Roma

Although it contains only a handful of small museums and cultural attractions, Roma has become one of Mexico City's essential destinations, especially since its lightning-fast gentrification in the 2010s. This is the neighborhood where you're most likely to hear the voices of foreigners as you amble about, experiencing the area's essential activities: shopping, gallery-hopping, dining, and drinking.

The neighborhood is divided into Roma Sur and Roma Norte, and most of the action is in the latter district, which is also the much larger of the two (Calle Coahuila is the dividing line). Exceedingly trendy, Roma's rapid rise has led to both newfound respectability and soaring rents, but its restaurants and shops still offer better values than comparable establishments in Polanco and other high-end districts in the city.

Like its western neighbor Condesa, Roma was developed in the early 1900s on a huge tract of land owned previously by two Spanish countesses; the area was turned into an aristocratic enclave of stately homes, quite a few of which still stand today. By the 1940s and 1950s, many of the city's wealthiest residents began moving to newer and fancier developments farther west and south. Roma—far more than even Condesa—became better known for its rough-and-tumble cantinas, pool halls, dance clubs, and nightspots of questionable repute. The neighborhood's nadir followed the 1985 earthquake, but the rock-bottom rents of the 1990s and early 2000s—along with an amazing stock of grand beaux-arts and art nouveau mansions—helped spur its transformation into a center of edgy fashion, avant-garde art, innovative dining, and clever theme bars catering to a mix of styles, ages, and orientations.

The lower portion of Roma borders Condesa along Avenida Insurgentes Sur. At Calle Guanajuato, however, Roma Norte leaps across Insurgentes and follows a rather meandering border with Condesa for several blocks to the west. In this area, even many locals don't know (and likely don't care) whether they're in Condesa or Roma Norte, and there's little discernible difference between the look and feel of either district. Busy and wide Avenida Chapultepec forms Roma's northern border with Juárez, and similarly busy Avenida Cuauhtémoc separates the neighborhood from Doctores, to the east.