The Best Mexican Food in Mexico City

A quiet facade on a Polanco side street opens into a room of blond wood, vine-draped walls, and Mexican art, where the tasting menu reads like a field guide to ingredients most kitchens ignore. Chef Jorge Vallejo, who came up through Noma and Pujol, holds two Michelin stars and a spot at number three on the World's 50 Best list. Indigenous corn, insects, herbs, and wild mushrooms arrive in compositions that feel personal rather than performative.

1. The 50 #3 · The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
3. The 50 #7 · Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants

The mole madre has been on the menu for years, darkening and deepening as new batches are folded into the old, and by now it's less a sauce than a living archive. Enrique Olvera's Polanco dining room holds two Michelin stars and a spot on the World's 50 Best, and a seasonal tasting menu threads through contemporary Mexican cooking with the kind of confidence that doesn't need to announce itself. The room is sleek and buzzy, servers in sharp black.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Stars
2. AAA Four Diamonds
3. The 50 #60 · The World’s 50 Best Restaurants

Elena Reygadas swapped English literature for cooking, and the curriculum shows: Rosetta is a creative Mexican restaurant where cabbage stands in for tortillas and pistachio does the work of pumpkin seeds, dishes that read like close readings of a tradition rather than departures from it. The room fills fast with people who trust the kitchen to do something worth thinking about. It holds a Michelin star and a spot on the World's 50 Best list.

1. The 50 #46 · The World’s 50 Best Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. AAA Three Diamonds

Soaring ceilings and white brick hold onto the building's industrial past while the room itself feels effortlessly cool, which is the Roma Norte way. Máximo is a fine dining restaurant where French technique bends toward Mexican ingredients and hyper-seasonality, sourced by the team from producers they've been visiting for years. Dishes shift constantly, desserts lean savory, and the whole thing moves at a pace that assumes you're staying a while. It holds a Michelin star and a spot on Latin America's 50 Best list.

1. MB100 Restaurant of the Year
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. The 50 #30 · Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants

Named for the chef's daughter, this intimate fine dining room on a quiet Roma Norte street holds a Michelin star and a spot on Latin America's 50 Best list. The kitchen takes Mexican ingredients, heavy on seafood, somewhere unexpected: grilled young corn in coffee and yuzu butter, caviar over Veracruz fish stew. Upstairs, the 686 Bar is a perfectly reasonable excuse to linger before you sit down.

1. MexBest Fine Dining (Menú Degustación): Ganador · Premios MexBest
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. MexBest Fine Dining: Nominados · Premios MexBest

Salmon-tiled from floor to ceiling, Maizajo is a tortillería, taquería, and full sit-down restaurant stacked across two floors in Condesa. Downstairs, fresh tortillas in regional corn varieties anchor tacos you dress at the salsa bar; upstairs, the kitchen goes further with tamales, mole, and grilled meats on proper plates. Chef Santiago Muñoz has spent years recovering heirloom corn varieties, and the tortillas here make that case quietly but clearly.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The best new restaurants in the world
2. MexBest Mejor Taquería: Ganador · Premios MexBest
3. MexBest Chef promesa: Nominados · Premios MexBest · Santiago Muñóz

Reservations here are handled exclusively through Instagram DMs, which should tell you something about the kind of place this is before you've even arrived. Esquina Común is a Michelin-starred tasting menu spot on a covered rooftop in Condesa, draped in greenery and run by a young team with a sharp sense of technique. The menu leans into Mexican tradition and the portions are sized for sharing, which keeps the table convivial.

1. MexBest Chef Promesa: Ganador · Premios MexBest · Ana Dolores González
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. MexBest Casual Dining: Nominados · Premios MexBest

The samosas here are filled with suadero, which tells you everything about what Norma Listman and Saqib Keval are doing at this Michelin-starred restaurant in Centro. African, Indian, and Mexican cooking converge without any one tradition elbowing the others aside. Veracruz prawns arrive aggressively grilled with vanilla butter; the table fills fast with people who came specifically for exactly this.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. MexBest Best of the Best: Nominados · Premios MexBest
3. MB100 Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants

Tucked into the ritzy Pedregal neighborhood, Sud 777 is a sprawling Mexican restaurant with lofted ceilings, dark wood, and earthy tones that suggest money without shouting about it. Edgar Núñez holds a Michelin star here, running both a tasting menu and a serious à la carte. The suckling pig finished pibil-style, served with house tortillas for DIY tacos, is the dish regulars rearrange their evenings around.

1. MexBest Mejor Servicio: Ganador · Premios MexBest
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. The 50 #59 · Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants

A former auto shop in Roma Sur now runs on achiote-seasoned pig ears, oyster gorditas, and savoury churros. Voraz calls itself a gastro-cantina, which means the menu ranges wide, the room runs loud, and the chef, a NOMA and Fäviken alumnus, describes the whole experience as "delicious but organised chaos." Condé Nast Traveler named it among the best new restaurants in the world in 2024. Come ready to talk to strangers.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The best new restaurants in the world
2. MexBest Mejor Restaurante Nuevo: Nominados · Premios MexBest
3. MB100 Nominee · Best New Restaurant

A bright green facade on a Roma Norte corner marks this low-key cafe, where the menu changes weekly and the kitchen leans on vegetables and whatever fish looked good that morning. The chef's background runs through Buenos Aires, Europe, and New York, and a quiet Mediterranean note runs through the Mexican cooking. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand. Bring a book, bring your mom, or bring a Tinder date you may need to escape.

1. MexBest Chef Promesa: Nominados · Premios MexBest · Giuseppe Lacorazza
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
3. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants in Mexico City

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.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. The 50 #84 · Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants
3. MB100 The 35 Classic Restauraunts

Roaming musicians and big families dressed up for celebrations set the tone at this grand, old-school Mexican restaurant in the Centro Histórico. The kitchen runs its own ranch, so anything dairy-forward carries its weight, and the seasonal menu leans into ingredients like huitlacoche that most restaurants never bother with. Formal without being stiff, the kind of place where lunch can quietly become the whole afternoon.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. MexBest Mejor Trayectoria Empresarial: Nominados · Premios MexBest · Marcela Briz
3. MB100 The 35 Classic Restauraunts

Concrete floors and exposed brick in Condesa's Hipódromo neighborhood, but the kitchen is more ambitious than the room lets on. Gaba runs as a casual café by day, then pivots at night into something sharper, with Chef Victor Toriz sending out inventive Mexican small plates built around offal, seafood, and produce handled with real confidence. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, and the space is never empty.

1. MexBest Chef Promesa: Ganador · Premios MexBest · Víctor Toriz
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
3. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

An arched door on a Roma Norte side street opens into a warm corridor of blond wood, white walls, and pendant lighting, with an open kitchen built around a wood-fire grill. LINA is an elegant but unstuffy contemporary Mexican seafood restaurant where the menu follows what local farmers are actually growing, and the chef's careful, well-traveled hand shows in things like beautifully charred squash with smoky pine nut sauce. The crowd dresses up just enough to feel like the room deserves it.

1. MexBest Chef promesa: Nominados · Premios MexBest · Mariana Villegas
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Time Out The best restaurants in Mexico City

The spinning trompos and roaring grill share a parking lot with an auto repair shop, which tells you most of what you need to know about this famous late-night taqueria. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and everyone comes for the al pastor, shaved pork with pineapple stacked improbably high. Order the gringa on a flour tortilla with melted cheese if you don't mind getting your hands involved.

1. MexBest Mejor Taquería: Nominados · Premios MexBest
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
3. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

1. The World's 100 Best Coffee Shops #96 · Top 100 Coffee Shops

Four communal tables, no sign, no menu, cash only, and a Michelin star. The math at this Roma Norte sidewalk spot is its own argument. The kitchen runs on heirloom corn nixtamalized and ground in house, and whatever lands in front of you, tortillas or huaraches or sopes, gets shaped and griddled to order before disappearing under seasonal sauces. The tableside salsas arrive with serious intent. No reservations, and the waitlist moves at its own pace.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. MexBest Dónde comer los mejores mariscos en México
2. MB100 Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants
3. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

1. MexBest Experiencia de maíz: Nominados · Premios MexBest
2. MB100 Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants
3. Time Out The best restaurants in Mexico City

A tree-lined street in Condesa, a terrace made for lingering, and a menu that treats Baja California's coastal larder as a serious argument for Mexican fine dining. Chef Jair Téllez keeps the cooking direct, balancing seafood and meat without fuss. The room is contemporary but warm enough that the tasting menu doesn't feel like homework. Michelin has it in the Guide.

1. MexBest Mejor Trayectoria Empresarial: Nominados · Premios MexBest · Jair Téllez
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants in Mexico City

The sundeck at the back of this Roma Norte restaurant hints at something relaxed, but the cooking is quietly serious. The team behind Propio trained at Quintonil and Eleven Madison Park, and the menu is rooted in Northern Mexican tradition without feeling like a history lesson. The room is midcentury-handsome, reservations fill up fast, and the MB100 named them Emerging Chefs of the Year in 2024. Book ahead.

1. MexBest Chef Promesa: Nominados · Premios MexBest · Shary Romo y Alex Chávez
2. MB100 Emerging Chefs of the Year · Alex Chavez y Shary Romo
3. MB100 Nominee · Best New Restaurant

1. MexBest Mejor Taquería: Nominados · Premios MexBest
2. The Infatuation 21 Classic Restaurants in Mexico City
3. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City

A Michelin-starred taqueria where there's no room to sit, which seems about right. The counter fits a handful of people standing, the menu fits on a napkin, and the Gaonera taco, thinly sliced beef filet seared with salt and lime on a fresh corn tortilla, is the reason everyone's there. The two house salsas handle the rest. An old-school institution in San Rafael that has exactly one thing to prove, and keeps proving it.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star

Huichol embroidery, Puebla talavera tiles, and mirrors from Tlayacapan cover the walls of this sit-down Mexican restaurant in the Centro Histórico, the remnants of an old fountain still standing in the entrance hall. The kitchen revives pre-modern recipes with a light contemporary hand, and the taco tasting menu, which ends on something sweet, is a genuinely unusual way to eat your way through it. A Michelin Selected restaurant that earns its place in any serious Mexico City itinerary.

1. MB100 Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

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.

1. MB100 The 35 Classic Restauraunts
2. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

Set in a historic building on the edge of Coyoacán's main plaza, Los Danzantes is a contemporary Mexican restaurant that draws a steady crowd of locals and travelers alike. The kitchen leans into regional technique, and some dishes have held their spot on the menu for over two decades, which in this city is its own kind of argument. A sister restaurant operates in Oaxaca under the same name but runs its own entirely separate menu.

1. MB100 The 35 Classic Restauraunts
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. MB100 Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

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.

1. MB100 Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. MB100 The 35 Classic Restauraunts
2. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants in Mexico City
3. The Infatuation 21 Classic Restaurants in Mexico City

1. MexBest Mejor Taquería: Nominados · Premios MexBest
2. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City

Candles strung through courtyard trees and a retractable roof overhead put the room somewhere between outside and ceremony before you've ordered a thing. Azul is a Mexican restaurant where the chef has spent a career documenting traditional recipes, and the menu reads like that research made edible: cochinita pibil, black mole from Oaxaca, classic guacamole. No experimental flourishes, no modernist detours, just regional comfort food cooked straight.

1. MB100 Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants
2. The Infatuation 21 Classic Restaurants in Mexico City
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

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.

1. MB100 Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Terracotta walls and communal tables set the tone at this casual all-day Mexican restaurant in San Miguel Chapultepec, where the comal does most of the heavy lifting. Gorditas, flautas, chilaquiles, enmoladas, the menu reads like a greatest-hits of comforting classics cooked with care. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand. Come weekend brunch, a wait is part of the deal.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants in Mexico City
3. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

A blue corn tostada piled with avocado, chintextle, and coconut is the dish that tells you what kind of seafood restaurant this is: creative, coastal, not remotely predictable. The second-floor dining room in Hipódromo sits behind floor-to-ceiling windows under a vaulted ceiling, with a colorful art installation doing most of the decorating. The menu is built for sharing, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand keeps it approachable on the bill.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Mexico City
3. The Infatuation The 17 Best Restaurants In Condesa

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.

1. MexBest Mejor Taquería: Nominados · Premios MexBest
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The entrance on Calle Alfonso Reyes gives nothing away, but step inside this contemporary Mexican restaurant and there are tall cacti, a small fish-stocked lake, and the feeling of a courtyard that somehow forgot it was in the middle of the city. The menu moves between aguachile and pasta without apology, and a crème brûlée finished with Kalamata olive is the kind of move that sounds wrong until it isn't. Good for a date, fine for a family, easy for anyone.

1. MB100 Best Architecture and Design
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A Roma Norte taco spot where the pork does all the talking. The cochinita pibil arrives slow-roasted and shredded under a pile of pickled red onion, and the lechon taco layers tender suckling pig with shards of crispy skin, so ordering both is less a suggestion than a logical outcome. Good tortillas, a spread of salsas running from habanero heat to sesame aioli, and a room full of people who came with a plan.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Mexico City
3. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City

Plastic stools, metal tables, and a kitchen that refuses to rush anything, which is not nothing when you're talking carne asada grilled to order. This bright Roma Norte taqueria does birria, tortas, and quesabirria, the last of which holds up fine without the consommé but really wants it. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks. You will stand in line with people who know exactly what they're ordering before they reach the front.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

1. MB100 The 35 Classic Restauraunts

The black awning covers two storefronts of counter stools facing an open kitchen where a Venezuelan chef who has spent decades in Mexico treats tortilla-making as the main event, selling them by the stack to locals and using them as the foundation for tacos, tlacoyos, and squash blossom quesadillas made to order. This Polanco taqueria holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and the corn here is the argument.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

1. MB100 Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants

1. MB100 Mexico's Best 100 Restaurants

Inside the Sofitel on Reforma, Bajel runs two tasting menus of contemporary Mexican cooking inside a room where the open kitchen is very much part of the show. The French hotel might greet you with a bonsoir, but the menu corrects course immediately. A white mole made from 25 ingredients arrives with a card listing all of them, which is either endearing or a lot, depending on your mood.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

The menus print on paper made from recycled corn husks, which tells you everything about where this zero-waste Mexican restaurant's head is at. Inspired by London's Silo, the chef runs a tasting menu (or à la carte) built around chinampa vegetables and freshwater fish, with in-house water purification rounding out the commitment. The cooking is precise enough that the philosophy never feels like the main course.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Mexico City
3. Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best International Restaurant Bar – Latin America & Caribbean

The name is the Basque word for flower, which sets the tone for a fine dining room in Roma Norte where a single seasonal tasting menu drifts from Mexican roots toward wherever the chef's curiosity leads. Multi-level, wood-tabled, and quiet enough to hear yourself think, with the chef's counter as the obvious place to sit. The kitchen runs clean and calm, and the menu changes enough that regulars keep showing up.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The Infatuation 21 Classic Restaurants in Mexico City
2. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

1. AAA Four Diamonds

The cochinita pibil comes out electric orange from achiote, and it will absolutely stain your shirt. El Turix is a bare-bones Yucatan taqueria in Polanco with a steel counter, no real seating, and a line that parks itself outside regardless. The slow-roasted pork lands on panuchos or in tacos, topped with pickled red onion. Office workers in loosened ties eat next to construction crews, which is about as reliable a quality signal as any.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City
2. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City

1. AAA Four Diamonds

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City
2. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. The Infatuation The 17 Best Restaurants In Condesa

Big ceramic pots of guisado tacos lined up at the counter in Condesa, this old-school taqueria has been feeding the neighborhood forever. You order at the window, pick your fillings, tortilla count, and toppings, then find a table outside. The stewed options run from picadillo to chorizo con papa, and the crowd moves fast, which means the pots stay fresh. The Michelin Guide has it listed, which tells you what you already suspect from the line.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City

The name is a spoiler: Los Parados means "the standing ones," and there are no seats, just a counter and a condiment station where you build your own plate of onions, lime, and salsa morita. It's a cheap, fast taquería on Avenida Monterrey, good for a mid-afternoon snack. The chile poblano con queso tacos cost about $2.50 for two, the goat tripe is the specialty, and the arroz con leche is a dessert taquerías rarely bother with.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City
3. The Infatuation The 22 Best Restaurants In Roma, Mexico City

Smoke from the wood grill drifts across the open-air terrace before you've even sat down, which tells you most of what you need to know about this rooftop restaurant in Roma Norte. The menu is short and Mexican, built around whatever's coming off those embers, and a Michelin Bib Gourmand keeps the prices from matching the view. Grab a bar seat if you can and watch the grill up close while the cocktails arrive.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Handmade tortillas arrive at the table still warm, which tells you most of what you need to know about Comedor Jacinta. It's a cozy neighborhood Mexican spot in Polanco run by chef Edgar Núñez, who built the menu around childhood food memories rather than a concept. Corn, molcajetes, guacamole, generous portions, and prices that won't require a moment of hesitation. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

A coffee shop in Roma Sur that's been slinging guisado tacos for generations, El Jarocho started life as a tortilleria and still makes its tortillas in-house. The format is simple: sit down, a server takes your order, and you pick from a rotating spread of stewed meats and vegetables. The campechano with chopped steak and chicharron does a lot of convincing on its own. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Full-grown trees punch through the dining room floor at this Mexican restaurant in Roma Norte, where the concrete-and-glass space feels more like a greenhouse someone forgot to finish. Chef Martha Ortiz runs a kitchen that treats familiar dishes as open questions, and the Michelin Bib Gourmand crowd arrives expecting surprises. Gorditas, tamales, pozole: they all show up looking nothing like you remembered, which is apparently the whole point.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

A second-floor taqueria in Del Valle where the built-in charcoal grill does double duty: cooking the tacos al carbon and keeping the dining room warm enough that the breezy patio starts to look appealing. The thinly sliced meats are grilled and then diced before hitting the tortilla, and the arrachera comes with a rosy pink center that argues its case without any help. Vegetarian options hold their own too. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The orange awning and the smell of frying pork will find you before you find this taqueria in a quiet residential corner of Álvaro Obregón. The specialty is Milanese-style tacos, breaded cutlets sliced into strips and piled onto corn tortillas, finished with lime and house-made green or red salsa. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks. Bring cash, and don't plan anything too athletic afterward.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Six counter seats, a handful outside, and almost everything else given over to the kitchen: Molino El Pujol is a compact neighborhood spot in La Condesa built around corn nixtamalized on-site daily. Tamales, chilaquiles, tacos, and enfrijoladas are the focus, and the tortillas are available to take home warm. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, which is either a reason to go or a reason to arrive early, probably both.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

A buff Jesus doing pull-ups on a crucifix above the kitchen sets the tone for this cantina in Santa María la Ribera, and the menu follows suit. Empanadas share space with shrimp dumplings and fried chicken, small plates that roam freely across any tradition they please. The flan, improbably, is the thing people come back for. A Michelin Bib Gourmand, and a room that earns its eccentricity rather than performing it.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. AAA Three Diamonds

The patio at this all-day restaurant and café opens onto Plaza San Jacinto, which on Saturdays turns into one of the city's better artisan markets and supplies a steady stream of browsers to watch over a glass from the long wine list. The menu moves from enchiladas to pasta to salmon without breaking a sweat, the bread is baked in-house, and the chocolate dessert has regulars planning ahead.

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

A light-flooded bistro on Calle Liverpool where the room manages to feel elegant and relaxed at the same time, which is harder than it sounds. The short menu rotates with the seasons and leans into contemporary Mexican cooking, so what lands on the table shifts but the approach stays consistent. Small enough that the kitchen clearly means every dish, and the kind of place that works equally well for a quiet date or a louder table of friends.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A floral mural climbs one wall and live greenery fills another at Aquiles, the all-day dining room inside this Roma Norte hotel. It skews contemporary Mexican, with dinner being the main event and a short, confident à la carte that moves from tortilla soup to braised short rib. The burger is exactly what a good hotel restaurant owes you. Weekends add breakfast and lunch to the mix.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Northern-style tacos in Roma Norte, served from a small kitchen with a few tables and a sidewalk counter for overflow. The barbacoa de res is the reason to show up, and ordering it dorado-style, shallow fried until the tortilla crisps up, is the move most regulars make without thinking twice. The kitchen chooses flour or corn depending on the filling, and the whole operation stays refreshingly unbothered by the neighborhood around it.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

An upscale Oaxacan restaurant on Masaryk, where the luxury boutiques give way to mole negro and grasshoppers, which is not a pairing you'd expect but Polanco contains multitudes. The team behind the menu comes from Oaxaca itself, and the cooking roots everything in corn and chile, from breakfast through afternoon tlayudas. It's the kind of place that makes a cup of chocolate feel like the logical end to a serious meal.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The U-shaped bar counter and open kitchen give this Polanco restaurant a lively transparency, everything visible, nothing hidden behind a pass. The menu wanders freely, pairing local Mexican producers with global instincts, Lao-style sausage alongside house mole, pâté with madeleines, a long cheese list. Beige leather banquettes and lacquered tables fill the room with a calm that the food quietly contradicts. The Michelin Guide has it selected.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Handmade Toluca-style chorizo and sausages are the whole point at this tiny taqueria near the Mercado de San Juan in the Centro Histórico. A handful of red stools fill up fast, so arriving late means eating standing at the counter, which plenty of regulars do without complaint. The obispo, a thick pork sausage seared to a light crisp, and the tamarind chorizo are the ones to order, then pile on salsa, cilantro, and onions.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

Half a block off the Zócalo, a line spills onto the sidewalk for tacos de canasta, the steamed, basket-carried style that Mexico City has perfected forever. Tokens at the door track your order, cash is the only currency accepted, and the dining room inside is bigger than the street would suggest. The menu runs to four fillings, the price is almost nothing, and the salsa, pickles, and guacamole spread at the counter is the move everyone makes.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants in Mexico City
2. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

Taquería Orinoco is a late-night taco counter in Hipódromo, which is to say it does its best work after the nearby bars have finished with you. The tacos de chicharrón come soft in the middle and seared at the edge, a texture most pork rinds never get to experience. The al pastor draws the loudest opinions, and the cheap, quick, standing-up format means nobody lingers to argue them past 2 a.m.

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2. The Infatuation The 17 Best Restaurants In Condesa

1. Time Out The best restaurants in Mexico City

1. Time Out The best restaurants in Mexico City

1. The Infatuation 21 Classic Restaurants in Mexico City

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants in Mexico City

1. Time Out The best restaurants in Mexico City

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

1. The Infatuation The Best Bakeries in Mexico City

1. The Infatuation 21 Classic Restaurants in Mexico City

White tiles, cold tap beer, and one thing on the menu: birria, the goat stew from Jalisco that La Polar has been making forever. This old-school restaurant in San Rafael keeps it simple and loud, with dueling mariachi bands and, apparently, a talking parrot. Fold the tender meat into warm tortillas, chase each bite with a spoonful of consommé, and let the afternoon dissolve. Thursday or Friday, late afternoon, is when the locals arrive to do exactly that.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

1. Time Out The best restaurants in Mexico City

A walk-up tamale shop on a quiet Roma Sur corner that sells out most mornings before the city has properly woken up. The masa is unusually light, and the roster runs from squash blossom with cheese to pork loin with olives to a sweet fig and cream cheese version that has no business being that good at 8 a.m. A handful of sidewalk tables for those who can't wait, but most people just grab and go, fast.

1. Condé Nast Traveler The 36 Best Restaurants in Mexico City

1. The Infatuation 21 Classic Restaurants in Mexico City

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants in Mexico City

1. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City
2. The Infatuation The 22 Best Restaurants In Roma, Mexico City

This is a taqueria built for the hour when mezcal starts making decisions for you, open until 3:30am on weeknights and later on weekends. The tacos de chicharrón come soft inside and seared outside, a texture that makes more sense at 2am than it has any right to. The al pastor gets its own following, and a plate of tacos here costs less than the cab home.

1. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City
2. The Infatuation The 22 Best Restaurants In Roma, Mexico City

1. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City

1. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City

1. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City

1. The Infatuation The Best Tacos in Mexico City