The Best Seafood in Mexico

The pescado a la talla arrives split down the middle, one half painted red, the other green, which is either very festive or very patriotic depending on your mood. This Roma seafood restaurant from Gabriela Cámara holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and has been packing in the city's art crowd and extended-lunch faithful for years. By Friday afternoon the rosé is flowing and nobody is leaving anytime soon. Reservations are not optional.

Gleaming stainless steel and seafoam green tiles give this Roma Norte corner spot the feel of a diner that wandered off course and ended up obsessing over oysters. It's a casual seafood bistro with a raw bar, counter stools, and an open kitchen keeping things honest. Clams, crudos, a lobster roll, and daily specials round out a menu that swings from raw bar snacks to pasta without losing focus. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand.

A three-story townhouse in Roma Norte where the name tells you everything: "sarde" means sardine, and the kitchen stays fixed on Mexico's coastlines. This is a contemporary seafood restaurant where the cold raw preparations, Japanese-cut fish included, get as much care as the plating. The exposed brick bar does real work for solo diners, and the cocktails hold their own. A Michelin Guide selected restaurant.

A dozen oysters on ice is a perfectly reasonable meal, and this lively oyster bar and grill operates on that premise without apology. The room draws from New Orleans and Buenos Aires in equal measure, which sounds chaotic but somehow works. Bivalves are the point, shucked fresh and served simply, though the grilled and smoked preparations have their own following. A spot on The 50 Best Discovery list and Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants signals the word is out.

Communal tables, café lights, and a playlist that knows when to stay out of the way set the tone at this outdoor seafood dining room in the Valle de Guadalupe wine country. The Michelin-starred kitchen, a collaboration between the Deckman's crew and winery Casa de Piedra, leans into raw and barely-touched preparations, aguachiles, ceviches, and oysters paired with the house Blanc de Noir. An à la carte option means you set the pace.

The produce comes from a few fields over, organic and tended by hand, and you can taste the short distance on every plate. This Michelin-starred tasting restaurant inside a Baja hotel runs seasonal multicourse menus, either vegetarian or seafood-forward, that change often enough to keep the kitchen honest. Desserts veer pleasantly strange, squash éclairs and purple basil sorbet among them, which is one way to hold a room's attention all the way to the end.

The terrace seats fill first, tucked under awnings and ringed with plants, but the back row on the first floor overlooking Plaza Uruguay runs a close second. This is a seafood restaurant in Polanco where the pescado a la talla arrives split down the middle, one half red sauce, one half green, and looking almost too composed to eat. The aguachile comes in red or green too, and the red is not a suggestion.

The raw bar is the main event here, a New Orleans-leaning oyster and seafood spot in Roma Norte that hums with the same energy as its Polanco and Guadalajara siblings. Tostadas, fish fillets, and a cured meat counter where some of the charcuterie gets sliced to order round out a menu that keeps things unfussy on purpose. Come thirsty and don't overthink it.

Navios is a seafood restaurant where the tables sit on docks over the lagoon, some under thatched palapas and some under nothing but sun, so book a roof if you'd like to keep your composure. The kitchen leans Mexican-Asian, with the dots, swirls, and matchstick vegetables that say a plating class happened once. Time the reservation for sunset, order a spritz, and expect resort-area prices and dressy-casual linen. AAA gives it three diamonds.

Outdoor tables line the road through Puerto Juárez at this relaxed, open-air seafood spot, where the menu runs long and the blackboard runs longer. Everything comes from the local market, cooked in the regional style, and the portions are generous enough to make dessert feel optimistic. Order it anyway. The Michelin Guide has it selected, which tracks for a place where locals and curious visitors end up at the same table without anyone planning it that way.

A white-tiled open kitchen anchors this sleek seafood restaurant just off the Tijuana-Ensenada highway, where the menu is short and the cooking is confident. The bar wall runs local beers and mezcal sours; the food runs from tiradito and oysters into pasta, octopus pizza, and a tuna al pastor taco that swaps pork for spice-rubbed fish with pickled onion and avocado. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

A thatched, open-air seafood restaurant on the second floor in Puerto Morelos, where the ocean breeze does most of the interior decorating. The menu moves between traditional Mexican flavors and the occasional Provençal detour without making a fuss about it, and the ceviches and gorditas stuffed with roasted octopus are the kind of starters that quietly derail any plan to order light. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

The tostadas here are the same ones that made Sabina Bandera's mariscos cart, La Guerrerense, a culinary landmark across the street, so the full-service restaurant around the corner is a natural next step for anyone who wants to sit down. Seafood runs the menu, from cold preparations to a pozole loaded with hominy and avocado. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks when even the tortilla chips come with house-made salsa.

The oyster bar takes the center of a high-ceilinged room built on the bones of an old sugar mill, and everything else in this Todos Santos seafood restaurant arranges itself around it. The chef, a Sonoran native, leans into Baja waters for the oysters, served with mignonette and a ponzu that suggests he's thought about this more than most. A back patio catches the view when you're ready to let the meal slow down.

A Sinaloa-style mariscos spot in downtown Tulum, where the main event is the torres de mariscos, seafood towers stacked with avocado fans, diced vegetables, and shellfish buried in citrusy, rich sauces. The aguachiles and tostadas mixtas hold their own too. It's a welcome detour from the jungle-chic dining scene that dominates this town, and the crowd seems to know it.

A food truck turned neighborhood institution, famous for the camarón enchilada taco that's been drawing loyalists from across the city for years. You order at the window, then sip complimentary consomé under a metal carport while you wait. The taco arrives with a spread of shredded cabbage, pico de gallo, crema, and squirt-bottle salsas so you can dress it yourself, which is half the point.