24 Best Restaurants in San Rafael and Santa María la Ribera, Mexico City

Located in a renovated garage, Alebrije is loaded with plants, couches, and tables, good for working or chatting during the day and an ideal date spot in the evening. String lights and antique fixtures provide warm-toned light, dancing off the exposed brick as you eat sandwiches and drink hot chocolate, wine, or beer. Art zines are for sale near the kitchen area.

Just a block from the busy Avenida Ribera de San Cosme, this quiet and elegantly designed hideaway offers respite from the crowds of nearby Metro San Cosme. Decorated with antiques and smelling of freshly roasted coffee, it’s the kind of place where you can disappear for a quiet afternoon of reading or a nice meal alone or with a travel companion. There are two other Camino a Comala cafés in the city, but this one's the best.

Black-and-white tiles give this bright space an impeccably clean and welcoming vibe. With its own house mezcal, wines, and beers, it can also be a place to gather for a drink or grab a light dinner. You can sit at the long wood bars facing either the barista zone or the street and the lovely Jardín de Arte, which separates San Rafael from the Colonia Cuautémoc.

Busy and stylish, this is a popular classic in the Santa María la Ribera neighborhood, located in an older building that has retained its original high ceilings and tile work. Known for having slightly higher prices than usual for the area, it’s also recognized for excellent service, taste, and variety of traditional Mexican dishes, but the star is the barbacoa (slow-roasted sheep meat) and pulque.

This open-air locale charms with its curated selection of wines and vermouths along with delicious mocktails and coffee drinks. With a small menu of tapas-inspired snacks, it is a nice place to hang out solo for a while or meet up with friends. Local ceramics and artwork are for sale and it opens up to the street with outdoor and indoor seating options.

This peculiar restaurant name (for this latitude) is thanks to the Midwestern owner who started making delicious burgers on a cart from the back of his bike. These gratuitous-in-every-way burgers quickly became well-recognized across the city and its San Rafael location has become one of the busiest restaurants in the neighborhood. Stop in for a beer on the patio, catch a gringo game on the TV, and see if it lives up to the hype.  

It’s not hyperbole to say that there are few interiors in the city as pink as the decor within this diner just near the San Cosme metro station. Cochinita Power specializes in Yucatecan food (read: pork and habanero salsas) with a set-up somewhere between a food cart and a restaurant, but without the hustle and bustle of standing and eating on the street. When you're ready to order, your server will arrive with a paper menu to mark your choices on. There’s not much to choose from: it’s really pork, pork, and more pork. But the food is tasty and cheap, and the service is great and speedy if you’re on the go.

This intimate but elegant (for the neighborhood) diner has small tables in a quiet space with a reclaimed feel and appropriately minimalist decor. With juicy burgers, salmon carpaccio, and crunchy thin-crust pizza, the menu caters to a wide audience. The space gets busier with an artistic crowd throughout the day, some staying a while to sip wine and coffee. With a variety of tapas-style snacks, mouthwatering burgers, and their own craft beer brand, it makes for a relaxed afternoon or evening stop. 

This charming colonial-era café is open to the street, with regulars, families, and digital nomads regularly making appearances. It’s bustling, maybe a bit too bustling for some folks to focus on work, but the price-to-quality ratio is impressive, as is its selection of Mexican-style hot chocolate, which range from spicy to sweet to bitter. Whether you're looking for molletes, chilaquiles, or pan dulce, this place has it all, served quick and delicious. 

One of few Russian restaurants in the city, Kolobok showcases cuisine from Russian immigrants who came to Mexico after various Eastern European diasporas. A small space featuring just 10 wooden tables, the decor is homey with Russian music playing and murals depicting the Russian countryside, and the food is as authentic as it gets in Mexico. You can order a tasting menu, or à la cart. 

This tiny pizzeria has more space on its sidewalk than its interior, which is mostly a kitchen that prepares thin-crust Argentine style pizzas, empanadas, and salads. The service is attentive and the prices are low. You’ll probably have to wait for a table, as there are very few, but the food and staff will make it worth it. 

This hip space is a communal eatery featuring six stalls with neon signs advertising everything from pulque (lightly alcoholic fermented agave nectar) to seafood tacos and Colombian arepas. Nestled among tortillerías, hardware stores, and apartments, it’s easy to walk past it unless you happen to glance inward to spot the brightly decorated market and its picnic table–esque seating.

One of the first purely vegan options in the area, this hidden spot serves more South Asian fusion rather than the traditional Indian fare that's advertised. Still, it’s a great option for vegans, with very affordable prices, a lively color scheme featuring brightly painted peach and turquoise walls, and five white tables alongside the kitchen. The restaurant looks out onto Jardín Mascarones Park.

If you’ve been dreaming about Oaxacan cuisine, but don’t have the time to travel there, this authentic restaurant that serves up breakfast, lunch, and early dinners is the next best thing. Service can be a bit chaotic but always friendly, and the quality of the food makes up for any wait. It tends to get very busy for lunch, and that crowd spills out of the eatery's brick walls onto the sidewalk.

A charming little place perfect for lunch or early dinner, Pakaa specializes in Portuguese cuisine, though, of course, it’s not uncommon to find a serrano pepper and some salsas on the table (this is Mexico after all). With a bright and welcoming atmosphere inside, it also has outdoor seating along a relaxed stretch of San Rafael.

One thing you can always count on in Mexico City, and Mexico for that matter, is excellent roasted chicken. While popular with locals, the dish is often overlooked by foreigners in favor of flashy tacos, but you should visit this small, sidewalk eatery and try its delicious marinated chicken; there are also grilled vegetables and salsas to make your own tacos. Grab an order to go (which many people do) or take a seat on one of the benches backed up to the street.