The Best Places to Eat and Stay in Mexico

Perched on the cliffs of Punta Ballena where the Pacific meets the Sea of Cortez, Esperanza is a 57-suite Auberge resort with the only private beach in Los Cabos, so the seclusion is structural, not just a vibe. Casitas have terraces and ocean views; the Cocina del Mar restaurant is carved into the bluff. The palapa spa goes deep on traditional medicine wheel treatments. Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys. Celebrities come, and the Frette linens apparently come standard.

An open-air restaurant carved out of the jungle just off the Tulum road, where the menu changes daily and lives on a blackboard. The wood-fire grill does most of the talking, and whatever looked good at the market that morning ends up on your plate. Solo diners can usually slip in at the bar, but everyone else plans ahead. The crowd and the candlelit jungle canopy are half the draw, and nobody seems to mind.

Red sauce and thin-crust pizza in the Hipódromo, from the chef behind Cana and a former beverage lead from Enrique Olvera's orbit. Gia is a casual Italian American restaurant doing the New York red-sauce joint thing with enough conviction that it doesn't feel like a tribute act. Saucy pastas, focaccia, meatballs, a green goddess salad buried in Parmigiano, and a pizza list that runs from pepperoni to mortadella.

Floors 37 through 47 of one of the city's tallest towers, with floor-to-ceiling windows aimed straight at Reforma Avenue and Chapultepec Park. This luxury hotel puts you so far above the neighboring skyline that Mexico City stops feeling chaotic and starts feeling almost legible. The spa, indoor pool, and a rooftop cocktail bar keep you happily on-property, though the whole point is the view that greets you every time you look up.

A promontory perch above the Sea of Cortez, where the Pacific and the Cortez waters meet at the tip of Baja, gives this Forbes Five Star, Michelin two-key resort a setting that does a lot of the work. The 55 acres of cliffside villas and suites come with butler service, a sprawling spa, a Jack Nicklaus golf course, and one of the few swimmable beaches on this stretch of coast. The crowd runs younger and more photogenic than the Bing Crosby era, but the instinct is the same.

Cesar Pelli's Torre Libertad glass tower on the Paseo de la Reforma is a hard building to miss, and the St. Regis fills its upper floors with the kind of service that other hotels quietly gave up on years ago. Every guest gets a dedicated butler around the clock, the staff learns your name fast, and the rooms come with deep soaking tubs and city views that stretch to the mountains on a clear day. A Forbes Four Star hotel.

A jungle road narrow enough to make you question the GPS leads to this intimate beachside resort sprawling across fifty acres between Tulum and Playa del Carmen. The main house was once a European duchess's home, and the guest rooms, jungle suites, and freestanding bungalows still carry that privately owned feeling. Three restaurants, an organic spa, and two pale blue pools sit between you and the white sand beach. It holds a Forbes Five Star and Michelin's 3 Keys.

Every room at this Ritz-Carlton Reserve comes with its own plunge pool, which tells you something about how seriously the place takes leisure. A 115-room resort on the Sea of Cortez where the architecture takes its cues from Baja rather than a European palace, the décor leans into local motifs, and butlers come standard. The spa draws a devoted crowd, and the restaurants track Los Cabos' food culture. It holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys.

Lunch under the trees on a working winery property in Valle de Guadalupe, at one long communal table or a smaller one off to the side. The kitchen turns out contemporary Mexican plates, birria pizza among them, which sounds like a dare and eats like a plan. The setting is entirely open air, so the vibe follows the weather, which in Baja wine country is usually doing its part. A Michelin Selected restaurant.

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.

Complimentary salsas and hand-cut crisps land on the table the moment you sit down, which softens the blow of the wait outside, often close to an hour. This upscale taquería in wealthy Las Lomas fills fast and takes no reservations, so arrive with patience and leave the diet at home. The tacos lean rich, truffled mushrooms, suckling pig, Black Angus seared on a trompo spit, and the music is loud enough that nobody's talking about the bill.

The rooms at this Rosewood resort start at over 900 square feet and come with pebble-inlaid floors, adobe fireplaces, and a semi-private plunge pool on the patio, which sets a fairly clear tone for everything else. The infinity pool along the Sea of Cortez is vast enough that you can genuinely pretend you've swum out to meet the porpoises. It holds a Forbes Five Star, two Michelin Keys, and a spot at number 44 on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

Rosewood San Miguel de Allende holds a Forbes Five Star and looks like it has always belonged to the city's UNESCO-listed colonial centro, which is either a feat of restraint or a very long con. The rooms lean hard into 19th-century aesthetics while quietly hiding deep soaking tubs and fireplaces, and the rooftop bar trades the best views in town for a tequila. Three pools, a spa, and weekend crowds who dressed for exactly this.

The restaurant at Chablé Yucatán, about 45 minutes outside Mérida, where the herbs and vegetables on your plate were growing in the hotel's Mayan gardens that morning. Jorge Vallejo, the chef behind Mexico City's Quintonil, shapes the menu, with a Quintonil alumnus running the kitchen day to day. It's a fine dining room with a genuine sense of place, and the kind of table you plan a trip around rather than stumble into.

An old-school institution in Claveria that started, as the story goes, when a customer spotted the staff eating something too good to keep off a menu. Now the founder's son runs the kitchen, turning out a tasting menu of classic Mexican cooking in a room that feels like a neighborhood restaurant that just happens to have been packed for generations. Warm, unhurried, and a long way from the tourist trail.

A protected cove with waves breaking onto what may be Cabo's finest beach sits just below this Forbes Five Star resort, which also holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list. The 122 rooms and 52 residences lean into contemporary Mexican design with an indoor-outdoor flow that makes walls feel optional. The bay delivers serious snorkeling and diving, the infinity pool handles the lazy afternoon, and the spa is the largest on the Baja peninsula, if you're keeping score.

One of the very few swimmable beaches on this stretch of Baja coastline makes Chileno Bay an outlier before you even check in. The Auberge Collection resort sits in a protected cove halfway between San Jose and Cabo San Lucas, its bleached-wood minimalism stepping back so the three-tiered infinity pool and Sea of Cortez can do the talking. Rooms start at a generous 760 square feet with a soaking tub and outdoor shower. It holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys.

A colonial-style hacienda hidden behind jungle and coconut palms on a stretch of Riviera Maya beach that makes the Caribbean look like it's showing off. Maroma is a Belmond luxury resort holding a Forbes Five Star, two Michelin Keys, and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels. Furniture and artwork are made in the hotel's own workshop, the temazcal sits right on the sand, and Curtis Stone has a restaurant here, because of course he does.

Celia Florián's mole negro, black as char and smoky down to the bone, is the dish that keeps this Oaxacan restaurant on everyone's list. The mole runs through the whole menu, pooled under enchiladas, folded into empanadas, paired with plantains. Florián learned to cook from her mother and grandmother on a farm outside the city, and the recipes carry that lineage. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks for a room this serious about tradition.

The name means "alcoves," and the hotel takes that literally, keeping rooms quietly private and exquisitely unhurried in the middle of Polanco's very well-heeled shopping corridor. Yabu Pushelberg did the interiors, which means monochrome whites and blacks, good wood, and a faint whiff of Manhattan confidence that somehow doesn't feel out of place. A boutique luxury hotel with a spa and a restaurant on-site, and a Forbes Four Star rating to its name.

Two tasting menus anchor this contemporary Mexican fine dining room inside the Conrad Tulum, one vegetarian, one rooted in ancient local tradition. The kitchen moves with confidence through both, pairing clean technique with ingredients that feel genuinely of this region. The wine list pulls from Mexican producers alongside European and Champagne selections. A Michelin Selected restaurant that also holds AAA Five Diamonds, it's the kind of place that earns a reservation before you land.

A pianist plays while waiters glide past in a room that has clearly decided romance is nonnegotiable. This is formal French fine dining inside a Cancún resort, built around foie gras, black truffle, lobster, and caviar, the whole luxurious lineup. The desserts lean modern against classic technique. Afterward, the lounge takes over with live entertainment and nightcaps. It holds an AAA Five Diamond distinction.

The signature beef broth soup has been on the menu forever, and no one is changing it. This old-school cantina on Chapultepec runs on mahogany paneling, power-lunch tequila rounds, and formal family gatherings that have probably occupied the same table for decades. The menu reads like a time capsule of midcentury Mexican dining, heavy on braised tongue, hearts of palm, and salt-baked fish. Dress up; the room expects it.

Two houses, one Neo-colonial from the forties and a modernist addition next door, were joined and turned into 19 rooms across from Lincoln Park in one of the city's most polished neighborhoods. The boutique hotel holds a Michelin two-key distinction and reads like a private home where someone had genuinely good taste, with marble bathrooms and a curated mix of objects across eras. A spa, a serious breakfast, and afternoon tea fill the gaps where a restaurant would be.

Bamboo towers over the courtyard at this Thai restaurant in Roma Norte, where woven pendants and trailing vines make the setting feel genuinely removed from the street outside. Chef Somsri Raksamran tends her own herb garden and harvests to order, which shows in the green curry's brightness. The menu covers Thailand's northeast, central plains, and south, and holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand for the trouble.

Boats bring you to your room here, which should tell you most of what you need to know. Rosewood Mayakoba is a luxury resort on the Riviera Maya where the villas and suites sit among canals, lagoons, and mangrove forest, each with a private plunge pool and some perched on stilts above the water. A tequila library and a raw bar handle evenings. It holds a Forbes Five Star and appears on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

A small bar spills onto Calle de Colima at street level, and you're meant to linger there with a drink before heading upstairs to the dining room, which is cozy, neutral-toned, and quietly confident. The husband-and-wife team behind Meroma keeps the menu seasonal and the sourcing deliberate, turning out the kind of elegant, composed plates that make Roma Norte feel like it's doing something right. An old-school institution this is not, but it eats like one.

A working organic farm outside San José del Cabo that grows its own produce, raises chickens, runs an onsite butcher program, and bakes every loaf of bread on the premises. The restaurant sits among mango trees alongside a wine and coffee bar and a few shops, all of it family run. The menu is casual and generous, leaning toward flatbreads, salads, and hearty mains. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a spot on Mexico's Best 100.

Punta Nizuc juts into the Caribbean facing one of the largest barrier reefs in the world, which is the kind of address that does a lot of the heavy lifting for a resort. NIZUC holds a Forbes Five Star and fills its roughly 300 suites and villas with rainfall showers, deep soaking tubs, and balconies pointed at either the ocean or garden infinity pools. Open architecture keeps the breeze moving, and six restaurants cover everything from high-end Mexican to Peruvian to Italian.

The patio heaters keep the ocean chill at bay while the Pacific does its thing just beyond the railing. This is fine dining inside the Montage Los Cabos, built around a tasting menu that traces Mexico's regional mercado tradition, with an à la carte path for the less committed. Wines are sourced across Mexico, and the cooking follows suit, never straying far from its roots. A Michelin Selected Restaurant and on Mexico's Best 100 list.

Six Spanish Colonial mansions on a cobblestone street in San Miguel's historic center, each with its own floor plan and working fireplaces, make up this Belmond boutique hotel. Thirty-seven rooms means the staff actually learns your name. There's a full spa, a casual restaurant, and a cooking school teaching Mexican cuisine for when you feel like doing something with your day. A Forbes Four Star and Michelin two-key property.

A corner spot in Roma Norte with a terrace out front and a wood-lined interior that splits the difference between a Roman trattoria and something newer. Galea is a small, easygoing Italian restaurant with a Michelin Bib Gourmand, where the menu stays focused and the pasta comes in half portions so you can order two without the guilt. Daily specials and crudo are worth asking about, and the locally priced tabs explain why the regulars are always already there.

Tucked into the ground floor of a residential building in Polanco, Raíz is a fine dining spot where corn and its relatives anchor a menu of contemporary Mexican cooking. The room is quiet enough that you notice the food, which is the point. A tasting menu is the move here, and the kitchen earns a Michelin Bib Gourmand threading deep, familiar flavors through each composed course. Bring someone who actually pays attention at the table.

Hugo is a natural wine bar in Roma Norte that feels like a Lower East Side transplant with better weather, run by a couple of former New Yorkers. The list leans toward bottles from Valle de Guadalupe, and the small plates stay simple, though there's a roasted chicken that tends to follow people home. Reserve ahead, or arrive at the hour your grandparents eat dinner.