15 Best Restaurants in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca

Chef Alejandro Ruiz is behind some of the most creative food in southern Mexico—rack of lamb in pineapple-and-vanilla sauce and venison tamales with mole are just a few examples. Wild game is featured heavily on the menu, though the kitchen also has a way with red snapper. Not one course falls short here: appetizers incorporate local herbs and greens, and desserts such as a guava tart with rose-petal sorbet perfectly balance citrus and sweetness. The specialty cocktails are excellent, especially the sangria. The room is modern, open, airy, with white stucco walls, simple wooden tables and chairs, and a beamed ceiling. It's casual and effortlessly romantic. The restaurant shares a building with one of the finest art galleries in town, Galería Quetzalli, so you can browse after you eat.

El Che Guacho is owned by Argentinians and specializes in Argentinian cuisine. Look forward to enjoying a delicately cooked steak in a beautifully designed indoor-outdoor restaurant with glass walls that (in good weather) open to provide access to a quiet, covered, terrace garden. The bar is well stocked, the staff are friendly and knowledgeable about their menu, and the choices available are phenomenal. There is nowhere else in Oaxaca to savor the juices of such a perfectly cut, perfectly cooked, and perfectly presented steak, accompanied by a wine handpicked by the owners. It's a favorite with locals and visitors alike.

Origen is one of the best restaurants in Oaxaca. Chef Rodolfo Castellanos is an expert at producing sharp, clean flavors that compliment the dining environment. This city-center town house has been turned into a quick lunch restaurant, a cooking-class workshop space, and a formal evening dining space (on the second floor). The food here is expensive, but it is worth every peso. The service is attentive, and the variety of options on the menu will have your mouth watering from the very moment you step in the door.

This culinary laboratory is famed for developing new dishes using both inventive techniques and traditional ingredients. Everything served here is sourced locally and used imaginatively to create a contemporary Oaxacan cuisine. The head chef, Jose Manuel Baños, heads of team of leading culinary talents to prepare the finest and most delicate meals available in city. The beautifully restored restaurant also features a mezcal tasting bar and both indoor and outdoor eating areas. The six- and nine-course tasting menus, showcasing the best of the best in Oaxacan cookery, are highly recommended.

This restaurant takes up the entire first floor of a colonial house. You can dine beneath the arches or in the sun next to a fountain. Popular dishes include mushroom soup flavored with epazote (a pungent local herb), chicken with salsa de flor de calabaza (pumpkin-blossom sauce), and a superbly prepared lechón (suckling pig). On Sunday, there's a buffet from 2:30 to 7.

A neon sign bearing the namesake hummingbird draws you to this little cafeteria. Mothers who have packed their kids off to school and cell-phone-toting business executives favor this place, perhaps for its free refills of super-hot coffee and the extensive menu of Mexican favorites. If you're homesick, you can always order a burger with fries. While you wait, browse in the gift shop. The restaurant is across from the ADO bus station, making it a great escape from the crowded waiting area.

An outdoor lunch buffet, from 1:30 to 6:30, is a great reason to venture outside the city to this restaurant 3 km (2 miles) east of Oaxaca on the road to Mitla. Waiters bring you a welcome cocktail and a typical appetizer, such as taquitos de pollo (small tacos filled with chicken) or memelas (fried discs of cornmeal topped with goodies). You then select from more than 70 Mexican dishes, including several kinds of meat fresh from the grill. You can linger here, listening to wandering mariachi and marimba musicians—and let the kids loose on the small playground.

The service is a bit distracted at chef Pilar Cabrera's combination gallery-café, so you'll have plenty of time to admire the works by local artists that adorn the walls. The food makes up for any shortcomings, however. Start with the tlayuda azteca, a Mexican-style pizza topped with chicken, avocado, and stringy Oaxacan cheese. The sampler plate includes everything from strips of beef to seasoned pork to chapulines (fried grasshoppers). They also serve a different comida corrida, or prix-fixe menu, every afternoon. Cooking classes are also available.

This contemporary Italian restaurant sits within one of the colonial houses of Jalatlaco, one of the oldest parts of the city. Toscana was one of the first successful Italian restaurants in the city and still provides an eclectic menu, focusing on a wide range of pizzas, pastas, and seafood. Sitting under its archways, looking out on the rock garden, you might think you are in Italy. The cocktail menu aids your relaxation, and the food, when it arrives, is always crisp and flavorsome. Afterwards, a stroll around the picturesque neighborhood and a visit to the church are great ways to digest the food.

Named for the dancing figures carved in stone at the nearby ruins of Monte Albán, this restaurant fuses the new and the old with dishes such as hierba santa asada, a local leaf stuffed with goat cheese and Oaxacan cheese; and ravioli with huitlacoche (corn fungus) in one sauce of squash flower and another of green chili and cream. The three-story earth-color walls, consisting of triangular columns of rough stone, are reflected in a pool that takes up about half the open-air space. The service is perfectly attentive. Expect to dine exclusively in the company of other tourists.

Luvina’s aim is to create a range of tastes, smells, and textures prevalent in Oaxaca and transform them into culinary creations. The restaurant, inspired by the works of Juan Rulfo, does just that. The elegant dining space, a few blocks away from the main city-center streets, offers just enough peace and serenity for the restaurant goer to be able to interpret and understand the complex flavors found in the local ingredients. The chef, Carlos Garcia, aims to take each diner on a culinary journey through the real and imaginary worlds of Rulfo’s writings.

Local families and expats in the know come here for a seafood fix. The ceviches are delicious, as are the whole-fried-fish platters and the shrimp specials. Margaritas, too, are best-in-class, and a wonderful baked banana dessert comes with condensed milk, cream, and rummy eggnog. This, the original branch, where you can enjoy your meal out in a lovely, fern-shaded garden, is a breakfast-and-lunch-only place, closing at 6 pm. Another branch on Calzada de Porfirio Diaz isn't quite as cute.

Sabina Sabe is one of the newest mezcal bar–restaurants in the city, and its enviable location on the zócalo makes it a welcome addition for tourists looking to move away from the traditional tourist dining options. The menu is filled with fresh, locally sourced plates and a wide range of drink options including beers, mezcals, and cocktails. It is the perfect place to while away the late afternoon with a small plate and a drink in hand.

With folding glass windows opening out onto the foliage of trees overhanging the bustling zócalo, Tres Bistro offers a classy retreat from the bustling square. You can see the glitter of the twinkling lights and hear the music of the marimbas down below. The menu offers a range of traditional Oaxacan dishes alongside contemporary pastas, pizzas, lasagna, and seafood, so it's good for people traveling with young children who might not take to some of the more traditional Oaxacan offerings, while the adults can savor some different tastes. Unlike most upper-floor restaurants, this one also has an elevator.

A shabby-chic handful of wooden tables dressed in bright paisley cloths, Zandunga is the quintessential corner café. It fills up with local families who come to sample hearty and simple dishes from the istmo, the southeastern part of the state around the town of Tehuantepec. The estofado, a savory beef stew, is recommended; start off with the sampler plate of typical regional snacks, which comes with totopos (crunchy tortillas that originated on the isthmus). Daily specials may include a mole for good measure. Wash it all down with a tangy tea made from hibiscus blossoms.