo : We were very enticed by the menu at this Oaxacan restaurant, but we didn’t end up liking our meal here very much. Beyond the recurring issue of food served tepid, we also weren’t fans of some of the dish composition with flavours, ratios, and textures not to our taste. Between that and finding a rather unfriendly markup on the first and only Mexican wine I checked, we left disappointed.
Pujol (taco omakase) : We had the taco omakase here and overall thought the food was great with a couple of spectacular dishes. They offer a full vegan menu. The wine list was pretty aggressive with Mexican whites marked up around 3.5-5.5x retail price so we drank cocktails, which were fine, but not on the level of the cocktail bars we went to. The food menu itself was a bit light and they seemed to serve 2 extra desserts for birthdays (on a menu with 1 dessert!). We enquired about one of them, churros, and in fairness they did serve us them after. I’m happy they did because they were amazing and I would have left hungry without them. The pricing felt a bit high to us and the whole experience a bit ungenerous and overly systemised. Whether you should go depends on how you feel about that, but if you do, make sure to say it’s your birthday.
Maria La Pescadora : I had a few thoughtfully constructed and well prepared tostadas here that didn’t quite work for me because I wasn’t the biggest fan of the sauces they used. I think it’s quite a decent option and they offer a large selection of salsas too.
Nicos : I think we may have fallen victim to high expectations and dining in a nearly empty room here as we had mixed feelings about this meal. On one hand, execution was high across the board and everything was very good, but on the other, nothing we had was the best example of its kind and the menu itself caught our imagination less than we had hoped. I’d probably try this place again so it’s worth considering.
Cantina La Ribera : We appreciated the menu at this cantina serving traditional Mexican fare for its variety and because it featured dishes we hadn’t seen elsewhere, such as pink mole. We found the food ok, but in need of seasoning and, you guessed it, served tepid.
Bar Baltra : We liked the low key atmosphere here and thought all of our drinks were well made, but the drink styles didn’t speak to us as much as at other places.
Licoreria Limantour : This place was busier, bigger, and louder than any other cocktail bar we visited. We only had a couple of drinks here and while they were certainly good, we preferred some of the other cocktails we had during our visit.

Favourite Food

Favourite Drinks

Other places we tried

Further Reading