123 Best Restaurants in Mexico City, Mexico

Depending on when you visit, this hip hangout can serve as a cheerful breakfast nook for chia pudding and egg sandwiches, an afternoon coffee or teahouse with light salads and a delicious smoked-eggplant-harissa dip, or an evening lounge with craft cocktails and well-curated (though pricey) wines. Whatever the time of day, there's almost always a crowd that tends toward the fashionable, artsy side. The vibe is a bit self-important, but it's a reliably nice space with good food and drink options.

A local chain, this location of City Café is the perfect place to grab breakfast, lunch, or a quick snack in Bosque de Chapultepec. It's located in Section 2 close to Lago Mayor and offers a menu filled with healthy choices.

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.

Tuck into plates of exquisitely prepared, traditional Mexican snacks like tlacoyos, sopes, flautas, and quesadillas with rich sauces and authentic, carefully curated ingredients. Tortillas are hand-made on the tiny restaurant's comal, and there's lovely outdoor seating in a sidewalk space decorated with vertical wooden slats and pretty plants. 

Always packed with locals---including plenty of expats from other parts of the Americas---watching fútbol on TV or enjoying the live music, this welcoming two-story Roma Sur mercado contains more than a dozen food stalls set around a central dining area with communal tables. Cuisines from mostly Central and South America are featured, including Brazilian feijoada, Peruvian ceviche, and Salvadoran arepes. There's an extensive selection of juices, soft drinks, beers, and cocktails, too. 

A cheerful bakery-café near San Miguel Chapultepec's art galleries, Deli Lou serves crusty-baguette sandwiches with distinctive toppings (turkey with olives, goat cheese, Camembert, jamón serrano, and the like), plus freshly baked cakes, brownies, and cookies. There's also a small selection of jams, wines, artisanal juices and teas, and other gourmet goodies, plus a variety of espresso drinks.

This gourmet market, artisan bakery, and sidewalk café with a prime location on Álvaro Obregón is a top destination for any meal, but especially breakfast and brunch, when you might try French toast with whipped cream and fresh fruit or Greek-style baked eggs with jocoque, olives, tomato sauce, and grilled pita. The rest of the day, the eclectic but slightly Mediterranean-leaning menu features tortas and toasts (like the one with smoked trout, pickled beets, and capers) as well as lasagna, lamb moussaka, and other heartier dishes. The market also carries fresh baked breads, wines, cheeses, jams, salsas, olive oil, and other goodies. There are a couple of additional locations in Roma Norte, including a Colima branch that's mostly a take-out market.

You'll find this cozy but warmly lit coffeehouse immediately on your left as you enter trendy Mercado del Carmen—it's separate from the main food hall and thus a bit more intimate and peaceful. The menu features an extensive list of espresso and tea drinks, breakfast and lunch fare (from chilaquiles to sandwiches), and pies, cakes, and other sweets.

This dapper all-day café with white-brick walls, colorful peltre dishware, and fresh flowers on every table is in a semi-residential section of Coyoacán, well-removed from the crowds and an easy stroll from Museo Frida Kahlo. The owner uses organic coffees and, as much as possible, locally sourced ingredients in the European-influenced Mexican fare, which includes superb chilaquiles (order them with both the green and red sauces), panfried potatoes with paprika and chipotle aioli, and ham-gruyere croissant sandwiches. If you're having trouble finding a seat, there's a smaller location (it's actually the original) around the corner.

A neighborhood favorite since 1962, this spacious taqueria with a striking black awning and red-and-white color scheme offers up hefty platters of delicious tacos and other classics. Try the costras crujientes, in which the meat is wrapped in fried cheese before being wrapped in a tortilla, or any of the alambres al carbón with bacon, onions, chile poblano, and any number of fillings.

General consensus says that this miniscule taco stand on the border between the Plaza San Juan and Chinatown serves the best al pastor in Centro, and has been doing so since 1959. There are now three branches around the neighborhood, and several more scattered around town, but the original remains the best by far.

With its quirky setting inside a large industrial building that also houses an auto repair shop, this Colonia Narvarte Poniente hot spot was featured on Netflix's Tacos Chronicles and is a serious contender in the city's crowded battle for al pastor primacy. Overflowing with happy eaters into the wee hours of the night, as late as 5 am on Friday and Saturday, Vilsito serves pastor tacos with or without cheese along with a good variety of the usual suspects (tacos choriqueso, tortas Cubanas). 

From morning through early evening, this casual, contemporary café that opens to a quiet, tree-lined street near Parque España welcomes a mix of regulars and tourists with bountiful plates of Mexican and international breakfast dishes, soups, salads, and sandwiches. The menu tends toward healthy and fresh, with mango-granola bowls, toasted ham-and-gruyere brioche sandwiches, green juices, and fine teas and lattes.

World-famous Pujol mastermind Enrique Olvera is the talent behind Eno, a smart-casual bakery and café on a lively Roma Norte street corner (there's another location in Polanco). The airy brick-ceilinged spot with a handful of sidewalk tables is great for a light meal, dessert, coffee, or atole (a warm Mesoamerican corn drink) from early morning until late at night, with breakfast especially popular. Try the cochinita pibíl or hongos (mushrooms) rancheros in the morning, or a turkey–cheese torte later in the day.

At the top of the Sears building, you'll find an only okay coffee shop with one of the city's most famous and beautiful views of Bellas Artes. You will need to buy something to enter, so grab a drink or a pastry and enjoy the view below.

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. 

Although this cozy, discrete café is in Roma Norte, it's at the southern end of the less frenetic neighborhood, making it a nice option for a relaxed coffee break or a light snack. The artisan house-baked goods here are superb, from sourdough pizzas to flaky croissants and other French pastries.

Part bakery, part restaurant, you won't be disappointed whether you stop here for a quicker bite or a full sit-down for dinner. The star of the show is the roulette, a round, flaky pastry reminiscent of a croissant and served plain or with savory or sweet toppings and fillings.

Although there's a small indoor dining room, the big draw here is the expansive patio with a retractable glass roof, tall ivy-covered walls, and tables of varying sizes. It's a great place to relax or work on your laptop for a few hours, and there are enough tasty pressed-sandwich (try the Croque Madame), salad, and soup options to make a meal of it. Later in the day, the drinks of choice shift from espresso-related to beer, wine, and cocktails.

A friendly family with Italian and Mexican roots operates this tiny artisan bakery that's tucked inside a shop near Jardín Centenario and open only Thursday through Saturday, from mid-morning until they sell out (usually by 2 pm or so). You'll find crisp-but-chewy sundried-tomato-Parmesan and cranberry-walnut-fennel baguettes, flaky scones, soft and chewy amaretto and orange pastries, and lusciously gooey chocolate-banana cakes.

This cozy café is perfect for a pick-me-up from the well-curated list of artisan coffees and wines, all of them from highly respected producers found throughout Mexico. Just a couple of blocks from Jardín Centenario and Plaza Hidalgo, Kahwen is a happily chill space far from the crowds.

This popular deli has been serving up affordable Mexican-Jewish fusion in Polanco since 1962. You'll find hotcakes, waffles, and chili dogs on the menu alongside chilaquiles and enchiladas, all topped with a large range of house-made salsas. Klein's has retained its charming diner appeal with burnt orange vinyl booths and laminate tabletops despite opening multiple locations throughout the city.

This unassuming spot beside a gas station near the border of Condesa and Roma has developed a loyal following for its hearty and affordable birrias (meat stews). The signature dish is the birriamen, basically a Mexican-Japanese fusion of flavor packed with tender pork carnitas, onions, cilantro, and spices, but other delicious options include quesabirria tacos oozing with melted cheese, and the restaurant's spin on chilaquiles, birraquiles.

Fans of Baja-style seafood flock to this bustling counter inside the Parián Condesa food hall for fresh, delicious crab tostadas, caracol (sea snail) ceviche, oysters and clams on the half shell, and shrimp and octopus cocktails. Enjoy your food at one of the casual tables, imagining you're at the beach in Ensenada, where the original La Guerrerense (which was much lauded by Anthony Bourdain) is located.