4 Best Restaurants in San Angel, Mexico City

With a chic terrace upstairs and a modern white-on-white interior space on the ground floor, Loretta is one of the few restaurants in the southern half of the city that consistently makes it onto critics' top dining lists. Celebrated chef Abel Hernández presents contemporary takes on classic Provençal, Tuscan, Greek, and Middle Eastern dishes, like pork belly confit–and–heirloom tomato crostini, followed by creative pastas, steaks, moussakas, seafood grills, and a generous selection of vegetable sides.

Set in a pretty 1920s chalet-style house, this dignified destination for sophisticated modern European–Mexican cuisine is surrounded by the historic redbrick buildings of the Plaza Loreto shopping center. Once you're seated on the shaded side patio or old-world dining rooms—supping on beef tartare with caviar, roasted duck with a mango sauce and wild rice, or ribeye steak with a Roquefort sauce and Lyonnaise potatoes—it's easy to feel like you've been transported to a wealthy friend's hideaway in the French Alps. There's an impressive wine list, and the desserts are worth saving room for.

Tantalizing displays of oysters on the half shell, Alaskan crab legs, jumbo prawns, fish roe, and sashimi anchor the fashionable, high-ceilinged dining room of this bustling seafood restaurant in a modern office tower by Plaza Loreto shopping center. Here at one of the top seafood restaurants on the city's south side, treat yourself to selections from the extensive raw bar as well as grilled octopus, Maine lobster, and soft-shell crab sandwiches.

Dark mahogany furniture, crisp white table linens, exquisite blue-and-white Talavera place settings, and refined service strike a note of restrained opulence at this 18th-century estate whose dining rooms surround a central courtyard with fragrant gardens and a circular fountain. Although you'll find European-influenced classic fare like chateaubriand for two and crispy calves' brains in brown butter, the Mexican delicacies are the stars—consider the crepes of huitlacoche, or a jewel-like dish of escamoles panfried in butter and herbs. The dessert cart, which displays everything from rich chocolate cake to Bavarian cream with strawberries and cajeta (goats-milk caramel), is a must. Even if you don't come for a full meal, try to drop by for cocktails and appetizers in the beautiful courtyard.