Mexico City food

Street Food

Don't be afraid to eat on the street! There are so many choices, and all of them are inexpensive enough that experimentation doesn't break your travel budget. We put some prices below for common items we had in Mexico City and Puerta Vallarta (areas NOT near tourists). 

Tacos 10-40 pesos, depending on filling, etc. Usually about 20 pesos each.

Tlacoyo: 30-50 pesos. it's longer and thicker than a tortilla and is topped with your choice of meats/veg. 

Cut fruits: 40 pesos (large solo cup holding about 2 medium-sized mangos worth of cut fruit)

Tepache: 30 pesos (fermented drink made with pineapple rinds)

The same items will be more expensive in a sit-down restaurant. 

El Hidalguense

Noted for the best lamb, we highly recommend this restaurant for a true local feel, the lamb, and a chance to try pulque and fried insects. Don't be dissuaded if there is a long line. We were there on a Sunday at lunch and despite large crowds, the host said 10-15 min to wait, and that is what happened. This is a very busy place, and the waiters work very hard. For the lamb, order by the kg. We ordered 1/2 kilogram and had a little left over for a snack the next day. The lamb comes with blue tortillas. In addition to ordering the lamb, you will want may a batch of side dishes, which costs about $10 US. A page on the menu lists your options; we did the first with avocado, herbs, cheese, and nopales. On the table, for no extra charge, are chopped onions, lime, and various salsas. 

We recommend the pulque to drink. On the top right of the bebidas/drinks page of the menu, you will see 3 choices: Aguamiel, Pulque Natural, Pulque Curado. We tried the first 2. The Aguamiel is quite viscous, but the taste is good. The Pulque Natural is pleasant--sweet and yeasty (though there is no yeast in pulque). The curado would be mixed with fruit flavors, so if you would like to try that ask your server what flavors are offered. 

Address: Campeche 155, Roma Sur, Cuauhtémoc, 06760 Ciudad de México, CDMX. Open Friday - Sunday 7 AM - 6 PM.

Santo Pozole

They specialize in pozole so that's what we ordered. The small size was a very generous portion.  The pozole is served with various vegetables and sauces, and a crisp tortilla for crumbling into the soup. We tried one red pozole vegetarian with mushrooms and avocado, and one green pozole with chicken. Both were delicious. We also tried the guacamole but it was too spicy for Sarah!

Rio Panuco 214, Cuauhtemoc, 06500, Ciudad de Mexico.  Open daily 7 AM - 9 PM.

Merkava

We wanted Sephardic food while in CMDX, and Merkava did not disappoint. The atmosphere is nice neighborhood restaurant, the walls lined with Jerusalem stone, modern Hebrew music playing and super friendly waitstaff. The food is innovative and exciting with well-done takes on traditional dishes and attention to flavors, textures, and presentation. 

We over-ordered because everything on the menu looked so good. 

Yemeni bread service--a buttery bread hot from the oven with several dipping sauces.

Spinach and cheese burekas: three served and this is big enough to be a main course. These were excellent and boasted loads of filling. Labne with zataar was served alongside. 

Cauliflower with zataar and labne: also large enough to be a main course. This was delicious--just what you want cauliflower to be--and the serving was a showstopper.

Fish in lemon sauce: a Sephardic dish popular for Shabbat and Passover. Merkava's was fabulous and we asked the chef for the recipe! You can find it under our recipes page. 

Iraqi meat dumplings: nicely spiced and the pasta offered a pleasant chew. We had a similar dish when in Turkey (mantu). The kosher versions of these are either vegetable-filled with a yogurt sauce or meat-filled with a red sauce. So this version wasn't kosher style but it was delicious!

On a second trip to this restaurant, we enjoyed a FABULOUS eggplant dish: crispy seasoned eggplant rounds stacked high on top of tzatziki. We also loved the turkey-based shawerma pita and the arayes (meat pockets we've not seen offered outside of Israel.) The meat was very nicely seasoned. We only over-ordered a little the second time so we had room for a dessert--or so we thought. The flan was delicious and easily large enough for 3 people. The cajeta goaty-ness blended with a little labneh and a little cream cheese made an excellent counterpoint of flavors. They gave us a dessert--a filo dough cigar filled with dates and nuts. 

Ámsterdam 53, Hipódromo, Cuauhtémoc, 06100 Ciudad de México, CDMX. Reservations: perhaps not required, but available opentable.com.mx. Open Tuesday - Saturday 1 - 11:30 PM. Sunday 1 - 7 PM

Churreria El Moro

It's a chain and it's good. We ordered the chocolate drink with water (con agua) instead of milk, cold, and it was fabulous--not too sweet and with a great rich cocoa taste. We got 2 orders of churros the first time, expecting one stick for each of us, but the serving size is very large! You can request the churro dusted with sugar or cinnamon sugar. We also visited their store near el Centro. This one has table service and old-fashioned tile. This store is open 24 hrs a day!

Calle Rio Lerma 167, Cuauhtemoc, 06500

Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas 42, Centro Histórico de la Cdad. de México, Centro, Cuauhtémoc, 06000

Several other locations. Hours vary by location.

Pulque at Museo del Pulque y las Pulquerías and Pulqueria Panana

Pulque is a local alcoholic drink, about 5% alcohol, made from fermented sap of the agave. It is ancient. We've included one photo here from the Archeological Museum (not this pulque museum) which is a ritual object celebrating pulque--with red eyes to express drunkenness! In modern Mexico, pulque is served in dedicated pulque bars called pulquerias. You won't find it for sale at liquor stores because the fermentation process is continuous; it won't keep on the shelf. Modern pulque producers are working on ways to change this, and to increase its popularity in general which has been in decline with the competition from beer. 

We did not go into the museum upstairs which costs 30 pesos. The host at the door showed us to seats at a long, shared table. The pulqueria waiter brought us menus (see the photos) which didn't help too much in our decision, but the fellow drinking next to us suggested we start with "natural" and that there are 2 types: Fuerte and Campechano. We ordered a "chica" of each which was about 8-12 ounces. There is also a food menu, but we were there to drink.

We think that these two names--fuerte and campechano--are not necessarily used for all pulque. (We tried asking for campechano pulque at another restaurant and they didn't understand.) So if you try your pulque at another vendor, we suggest you ask for "natural" and perhaps one of each kind of pulque natural they carry so you can compare the tastes. 

We liked both types with a slight preference for the campechano. Both were yeasty--though pulque contains no yeast and this flavor comes from a bacterium. The campechano had a sweet and floral taste and the fuerte had a sharper, green apple flavor. 

Pulqueria Panana. Avenida Hidalgo, 109, Mexico City, Mexico 06300. Open daily 11 AM - 9 PM

Contramar

Contramar is on everyone's top restaurant list for Mexico City.

This is a hip, noisy, seafood restaurant with Mexican flavors. We ordered a tostada with sweet potato and Mexican flavorings, a salad, tuna, and rock cod prepared with parsley. The fish was cooked nicely (raw/seared for the tuna and poached for the cod). 

It was hard to get a reservation. Our friend Anthony called them and "sweet-talked" in Spanish to land us a reservation . (Thank you Anthony!) When we arrived at 6:30 on a weeknight, a party of two ahead of us asked for a table and was given a spot one hour later. 

Address: Durango 200, Roma Nte., Cuauhtémoc, 06700 Ciudad de México, CDMX. Daily 12 noon - 8 PM.

Reservations: Our friend Anthony got us a reservation by calling and speaking in Spanish. Reservations are recommended but drop-in works if you have flexibility; we had no luck at  opentable.com.mx.

Tamales Madre

This small restaurant was recommended to us by one of Sarah's former students who has spent a lot of time in Mexico City. It did not disappoint. It's easy to miss the entrance to this place as the room is almost entirely filled up by a huge work table. You step down into a sunken room and find there are a few chairs tucked under the table for diners. The room can only fit a few employees - when we were there, an older man was preparing various components of the tamales (the chef Ruben Amador), and a younger woman (maybe his daughter) was steaming the tamales and serving diners. Throughout the meal, we sat across from the chef as he chopped an enormous pile of onions and made several gallons of salsa.

The tamales themselves are wonderful. All have good flavor and accompaniments. The chicken tamal was served with a tangy, but not spicy tomatillo salsa. The mole and plantain tamal was covered with mole sauce. The frijole and hierba santa tamal was served with a tomato sauce and bitter local herbs. There are even several sweet tamales - we tried a cacao tamal with cacao nibs mixed into the masa, and then served with a drizzle of chocolate sauce.

The restaurant also offers tamal classes (see website for details).

Tamales Madre. Calle Liverpool 44a, Colonia Juarez, Cuauhtemoc, 06600 Ciudad de Mexico. Open Tuesday - Sunday 8 AM - 6 PM

Pujol

Pujol is a Michelin one-star restaurant. As such, the service and atmosphere should be impeccable and the food should be innovative, delicious, and imho should offer something truly different with each course. Unfortunately, Pujol missed on several counts with service. The food was good, sometimes great, sometimes in need of a polish. We categorize the good and bad below. 

Good: food quality and decor/general ambiance

This was an enjoyable dinner. The complaints in the next section about service and other missteps are mostly about Michelin Star meaning something and judging a restaurant on its category. 

The standout courses were: 

Appetizer--the "snacks" included baby corn doused in a sauce seasoned with powdered black ants and served in a gourd with smoking corn husks, and a side of mini corn tortillas with a meat/bean mix.

Quelites tostada: quelites is a green the waiter described as "like spinach" and both green and red varieties were served on a tostada. The tostada kept its shape even as we ate it in several bites, and the shaved egg yolk, chile pasado and green mole were lovely counterpoints. This dish also included abalone, the taste of which was overshadowed by the pasado and mole. 

A grilled rockfish with white bean broth and clams had excellent flavor, though the fish skin was hard to cut. ​​​​​​​​

Other courses:

• Chayote millefeuille with aged cheese was delicious and pretty, but the bits of scallop on top could not be tasted over the strong sauce.

• Wagyu beef served with a black garlic sauce, and a smokey eggplant puree and corn tortillas. The beef itself was nicely cooked (rare) and salted. It also paired well with the smokey eggplant. The black garlic sauce tasted good but overwhelmed rather than complemented the beef flavor. 

• Mole madre: a "3658 day old" mole paired with a younger red mole. This was served with a spoon, and with tortillas fused with a leaf. The leaf flavor was interesting and paired nicely with the mole. However, this was just too much mole. There were issues with the tortillas as well (see the "bad" notes below). It would have been better to serve each of the two moles with several different crackers or mini tortillas, to highlight how mole can star with several other flavors and textures. 

To Dan's surprise, there were several sakes offered from the same kura (brewery). NAMI in Sinaloa is apparently the first sake brewer in Mexico. Their junmai ginjo had a sharp, but not unpleasant, bite with notes of apple and melon (like many sakes have).

Dessert: banana flan was delicious and unusual, and paired with an ice cream infused with banana leaf smoke.

The dairy-free dessert for me was a fabulous passion fruit mousse on top of sliced mangos.

Our "special" dessert was a gold ball filled with dark chocolate mousse inside a white chocolate shell. Tasty, but also an allergen for me that was not announced!

Finally, the passion fruit and coffee truffles were excellent quality with nice strong filling flavors and good quality chocolate. 

Michelin-Starred restaurants are supposed to have a particular level of service and food innovation. We were surprised that Pujol missed on the service part multiple times, and there were a few food missteps which at a normal restaurant would be fine but should not happen when the Michelin star and price are in play. 

Bad: service was inconsistent, and some food presentations were odd.

• How many tortillas do you have? The beef dish was served with three tortillas for 2 people. That's odd. Either the chef has planned for this to need 2 tortillas for the amount, or planned for one. When our 3 tortillas were finished (but we were still eating the beef dish) no waitstaff asked if we'd like more tortillas. The waitstaff 2 tables away DID ask her dining pair about more. 

• A cup of mole and how many tortillas again? The next dish, a pure mole (nothing in it, under it, etc) was meant to be eaten with tortillas, and the tortillas were special corn + leaf fused together. The flavor of the leaf added a nice dimension to the mole because otherwise, it was just a lot of mole. Like this is a cup of mole and while featuring the ingredient is appropriate, the old fine-dining advice about more than three bites becomes boring applies here. It would have been better to feature the moles (we had red and black) on various crackers or mini tortillas or similar, to showcase how different flavors can pair with each mole. As it was we had one note--the leaf/corn tortilla fusion--plus mole. When we asked for additional tortillas, the replacement was SLOW and when they did come, there were 3 corn+leave tortillas and one plain. This just doesn't make sense. The chef either wants the pairing with the leaf or he doesn't, and again an odd number for an even number of diners. 

• Dietary restrictions are not important? Our server knew I had one main item to avoid: cream. The entire dessert was changed for me to avoid cream. That's good. But the celebratory dessert in honor of our special occasion was made with CREAM. Thanks? I took one bite, could tell it was a no-no food for me, asked another waitstaff what kind of dairy was in it, and he confirmed cream, cream and more cream. In my book, this is a major misstep. The waitstaff is supposed to "take care of me"; that is what they state when they seat us, and it is what a Michelin starred service should be. 

• The finale is a bonus chocolate truffle. We watched as these were served to the tables around us: 12 pieces of chocolate on a silver tray and the waitstaff says would you like passion fruit or coffee. The presentation is totally not fine dining. The waitstaff should use a pair of tongs to take the choice from the tray and place it on a plate. There is no plate, there is no tong. Each diner grabs a piece with fingers and that spot, presumably, is filled again so the tray of 12 confections can be offered to another guest. We watched a table of 4 grab 3 each; I get it, because they brought a tray of 12 to a table of 4, and then each person there balanced three truffles in their hands while eating. Better than tongs and plates, they should just bring each diner 2 truffles instead of making us choose one. Making me choose between two flavors I like is unpleasant. Finally, after watching this tray go from table to table with the 12 truffles on this tray, they have 2 remaining tables. They approach the other table first. We, however, were seated before them and have generally been ahead of them for each course. They take their truffles. Then the waiter comes to us with TWO TRUFFLES and says here are 2 passion fruit truffles for you. There are only two on the plate and there is no choice for us. Inconsistent. Michelin food and service are not supposed to be inconsistent. I should get the same dining experience as everyone else. I said to the waiter, "what, no coffee choice for us? " With that, he went and got us a coffee truffle. 

• While the food was good, and mostly interesting, there were several dishes where the spice level of the sauce overpowered the star ingredient. This happened with the beef dish and its black garlic sauce which overwhelmed both the mushrooms and beef, the scallops in the chayote, and the abalone in the tostadas. 

• I dislike it when waiters are not transparent about options. When we asked for "still water" the waiter said "I will bring you a bottle." What he should have said is, "would you like bottled water or filtered tap water. "  I would have chosen the latter. Instead, we were up-charged US$10.  FYI, in Mexico City, we learned later that restaurants are required to offer filtered tap water (for free).

• Ambiance--a little noisy until about 3/4 of the way through our meal, when half the tables were then empty. 

Tennyson 133, Polanco, Polanco IV Secc, Miguel Hidalgo, 11570 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico. Open Monday - Saturday 1:30 - 9:30 PM