The Best Mexican Food in New York

The sourdough tortillas, made with Sonoran wheat and griddled with chicken fat, have their own New York Times moment, which tells you something about the ambition here. Corima is a fine dining Mexican restaurant on the Lower East Side where chef Fidel Caballero works northern Mexican tradition through a sharp, globe-aware lens. Exposed brick, a kitchen counter, and a Michelin star. The tasting menu is 13 courses; à la carte is also on offer.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. The 50 #36 · North America's 50 Best Restaurants
3. The New York Times 2026 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

Tacos share menu space with agua chile and tlayuda at this airy Greenpoint Mexican restaurant, which holds a Michelin star and carries itself like it doesn't need to mention it. The kitchen ranges across regional Mexico rather than settling into one lane, so the menu shifts around you a little each visit. The room is loud and packed in the way that usually signals something is going right.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. AAA Three Diamonds
3. Time Out The 45 best restaurants in NYC right now

The comal choricero never stops, and every cut of pig goes in at a different moment so the lard carries the memory of everything that came before it. This tiny taqueria on the Lower East Side does pork and pork only, from snout to cheek to offal, wrapped in homemade tortillas with fresh salsa. Paint buckets double as seats. The chef earned a James Beard nomination, and the Times put it among New York's best new restaurants of 2024.

1. The New York Times 2024 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Nominee · Best Chef: New York State · Giovanni Cervantes
3. The Infatuation #18 · The 25 Best Restaurants In NYC

There's a piano near the door, and on weekends kids actually play it while their families work through lazy breakfasts nearby. Cocina Consuelo is a supper club in Harlem built from a pandemic-era Mexican pop-up, and the home-cooking warmth masks some real kitchen ambition: masa pancakes from heirloom corn, birria over bone marrow. The New York Times named it one of the city's best new restaurants in 2025, and also called out the masa pancake among the top dishes of 2024.

1. The New York Times 2025 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. The Infatuation #9 · The 25 Best Restaurants In NYC
3. Eater The Best Breakfasts in New York

The corn husk meringue has been on the menu so long it's practically load-bearing. Cosme is a fine dining Modern Mexican room in the Flatiron, dark and handsome, with a serious bar up front pouring seasonal cocktails and roomy tables behind it where the menu runs short and focused. Chef Enrique Olvera put this kitchen on the map, and it remains very much a scene, for better and occasionally for worse.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. AAA Three Diamonds
3. The New York Times 2015 · 3 stars · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2026 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. Eater The Best New Restaurants in Brooklyn Right Now
3. The Infatuation The 21 Best New Restaurants In NYC

1. The New York Times 2022 · Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. Roadbook The Best Restaurants in New York City
3. Grub Street The 43 Best Restaurants in New York

Wood tables, hand-painted tile, and just enough greenery to feel like a room that's been lived in: this contemporary Mexican small-plates spot on the Lower East Side earns a long, slow evening. The chef's menu is tight and seasonal, with careful attention to char and smoke, and the smoked half-chicken alone justifies a second visit. The Michelin Guide has taken notice, which tracks.

1. The New York Times 2026 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The flour tortillas are made with lard and cooked to order, which tells you everything about what kind of place this is. Los Burritos Juárez is a compact burrito shop in Fort Greene doing the El Paso and Ciudad Juárez border style, a regional tradition that barely exists in New York. Slow-cooked guisados go inside, pinto beans tie it together, and breakfast burritos are available until they run out, which they do.

1. The New York Times 2025 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

House-made blue and yellow corn tortillas arrive before you've even thought about ordering, which tells you something about how this Oaxacan restaurant in Riverdale operates. The room is modern and low-lit, with clay masks and pottery that nod to the region without tipping into theme park territory. Mezcal gets serious attention at the bar, and the dark mole negro on the enmoladas de pato is the kind of sauce that takes days to make.

1. The New York Times 2023 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Grub Street The 40 Best Restaurants for Kids (and Parents!)

A cantina in Crown Heights where communal tables and light wood make the whole room feel like somebody's relaxed dinner party. The cooking pulls from Mexico City, snacky and nostalgic in the best way, ranging from chicharrón preparado to a carne asada topped with verdolaga greens and a smoky chipotle béarnaise that overshadows everything else on the plate. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand, which tracks.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Bed-Stuy Right Now

The line out front in Long Island City is your landmark. Casa Enrique is a buzzy Mexican restaurant where family recipes share the menu with tacos and guacamole, but the kitchen finds its footing with the bigger plates: braised lamb shank, branzino marinated al pastor, and a mole that appears in several forms and never disappoints. Frozen watermelon margaritas keep arriving whether you asked or not, which is not a complaint.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. The New York Times 2013 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. The New York Times 2025 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar
3. Eater The Best Places to Eat in Bed-Stuy Right Now

1. Punch Nashi Highball · Our Favorite Cocktails
2. The New York Times 2026 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
3. Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America

1. The New York Times 2026 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. Grub Street The 43 Best Restaurants in New York

Carne asada griddled until caramelized and crisp under a snow of Chihuahua cheese is the move at this bright, modern Mexican restaurant in Prospect Heights. Light-flooded windows and a bar lined with stools give it a neighborhood feel, but the cooking leans inventive. The Michelin Guide picked it up with a Bib Gourmand, which tracks. Churros with acacia honey and chocolate atole sauce close things out on exactly the right note.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

The guacamole comes loaded with smoked trout and morita chile salsa, which tells you everything about where Chavela's is headed. This Crown Heights Mexican restaurant earns its Michelin Bib Gourmand behind a wrought-iron door and into a room of vivid tiles and a wall of ceramic butterflies. The cooking leans creative without abandoning the mole that traditionalists came for, and the whole place runs warmer and louder than its Franklin Avenue address might suggest.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Heirloom corn gets the full treatment here: nixtamalized, milled, and pressed into house-made tortillas that anchor everything on the menu. This Bushwick taqueria and tortilla shop earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand for a tight menu that runs from carnitas to chicken liver tostadas with candied kumquats, which tells you exactly what kind of ambition is hiding behind the counter. The salsas alone could cause a scene.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

Flour tortillas made in-house daily are the quiet backbone of this Tex-Mex taco spot in the East Village, where weathered wood and stained-glass chandeliers give the room a vintage roadhouse feel that has no business being this charming on Third Avenue. The menu leans into tacos and quesadillas, the cocktails are serious, and the Texas sheet cake with candied pecans is the kind of dessert that ends arguments. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand

1. AAA Approved
2. Eater The Best Restaurants in Soho

The house-made tortillas holding together the tacos here tell you what kind of place this is: a casual, all-day Mexican eatery in NoHo where the cooking is straightforward and the room stays bright and airy from morning through dinner. Larger plates are built for sharing, and the churros at the end feel less optional than the menu lets on. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand, which tracks with the crowd that fills it without making a fuss about it.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant
2. The Infatuation Mole Poblano · 25 Iconic Dishes That Define New York

A Mexican steakhouse on Sixth Avenue where the dish everyone's talking about costs twelve dollars. The Taco Richi, named a favorite by the New York Times critic, is an open-faced flour tortilla loaded with rib-eye ribbons and salsa verde pork cracklings, finished with a crust of seared cheese. The porterhouse is enormous and beside the point. Order one taco, get warned off a second, ignore the advice.

1. Eater The Best Steakhouses in New York City
2. The New York Times 2025 · Taco Richi · Our New York Restaurant Critic Names Her Favorite Dishes This Year

A raw bar lines the front of this chic seafood Mexican spot on the Upper West Side, signaling that walk-ins and solo diners are part of the plan. The menu leans marisquería, meaning the starters section deserves your full attention before anything else. The lively bar does cocktails and zero-proof drinks equally well, and the crowd tends to be locals who already know to book ahead, or didn't bother and headed straight for a stool.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

A sunny corner restaurant at the base of a grand Bronx building, Seis Vecinos pulls from El Salvador, Honduras, and Mexico without trying to smooth everything into a unified thesis. Papusas, baleadas, and enchiladas share the menu without apology. The guacamole arrives in a molcajete and gets finished at the table, which is exactly the right way to start. The staff is warm and the room follows suit.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The flour tortillas are made in-house, and watching them come together at the counter is half the reason to show up early. This is a daytime tortilleria and counter-order burrito spot in Park Slope, from the team behind Corima. The tortillas are precise and pliable in a way that makes the whole thing feel different. Cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting and sea salt finish the job if you're still hungry, which you probably aren't.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The chef at this Brooklyn Vietnamese spot trained at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and it shows, though not in a pretentious farm-to-table way. Falansai is a tasting-menu restaurant where seasonal thinking meets recipes passed down from Saigon, the two pulling in different directions in ways that tend to be interesting. The New York Times gave it two stars and a Critic's Pick in 2026.

1. The New York Times 2026 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. The New York Times 2021 · Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. Eater Where to Eat Brunch in New York City
2. Eater The Best Breakfasts in New York

1. The New York Times 2026 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. Eater The Best New Bars in New York City
3. Eater The Best New Cocktail Bars in New York City

1. Bon Appétit America's Best New Restaurants
2. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: New York State · Luis Herrera

1. Eater The Best Breakfasts in New York
2. Eater The Best Restaurants Around Times Square

1. AAA Approved

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best New Restaurants In NYC

1. The Infatuation The 21 Best New Restaurants In NYC

1. NJ.com #83 · New Jersey’s 99 greatest restaurants, ranked

1. The Infatuation The Best Bakeries in NYC

1. Eater The Best Breakfasts in New York

1. The New York Times 2019 · 2 stars, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review
2. The New York Times #74 · The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City

A nomadic chalupa stand that bounces around northern Queens, posting intersections on Facebook like a food truck that's read too much Kerouac. Track it down and you're rewarded with tortillas fried in hot lard, then loaded with shredded pork, white onion, and whichever salsa you choose, or both. The New York Times named it among New York's top dishes of 2024 and ranked it on their 100 Best Restaurants list. Eight chalupas run about ten dollars.

1. The New York Times #99 · The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City
2. The New York Times 2024 · Chalupas · Hungry for the Best? Here Are Our Top New York Dishes of 2024.

1. The New York Times #70 · The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City

1. The New York Times #90 · The 100 Best Restaurants in New York City

1. Eater Best Restaurants in the Hamptons

1. The New York Times 2022 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2021 · Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. The Infatuation #14 · NYC’s Best New Restaurants

1. The New York Times 2019 · Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2018 · 2 stars · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2017 · 3 stars · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2013 · Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2012 · Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2013 · 1 star, Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review

1. The New York Times 2013 · Critic's Pick · Restaurant Review