Mexico City - part 2: Street Tacos to Michelin Stars in One of the World's Great Food Capitals
Mexico City is one of the great food capitals of the world. In this episode, we explore a culinary scene that stretches from humble street tacos to internationally recognized fine dining.
Food is woven into everyday life across the city. Street vendors serve tacos for less than a dollar, neighborhood markets overflow with spices and ingredients, and acclaimed chefs reinterpret traditional Mexican dishes in elegant dining rooms.
The result is a food culture that is both deeply traditional and constantly evolving. Whether you are eating at a street stand or booking a Michelin-recognized restaurant, Mexico City delivers remarkable flavor and variety.
Topics Covered
• Street Food Culture – Why tacos al pastor define Mexico City's street food scene.
• Culinary Influences – How Lebanese cooking traditions helped shape one of the city’s most iconic dishes.
• Markets & Ingredients – The markets that supply the city’s kitchens and restaurants.
• Fine Dining – Michelin-recognized restaurants and chefs redefining Mexican cuisine.
• Local Food Tips – How to find the best tacos by following the locals.
Top Things to See & Do
- Mercado de San Juan One of the city's best known culinary markets. Visitors will find chilies, spices, specialty ingredients, and prepared foods ranging from tacos to more adventurous local delicacies.
- Central de Abastos The largest wholesale food market in the world, covering roughly 800 acres. Guided tours allow visitors to experience the massive marketplace that supplies much of the city's food industry.
- Lorenzo Buttorini Street Taco Corridor A 12 block stretch famous for tacos al pastor stands. It is one of the best places in the city to experience Mexico City's signature street taco.
- Plaza Rio de Janeiro A beautiful plaza surrounded by high quality restaurants, including several Michelin-recognized dining spots.
- Plaza Giordano Bruno A lively neighborhood square known for street food vendors, churro stands, and live local music.
Where to Eat & Drink
- Pujol One of Mexico City’s most celebrated restaurants. Known internationally for creative interpretations of traditional Mexican cuisine.
- Sud 777 A Michelin-recognized restaurant serving refined contemporary Mexican cooking.
- Cafe Toscano An elegant Italian restaurant near Plaza Rio de Janeiro offering classic European dishes.
- Azul Historico Located inside a historic 17th century building. The restaurant serves elevated versions of traditional Mexican comfort dishes in a beautiful open courtyard setting.
- Contramar A favorite seafood restaurant known for exceptionally fresh fish and signature dishes like grilled fish with adobo and shrimp tacos.
- Casa de Tona A popular local spot famous for pozole, the traditional Mexican soup. Guests can customize the dish with a variety of toppings.
Neighborhoods to Explore
- Roma One of the city's trendiest districts with an excellent concentration of restaurants, cafes, and bars.
- Condesa A leafy, walkable neighborhood known for its relaxed atmosphere and vibrant dining scene.
Can’t Miss Experiences
• Eating tacos al pastor from neighborhood street vendors
• Exploring Mercado de San Juan and tasting traditional ingredients
• Visiting Central de Abastos on a guided market tour
• Dining at Michelin-recognized restaurants around Plaza Rio de Janeiro
• Enjoying street food and live music at Plaza Giordano Bruno
Final Thoughts
Few cities offer the range of food experiences found in Mexico City. Street vendors, historic markets, and world-class restaurants all exist side by side, creating one of the most exciting culinary destinations in the world.
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Transcript
It's a metropolis that's so huge, complex and nuanced that we felt it needed three separate segments.
Speaker A:This one might be our favorite.
Speaker A:David, I know you and I both love talking about food and today we're going to cover the culinary scene in Mexico City.
Speaker A:You've got some thoughts?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It is really one of the world's great food capitals.
Speaker B:And I think when people think of Mexico City, maybe the first thing that jumps to mind is the great street food scene there.
Speaker B:And street tacos are an essential part of that.
Speaker B:And I mean, it is very easy to find a great lunch for under a dollar US per person.
Speaker B:One of the best tacos I had was 85 cents when I was there and had to line up around the corner to get it.
Speaker B:But what surprised me about the culinary scene at Mexico was on the other end of the spectrum, the high end sort of fine dining scene in Mexico City, which was incredible.
Speaker B:Multiple Michelin starred restaurants all throughout the city.
Speaker B:Michelin recognized chefs.
Speaker B:It is a really booming, dynamic and really sophisticated food scene in the city.
Speaker A:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker A:And I mean, it really is a city where, as you've said, you know, you can find a cheap but still wonderfully delicious lunch and then go to a Michelin starred a place for dinner.
Speaker A:You know, so anything, anything you could, you know, you could imagine you'll find there.
Speaker A:And actually I want to just maybe dive in and just start on that low end in terms of price, not necessarily in terms of taste.
Speaker A:Tacos El Pastor.
Speaker A:I mean, the signature taco of Mexico City.
Speaker A:And as you said, you can find them pretty much everywhere.
Speaker A:Um, and I did a little bit of research, you know, and when I first went to Mexico City, I thought this really looks like a place that you'd find in the Middle East.
Speaker A:And that's not surprising because the, the meat that is on a spit and roasted like shawarma.
Speaker A:That tradition was brought to Mexico from Lebanon.
Speaker A:So bas, basically they took this, this kind of spit roast technique, imported it, and then adapted it to a Mexican taco.
Speaker A:And that's what Tacos El Pastor is.
Speaker A:And you know, I couldn't name the number of places that I, that I just popped in and, and, and grabbed one.
Speaker A:I mean, it's perfect if you're on the fly, it's perfect.
Speaker A:You know, if you're, you've been out late, you're looking for, for a quick bite.
Speaker A:But there is one area of the city, it's, it's called Lorenzo Buttorini street.
Speaker A:And for 12 blocks, this, the taco corridor, they Call it is just lined with taco pastor places and so you can definitely take your pick there.
Speaker A:So if you're, you're looking for the signature taco, that's the place to go.
Speaker A:But that, that's, that's for a quick, easy meal.
Speaker A:One of the other places to go for a great meal is, is a market.
Speaker A:I know we were discussing before the episode one of your favorite markets in the city.
Speaker A:And I have a favorite too that I want to follow up with.
Speaker B:Yeah, I, I went to a bunch of markets when we were there.
Speaker B:But probably from a food perspective, the one that I enjoyed the most was called Mercado de San Juan.
Speaker B:This is famous for a great place to get all your core ingredients for Mexican cuisine.
Speaker B:Chilies and spices and different specialty ingredients, including an extensive section of different types of insects, even that you can get a wide, wide variety here.
Speaker B:But the food was fantastic.
Speaker B:And when it comes to street tacos, I mean the tacos were great at the market.
Speaker B:There's even a few Michelin recommended taco stands throughout the city.
Speaker B:Although talking to a couple of local food writers and travel writers, they all said the same thing, which was the Michelin recognized taco stands are great and you'll have a great meal there.
Speaker B:But there's just as good a places on almost every street corner.
Speaker B:You don't necessarily need to go to your way and stand in the lineup at the Michelin starred taco stand.
Speaker B:I mean my rule of thumb was look for somewhere that's got fresh carved meat and a lineup of construction workers and policemen and people who work in the neighborhood, that's the right place.
Speaker B:And I followed that pretty religiously on my trip and did not have a bad taco experience as a result.
Speaker A:And I think that's a great tip for really in general, for travel, if you see a big group of local people eating in a place, if it's busy and it's busy with working people, working people are going to be hungry, they're working hard, right?
Speaker A:They're going to eat at the best places and they're going to keep going back to the best places.
Speaker A:So you can be almost sure that A, it's going to taste good, B, nobody's getting food poisoning there, you know, because nobody's going back for a second meal after that.
Speaker A:So definitely, I love to, I love to look for the same kind of thing.
Speaker A:My, my market recommendation is a little bit, a little bit weird.
Speaker A:I guess I'll say it's Central des Abastos, which is a commercial market.
Speaker A:It's the largest wholesale food market in the world.
Speaker A:It covers 800 acres and it's used by, between merchants, sellers and buyers through a thousand people every single day go to this market.
Speaker A:And it's not the kind of market that you're going to go, you know, and browse and just kind of walk around.
Speaker A:It's, it's, it's a, it's a busy, you know, speaking of blue collar workers, it's a busy, hardworking place where people are running wheelbarrows full of chicharrone, you know, through the back and just food stall after food stall after food stall.
Speaker A:People mostly buying ingredients for restaurants, for supermarkets.
Speaker A:This is kind of the entry point for that.
Speaker A:And it may seem like a strange place to visit as a tourist, but they do tours here.
Speaker A:My a visit there was a while ago and it was with the chef from the St. Regis Hotel, which we're going to talk about hotels in a different episode.
Speaker A:And we went at like 7 o' clock in the morning when it was at its busiest.
Speaker A:And I remember we walked in there and he just turned to me and he said taco time, seven o' clock in the morning.
Speaker A:And we went, went and found a taco place inside the, the Central de Sebastos.
Speaker A:So they do offer tours that you can book.
Speaker A:You wouldn't book it through the market, you book it through a third party and people have licenses to take you through.
Speaker A:And it's just kind of the beating heart of the culinary scene in Mexico City.
Speaker A:So absolutely loved despite the early morning, absolutely love my visit there.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I know we were talking a little bit about the high end of restaurants and I know that you have a couple of thoughts on great places to go for like a five star meal.
Speaker B:Yeah, there, there are lots of them.
Speaker B:And, and, and I mean we've talked about our last episode, Roma and Cadessa, those two neighborhoods and some of the great restaurants all throughout.
Speaker B:One specific area that, that I found a ton of great restaurants around was called Plaza Rio de Janeiro.
Speaker B:It has a beautiful water fountain in the middle of the plaza.
Speaker B:I mean it looks like Central park, it's a beautiful park.
Speaker B:But the entire park then is surrounded by high end restaurants and a number of Michelin starred and Michelin recognized restaurants all in the periphery.
Speaker B:There was a place called Pujol, there's a place called Sud 777, another Michelin starred standout.
Speaker B:There was this great high end steakhouse with white glove service and you know, all the waiters all and tuxedos and things dressed up there Right, right.
Speaker B:Overlooking the plaza as well, a great Italian restaurant called Cafe Toscano there.
Speaker B:Just if you can get yourself to the Plaza itself, you're going to find a good meal in the, in the surrounding area and then the blocks around it.
Speaker B:Multiple Michelin starred restaurants all throughout that neighborhood.
Speaker B:So no, no shortage of great places there.
Speaker B:How about yourself?
Speaker B:What did, what did you find at that end of the spectrum?
Speaker A:Well, I love this place called Azul Historico.
Speaker A:And it's a chef who basically has taken his favorite comfort food dishes, Mexican comfort food dishes, and then elevated them.
Speaker A:It's, it's in this 17th century building that now, I'm sure it didn't when it was first built but now has a retractable, retractable roof.
Speaker A:So on nights when it's not raining, it's, it's an open air dining experience.
Speaker A:And again, the chef is, is a history buff.
Speaker A:So he's gone back and found a lot of classic Mexican recipes and he cooks them up pretty inexpensively.
Speaker A:You can have dinner for about 50 bucks per person.
Speaker A:So not high necessarily on the spending scale but, but a very high quality meal.
Speaker A:You can have guacamole, you can have cochinita pibil, you can have black mole, you know, which is that Oaxacan classic.
Speaker A:All kinds of really excellent classic Mexican cuisine.
Speaker A:And I'm just going to mention one more place which is called Contramar, which is a favorite for people who love seafood.
Speaker A:So they serve only fresh fish and it's only fish that's caught on the day when it's served.
Speaker A:And again, a couple of quick recommendations.
Speaker A:Sauteed shrimp tacos.
Speaker A:I know we talked a lot about tacos, but still.
Speaker A:And then, you know, just getting a whole grilled fish with a red adobo rub, really simple.
Speaker A:But when it's fresh like that, it just, it, it's just mouth watering and amazing.
Speaker A:But those are, those are my recommendations.
Speaker A:Do you have any more thoughts?
Speaker B:Yeah, maybe two, two camp Mrs.
Speaker B:I'll end this out with which is.
Speaker B:I talked to a local, a local who worked for kind of the equivalent of Vogue magazine in Mexico.
Speaker B:And I was asking her about her favorite restaurant.
Speaker B:She said if you want to go somewhere like really authentic that local people love, not expensive.
Speaker B:Her recommendation was a place called Casa de Tona, which is known for pozole, which is a famous sort of Mexican soup slash stew, a pork dish, but you can add all kinds of things to it.
Speaker B:It comes with a kind of checklist where you select all the things that you want to add to your pozole.
Speaker B:They've got locations all throughout the city.
Speaker B:It's open late into the night, and you will find it packed with Mexico City locals.
Speaker B:And I followed her recommendation, and it was a great one, so definitely would call that out.
Speaker B:And then the last one was, again, more of an area to go to, rather than a specific restaurant, but a place called Plaza Giordano Bruno.
Speaker B:Again, we're.
Speaker B:We're in the Roma neighborhood here.
Speaker B:This is surrounded by a lot of, like, churro stands, taco shops.
Speaker B:It's got a nice little street food stand kind of in the middle of the plaza, but it's also a place where you get a lot of live, local music.
Speaker B:So maybe to end today's episode, we'll finish things off with a little bit of the live recording of some of the sounds of what you would experience in Plaza Giordano Bruno.
