The Best Places in Mexico

Black-and-white parquet floors beneath an art gallery roof set the mood at Bruna, a Mexican-fusion restaurant in Guadalajara's Lafayette neighborhood where the decor is flamboyant and the tables are hard to get. The chef pulls from street food stalls and family recipes, running much of it through a wood-fired grill. Habanero ice cream with cactus jelly for dessert is the kind of move that earns a spot on Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants list.

Stacks of mesquite wood line the walls like shelves in some pyromaniac's library, doing double duty as decor and a clear statement of intent. This live-fire contemporary restaurant in San José del Cabo runs a shareable menu of vegetables, seafood, and what the kitchen cheerfully calls "black market" meats, tongue and sweetbread among them. A tasting menu is there if you want the full tour. Bring your hands; the food expects them.

The cooking here comes from Tabasco, not the tourist version of Mexican food but a regional tradition most visitors never encounter. Carmela y Sal is a fine dining room where the chef mines her home state for dishes that feel personal rather than performed. The space is warm and modern, the staff genuinely attentive, and the menu roams into territory broccoli with black piquin chili has no business being this interesting in.

The walk to get here is half the experience: you swing past lounge chairs and an oceanfront walkway before landing at this open-air contemporary Mexican restaurant inside the Chileno Bay Resort. The kitchen ranges across Mexico's regional traditions with some South American pull, so the menu has range without feeling scattered. A ceviche riff with octopus, pork belly, and plantain tortillas gives you a sense of how it thinks.

Dinner here happens under a canopy of Edison bulbs and actual trees, with candles on the wood tables and incense in the air, all of it concrete and calm inside a UNESCO heritage guest house. Enrique Olvera is a name worth knowing, and he and chef Luis Arellano run a tasting menu rooted in traditional Oaxacan recipes and local ingredients. The birds are not ambient sound; they live here.

An omakase counter in the middle of Oaxaca, where a chef fuses Japanese technique with local ingredients in ways that manage to feel neither forced nor like a gimmick. Kampachi arrives with nixtamalized papaya; an eel handroll gets a smoky-sweet agave pulp dressing. The menu runs light, but the combinations stick with you. Fellow travelers tend to fill the seats, since locals haven't quite caught on yet, which means walk-in odds are better than they should be.

A live-fire kitchen sits open-air at the center of everything here, on a timber platform shaded by trees on a Baja wine country estate. Drew Deckman runs a contemporary Mexican kitchen with a serious sustainability streak, the kind where soft-shell crab meets Pilsner foam and short rib arrives legitimately hearty. The setting, strung with cafe lights over the vineyard, does a lot of the work before the food even arrives.

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.

A bull's head greets you at the door, which is one way to make the menu clear before you've even sat down. This is a Spanish tapas bar in Polanco, modeled on the kind of place in Madrid where nobody eats alone and the anchovies come on toast with oil and tomato because they don't need to be anything more complicated than that. Classic patatas bravas, gambas al ajillo, flan, everything sized for the table.

Grilled bread arrives with bone marrow butter served in the bone, dusted with hibiscus salt, and that sets the tone for everything that follows at Lumbre. This contemporary Mexican restaurant near San José del Cabo's art walk runs on live fire and a kitchen that likes to pull apart familiar dishes and reassemble them as something new. The chile relleno alone has opinions. Selected by the Michelin Guide and named to Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants.

Down a dirt road past a fence hung with wine bottles, this open-air restaurant in Baja's Valle de Guadalupe wine country is anchored by a large fire pit where cast iron and open flame do all the heavy lifting. The menu follows a loose arc, oysters first, then a protein, then sharing plates that use the whole animal or fish. The cooking is rooted in local sourcing and fire, and the chocolate cake at the end earns the trip on its own.

A long dirt road through pepper fields is your navigation, and finding Tenoch feels like part of the deal. This open-air contemporary Mexican restaurant sits inside a resort in Todos Santos, serving seafood and produce pulled largely from the surrounding land. The kitchen's ideas are more serious than the breezy palapa vibe suggests, and the mole alone makes a case for the detour.

Each of the five "casas" here is themed to a different Mexican art form, textiles or painting or cooking, and guests can take a workshop in whichever one they pick. It's a sprawling adults-only all-inclusive resort on the Riviera Maya, 900 suites deep, with access to eight Xcaret parks folded into the rate. The Forbes Four Star property leans into curated craft over swim-up-bar chaos, which is either a selling point or a warning, depending on your vacation personality.

A new-build resort in a city where colonial stone walls are the whole aesthetic is a bold move, and Live Aqua pulls it off with AoMa Estudio's colonial-meets-contemporary design and modern art threaded throughout. The largest hotel in town, it holds a Forbes Four Star rating and draws expats and visitors who want serious amenities: a fine-dining room from celebrity chef Eduardo Palazuelos, a Casa Dragones tequila lounge, and generous outdoor spaces.

Private cabanas with a dedicated coconut cocktail attendant set the tone at this luxury Caribbean resort on the Zona Hotelera strip. The water really does run that improbable shade of blue, and the beach makes it easy to lose a full day without trying. Families and couples both seem equally at home here, which is harder to pull off than it sounds. Kempinski holds a Forbes Four Star rating.

The dining room at this Four Seasons Tamarindo restaurant sits on artificially built clifftops above a run of infinity pools, with the Pacific spreading out beyond. The menu, shaped in collaboration with Elena Reygadas, pulls local Mexican ingredients through French and Italian technique. Order something, then spend most of dinner watching the horizon do its thing.

A 40-floor tower on the Paseo de la Reforma, the Sofitel plants its French flag firmly in Mexico City and then, to its credit, actually looks around. The rooms lean into the view through floor-to-ceiling windows, with warm modernist interiors and automated curtains softening the high-rise drama. Downstairs there's a wood-fired Mediterranean-Mexican kitchen and a French-meets-Mexican rooftop bar, which is exactly as audacious as it sounds. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Canals thread through the mangrove forest right up to your room, so the line between resort and jungle stays genuinely blurry throughout your stay. This is a large luxury resort just north of Playa del Carmen, with nine pools, a Forbes Four Star rating, and enough complimentary activities, paddleboarding, catamaran tours, mezcal tastings, yoga, to keep a planner busy or an avoider pleasantly distracted. The adults-only infinity pool gazes out over the canals and mangroves, which is as good an argument for day-drinking as any.

A boutique luxury hotel in Roma built from bricks shipped over from England for the original Bank of London & Mexico director, which is an origin story that takes some nerve to live up to. The name is about as much brick as you'll find; inside, the palette runs to soothing neutrals and Belle Époque bones refreshed with parquet floors and Deco mirrors. Rooftop suites have private patios, and there's a spa, a gym, and several bars and restaurants on site. Michelin awarded it one Key.

The Alexander sits inside Torre Virreyes, the inverted-triangle skyscraper that looms over Bosque de Chapultepec like it won an architecture argument. This 26-suite hotel holds a Michelin Key and leans hard into international luxury: Italian furniture, Swedish bath products, Bang & Olufsen sound systems, and a caviar bar that apparently no one thought to open in Mexico City before now. Floor-to-ceiling windows keep the park and skyline permanently in frame.

Eighty-six acres of mangrove forest and cenotes separate this all-inclusive resort from the idea of roughing it. Grand Velas Riviera Maya runs three distinct areas, each with its own pool, from a jungle-wrapped multi-tier affair to an adults-only oceanfront option, plus a white sand beach for anyone who finds the pools too convenient. The contemporary-tropical design leans modern rather than thatched-palapa, and the food and drink situation is serious enough that you might forget you pre-paid for it.

Floor-to-ceiling sliding doors frame the Sea of Cortez from every room at this Forbes Four Star resort on the Baja Peninsula, which opened recently enough that the towels still feel new. The Riviera-inspired buildings use natural stone and earthy tones so the whole property reads as landscape rather than interruption. Three restaurants, an open-air spa, and several pools fill out the days for guests who came to do absolutely nothing, efficiently.

Eight suites above a concept store in a 1920s Roma Norte townhouse, La Valise earns its Michelin Key by doing the opposite of everything the big hotels are doing. Each suite has its own logic: one has a leather swing on the patio and a terracotta dog sculpture inside, another rolls the bed out onto an open-air terrace. The aesthetic is genuinely designed rather than decorated, which in a boutique hotel of this size is a meaningful distinction.

A four-room boutique hotel inside a turn-of-the-century mansion in Roma, which is the part of Mexico City where people go to feel like they're in Lisbon. Each room has its own name and character, the style is contemporary without announcing itself as such, and the concierge seems to have a standing reservation at every worthwhile table in the neighborhood. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Key.

A 16-room boutique hotel in Roma Norte designed by Alberto Kalach, with art woven into every corner: latticework, sculpture, and photography fill the common spaces as earnestly as they do the guest rooms. Breakfast comes from Rosetta Bakery, there's an honesty bar, and a Street Food Concierge stands ready to help you navigate the neighborhood like an insider. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Five rooms in a century-old Roma mansion, each named after its dominant color, doesn't sound like much until you're standing in a garden with orange trees the housekeeper planted decades ago. This boutique guest house holds a Michelin Key, runs a daily cocktail hour, and tucks a small cooking school around the back. The architect's modern addition gets covered in architecture magazines, which is either a selling point or a warning, depending on your taste.

Five rooms, each named for its single colorway, sit above a ground floor that doubles as gallery, pop-up shop, and event space in this boutique hotel in Roma Norte. The mansion's original stained glass and vaulted ceilings stay intact, while upstairs the Celeste room arranges cobalt armchairs in a conversation pit and Musgo leans deep into midcentury botanical. A Michelin Key hotel, and one that books out fast around Mexico City Art Week.

Scarlet macaws roam the grounds freely, which sets the tone for this sprawling all-inclusive resort on the Caribbean coast near Playa del Carmen. Hammock balconies, swim-up casitas, a rock-carved spa, and ten restaurants handle the luxury side, while the rates fold in kayaking through cenotes, a private island, and admission to nine eco-archeological parks. A Forbes Four Star property that somehow also fits Chichén Itzá into the package.

Every room at this Forbes Four Star, Michelin Key resort opens onto a private terrace facing the water, with the famous Arch of Cabo San Lucas visible across the bay. The architect leaned into the landscape rather than competing with it, so the timber walls and hand-painted tile floors feel grounded even as the infinity pool and rooftop lounge float above Monuments Beach. Enrique Olvera oversees the flagship restaurant, which should tell you something about the ambition level.

Two entrances, two different worlds: one opens onto the boutique calm of Polanco, the other onto Reforma Avenue and the National Auditorium. This luxury hotel has been around forever and a recent renovation brought overhauled public spaces and a small cluster of new bars and restaurants, including a mezcal room and a cocktail bar inspired by the old railway that once cut through the neighborhood. Rooms run the expected JW register, polished and quietly serious.

A rose-pink Belle Époque mansion in Roma Norte that somehow pulls off minimalist interiors without losing the old-world atmosphere. This boutique hotel holds its Michelin Key, and the bones of the place do the work: wooden floors, handmade Oaxacan rugs, marble bathrooms, and a leafy rooftop made for cold drinks after a long afternoon in the galleries. An agave lounge and a Japanese tea room round out a property that refuses to be simple.

A Mayan shaman greets arriving guests with a copal blessing before a bellman walks them through dense jungle to a thatched-palapa villa with its own in-room check-in. This adults-only boutique resort along the Riviera Maya keeps just 41 villas, a pool with a sea view, and a bar stocked with rare tequilas. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key, and Forbes gives it Four Stars. Couples looking to disappear into the jungle without sacrificing comfort tend to find it.

Seven suites, each named for a natural element, fill this Condesa boutique hotel with whitewashed walls, carved wood, and linen so soft it feels like a design decision. Mexican designer Roberta Maceda built the place around the same quiet restraint as her clothing line, and it shows. Breakfast goes out under a guava tree in the courtyard. The rooftop is guests-only, which at sunset, with Baja natural wines in hand, feels like a reasonable trade. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A concrete Brutalist tower one block from Paseo de la Reforma, Volga is a design hotel that earns its Michelin Key through sheer aesthetic commitment. Contemporary art fills every corner, and the architecture doesn't quietly step aside for it; the two argue pleasantly. Rooms are subtly luxe, spa treatments come to you, and a small rooftop pool sits on top of it all. The on-site restaurant is a Mediterranean concept from a Japanese-Mexican group, which is very Mexico City.

Oscar Wilde-themed rooms in the heart of Polanco, which tracks: the neighborhood has spent decades perfecting the art of being seen. This boutique hotel leans into exec-chic without apology, with four room categories named for Wilde's characters, parquet floors, Egyptian cotton, and in-room espresso machines. The common areas feel like a members' club someone actually thought through. It holds a Michelin Key.

Adults-only and all-inclusive, Grand Velas Boutique Los Cabos sits along a private stretch of white sand on the Tourist Corridor, the newer, smaller sibling in the brand's Cabo family. Sleek modern design runs through the suites, butler service is standard, and the beach feels genuinely removed from the busier resort strip. Forbes Four Star. The crowd skews couples who want the all-inclusive ease without the spring-break energy.

Eight pools and a beach club at something called Tequila Cove set the tone for what this Forbes Four Star resort is going for. Hilton Los Cabos sits on a beachfront stretch of the Tourist Corridor facing the Sea of Cortez, with 375 rooms, all balconies, and a recent redesign by Hirsch-Bedner Associates. Seven restaurants, a spa, tennis, a kids club, and a ballroom for 800 mean it can absorb basically any kind of trip you throw at it.

An adults-only all-inclusive on the Baja coastline where the desert drops straight into the Pacific, Le Blanc earns a Forbes Four Star for doing the category in full dress uniform: personal butler around the clock, fine dining, top-shelf drinks, and oceanfront balconies, all without a tab to sign at the end. The service is warm rather than stiff, which keeps the luxury from tipping into a rehearsed performance.

A hanging alebrije sculpture installation stops you in the lobby before you've even checked in, and the hotel keeps that promise throughout. This 144-room property sits steps from Santo Domingo Church in Oaxaca's UNESCO-listed historic center, built around interior patios that draw light through every corridor. Local wood, stone, and clay pottery throughout feel chosen rather than decorated. The Agave Lounge handles mezcal duties; the spa leans on regional therapeutic traditions.

Three circular buildings hover above a red mangrove forest, designed to mirror the Pleiades constellation as it appears overhead each December. This St. Regis resort sits on a private beach cove beside the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve, well away from the party strip. Ground-floor rooms have plunge pools; suites add hammocks and outdoor showers. Butler service, a Forbes Four Star, and a Michelin Key round out the case for staying in rather than going anywhere.

An Art Deco building across from the Garden of the Republic of Lebanon houses this 12-suite luxury boutique hotel in Polanco, one of Mexico City's most manicured neighborhoods. Each floor has its own private kitchen and social space, and the larger residences run to full chef's kitchens and dining rooms, which is either very convenient or a gentle reminder that some people travel differently than you do. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A landmark colonial residence on the west side of Oaxaca City, Grana is a B&B that takes the "bed" part seriously across 15 rooms that mix traditional craft with contemporary design, the building's bones kept largely intact by heritage rules. Breakfast happens at a long communal table, and the rooftop looks out over the city toward the mountains. A Michelin Key, for what it's worth in a place this low-key.

Behind wrought-iron gates on a quiet Polanco block, this intimate design hotel occupies a stately 1940s mansion where a double staircase and original stained glass give way to 20 rooms dressed in marble, bold color, and whimsical nature-themed details, from butterfly wallpaper to antler mounts above the beds. Suites add freestanding tubs. Breakfast lands in the garden, and the terrace sits level with the palms. Chapultepec Park is nearby, which feels apt. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A grand piano anchors the main hall of this 26-suite boutique hotel in Polanco, where a 1940s mansion has been dressed in chandeliers, wrought iron staircases, ornate moldings, and guest rooms so chromatic and pattern-heavy they make maximalism look modest. Suites vary wildly, some with balconies, some with bathtubs, one with an outdoor jacuzzi. It holds a Michelin Key. The vibe is less "boutique hotel" and more "eccentric relative's manor," which is mostly a compliment.

Each room comes with an onsen-style teak soaking tub, which tells you immediately what kind of resort this is. Nobu Hotel Los Cabos sits at the far edge of Cabo San Lucas, and the Japanese aesthetic carries through from the architecture to the pools to the spa, all of it sitting against the Pacific. Four pools, multiple bars, and a Nobu restaurant anchor the property. It holds a Forbes Four Star rating, and somehow the understated design never fights the Baja landscape for attention.

Sandy beach frontage is genuinely rare on this stretch of the Sea of Cortez, and Solaz built its whole pitch around it. The resort sits between Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo on 34 acres of desert landscape, with 145 rooms, four restaurants, and a serious spa. Huanacaxtle wood details and original Mexican sculpture keep the interiors from reading like every other coastal property. It holds a Forbes Four Star, and somehow manages to be both family-friendly and stylish, which is harder than it sounds.

Colorful murals wrap the central courtyard of this 20-suite boutique hotel in Oaxaca's historical center, and the suites carry that same sensibility inside: high-design furniture alongside weathered, handmade textures and historic architectural detail. It holds a Michelin Key. Breakfast is included; there's no in-house restaurant, which feels like a feature given the city outside. Calm and residential in atmosphere, the kind of place you return to rather than just sleep in.

Floor-to-ceiling glass frames Land's End straight on, which is either a distraction or the whole point, depending on your priorities. This is a contemporary Mexican restaurant inside the Cape Hotel, operating under Enrique Olvera, where the kitchen folds in Peruvian and Japanese influences without apology: ceviche alongside bao, tempura alongside tacos. You can order à la carte or go tasting menu, and the room is dressed to match the ambition.

Treehouse villas perched in 200-year-old rainforest trees, ground-level villas threaded through tropical undergrowth, and a palm-fringed stretch of Riviera Nayarit coastline that somehow still feels undiscovered. This Forbes Four Star resort on the Vogue 100 Best Spas list makes a feature of the temazcal, a pre-Hispanic sweat ceremony that predates the wellness industry by several centuries. Eighty acres, a private plunge pool, and a dedicated host who handles the details you didn't know you needed handled.

A shaman meets you at the entrance to help you set an intention for your stay, which is either the most Riviera Maya thing imaginable or a genuinely useful prompt to put your phone down. Either way, the resort earns it. Stone-and-wood towers rise above a mangrove forest on elevated walkways, every room facing the sea, local art on every surface. The SANA spa, several restaurants, and a beach club are all a short walk. Michelin awarded it 2 Keys.

Twelve miles down the coast from Puerto Vallarta and only reachable by boat, this eco-resort holds a Michelin 3 Keys designation and a serious commitment to making you put your phone down. The 33 open-air cabins have three walls by design, so the jungle and Banderas Bay fill the fourth. It bills itself as a yoga retreat, but the sweat lodge, spa, and beach club mean you can fill a week without ever attempting a Warrior pose.

A Diego Rivera portrait in the owner's private collection gave this 32-room boutique hotel its name, and the curatorial instinct runs through the whole place: crisp white cubist architecture, contemporary art on every wall, and mountain views from most of the private terraces. It sits on a quiet cobblestone street a short walk from San Miguel's main plaza, holding a Michelin Key. The spa has a hammam, and the in-house restaurant leans into locally sourced Mexican cooking.

Menus are vegan by default at this all-inclusive wellness resort in Playa del Carmen, though the kitchen adapts without fuss. The 234 suites lean contemporary-indigenous, most with ocean views or swim-out pool access, and adults-only facilities are kept separate from the family wing. Between the Atlantis Spa's Ayurvedic and Maya treatments and the optional shamanic rituals and astrology sessions, the itinerary can get ambitious. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

Fine dining inside the Atelier Playa Mujeres resort, with a balcony where live music drifts over your table and service that borders on theatrical. Celebrity chef Edgar Núñez shapes a contemporary Mexican menu that moves through the country's regional traditions, from Sonoran to Oaxacan, with obvious ambition. A tasting menu anchors the room, though the à la carte runs deep. It took Mexico's Best Restaurant at the 2025 World Culinary Awards.