100 Best Bars in Mexico City, Mexico

This stylish mezcaleria and gastropub has a smartly decorated tile-floor interior as well as plenty of sidewalk tables. In addition to artisanal mezcal and cocktails, there's a great wine and craft beer selection and well-prepared modern Mexican food to snack on.

This snug and stylish hideout just off Avenida Amsterdam is decorated with framed butterflies and bird illustrations and offers up an enticing list of innovative cocktails—try the Old George Sour with Altos Plata tequila, cardamom, and cucumber, or any of the several fine mezcal elixirs. The tight space with just a handful of seats inside and a few more on the sidewalk can get busy on weekends, but if you can snag a table, it's a lovely place to chat with friends or mingle with new ones. It's owned by the same team behind the Roma's famous Licorería Limantour.

Since 1951 (minus a two-year closure during the pandemic), this unabashedly campy cabaret in the eastern reaches of Doctores has been luring even shy patrons onto the central dance stage for salsa, merengue, and cumbia music. The live orchestra is almost as much fun to watch as the completely diverse crowd that includes everyone from white-haired couples to gay teens. Upstairs by the restrooms, be sure to check out the kitschy, obscene artwork. Although not terribly far from Roma or El Centro, the area can get a bit dodgy at night—it's best to Uber here.

This little cabaret offers entertainment six nights per week, ranging from drag shows and burlesque to exotic dancers and impersonators. There’s nothing dull about a night at Cabaretito, and it’s a welcoming space for all. Bottle service is available, and you'll find plenty of alcohol to lower your inhibitions and fit in with the rollicking crowd eager for a good time.

This sleek and rather spare cocktail and natural-wine bar on the ground floor of Casa Nuevo Leon hotel stands out for its long list of expertly prepared cocktails and its well-chosen selection of very interesting wines, including pét-nats and still wines from Baja's Valle de Guadalupe, along with selections from Georgia, Portugal, New Zealand, and other vino-centric parts of the world. There's also a tempting selection of seafood-focused bar bites, including anchovy toast, smoked-oyster pâté, and crab-salad sandwiches.

The glow of flickering candles welcomes visitors to this swish Parisian-style bar that presents live jazz and blues bands several days a week, along with a menu of designer pizzas, Mediterranean tapas, wine, and cocktails. It's a popular spot on weekends, and reservations are recommended if you want a table. Around the corner, sister restaurant Franca Bistro serves a more extensive food menu and has a similarly classy but laid-back air about it.

This grand, cavernous 1940s-era cantina has a long antique bar to one side and a kitchen serving up tasty Asturian Spanish fare. It's filled nightly with the sounds of the tercera edad (a polite phrase for the elder generation) playing exuberant games of dominoes and millennials chatting about their adventures at Roma's latest gallery opening.

This diminutive bar along nightlife-rich Avenida Álvaro Obregón is further evidence of Mexico City's increasingly fervent embrace of craft beer. As the name suggests, it has a particular soft spot for Belgian beers, but you'll find a little bit of everything here, including some bottles from smaller, cult brewers around the world, as well as one of the most current selections of up-and-coming Mexican producers. The friendly bartenders really know their stuff, too.

The Habita Hotel rooftop showcases a magnificent view of the city from its hip open-air bar and terrace. The lounge area with its fireplace is a great place to chill out without catching a chill. Sipping a selection from the range of mezcals on offer will also do the trick. On some nights, you can watch vintage movies projected onto the building across the street.

One of the most fashionable cocktail venues in the neighborhood, this contemporary open-air rooftop bar is perched atop the chic Hotel CondesaDF. Hang with friends beneath a white umbrella on one of the wide arm chairs or snag a table overlooking the lush foliage of Parque España. In addition to well-crafted drinks, there's a menu of tasty sushi and other Japanese-fusion snacks.

Mingle with the fashionable crowd that frequents this trendy wine bar on the border of Condesa and Roma Norte. The focus is mostly on natural wines, with many selections from Europe but also a good number from Mexico's own esteemed Valle de Guadalupe. A nice selection of share-worthy small plates—pastas, beef tartare, eggplant caponata—are available, too. Hugo is a cousin of its hip neighbor, Cafe Milou.

This bustling, stylish craft beer bar stands out for its attractive setting inside a high-ceilinged space with vertical-garden walls and an exceptionally varied selection of bottled and draft beers, most of them Mexican. There's also a great menu of elevated tacos, tortas, and other bar food, plus ping-pong and live music many evenings.

At this welcoming, lively Cuban joint set in a grand but faded mansion that wouldn't look the least out of place in Havana, every surface is splashed with graffiti. Inspired by the original Havana establishment where Hemingway once lapped up mojitos, La Bodeguita also serves inexpensive Cuban food and sells Cuban cigars. Much of the time, live salsa, timba, and rumba bands provide entertainment.

Talented mariachis, a long drinks list, and very tasty (though slightly expensive for the neighborhood) contemporary Mexican food are among the draws of this trendy modern cantina across the street from Jardín Centenario. But the biggest boast is the gracious setting: the main dining and drinking area is in a scenic courtyard with giant trees and a glass roof. There's a cozier bar upstairs, and next to the entrance, La Calaca has a cute little shop that sells fun gifts, crafts, and artwork.

A womblike, intimate space with shelves adorned with countless bottles of mezcal, La Clandestina is one of four establishments in Roma and Condesa operated by Mezcales Milagrito, an artisanal distiller in Oaxaca (La Lavandería, El Palenquito, and Traspatio are the others). The fun here is in sampling some of the many different varieties, ideally straight up (take your time and sip slowly) so that you can taste the different complexities. There's also an extensive list of creative cocktails as well as tlayudas and other light bar snacks.

Since 1870, this convivial cantina has been a favorite spot for socializing, drinking, and dining on hearty Spanish fare in historic Tlalpan. The long, narrow space with an ornate wooden bar, vintage artwork, and brick archways is lively day or night. You can order delicious tortas and other items to go from a small take-out window up front and enjoy eating them on a picnic bench in nearby Plaza de la Constitución.

One of Centro's most atmospheric cantinas, La Mascota seems perpetually packed, even when in reality only a few tables are full. Cheerful, bright, and frenetic, it's also among the relatively few remaining cantinas to offer free botanas (snacks), listed on a short rotating menu, with every drink.

Specializing in one thing and one thing only (pulque, the fermented nectar of the agave plant), his bar is decorated with wall paintings of Mexico’s pre-Columbian past. The pulque (about 4.5% ABV) comes in a variety of flavors to sample, and be sure to enjoy the ever-revolving cast of characters here, including students, neighborhood fixtures, and older folks. 

Below the popular restaurant Páramo, this lively spot with vaulted brick ceilings offers up one of Roma's most extensive selections of craft beers on tap and by the bottle. Order a flight to sample a few different kinds of ale, which range from aromatic sours to hoppy Pacific Northwest–style IPAs. There's a good selection of gastropub fare as well such as tacos, chili dogs, nachos, and chocolate brownies.

Much-lauded and regularly named among the world's 10 best cocktail bars, Limantour looks nevertheless remarkably approachable—a narrow, neatly designed space with one of the city's first truly serious mixology programs (hence its phenomenal reputation). The surprisingly affordable drinks, like the herbal Green Park (with gin, celery bitters, basil, lime, and egg white) and the Machete (San Cosme mezcal with tangerine liqueur, grapefruit and lime extract, agave syrup, and spearmint), delight the senses and explain why ardent cocktail aficionados flock here. You'll find tasty bar snacks, too.

This craft beer bar represents Mexico's burgeoning artisanal brew culture in a relaxed and fun atmosphere. In the country that gave you Corona and Bohemia, a more sophisticated beer culture is growing slowly but surely, especially in recent years. Check out this tiny little spot where you can find beer from all over the world, including several from Mexico.

A small group of French and Mexican friends created this inviting, cosmopolitan bar with a top-flight mixology program that features local botanicals and bitters as well as a house-brand Absinthe distilled in Paris. The relatively short cocktail menu changes weekly but always features some novel creations. There's live jazz, blues, soul, and other music once or twice a week. Downstairs, you'll find sister establishment, Loup Bar, which specializes in natural wines.

Craft cocktails are served in this tiny but fashionable bar ideal for a date or catching up with a close friend. Owned by tour guide Anais Martinez, the space has a hip and charming allure, with a location in the welcoming and laid-back neighborhood of Narvarte Oriente. Small snacks are available to accompany the fine cocktails and wine. 

Behind the colorfully muraled facade of this wildly popular pulqueria, you'll find three floors to enjoy plain and flavored (blackberry, guayaba, mamey, apricot, mango) versions of the milky millennia-old beverage distilled from the fermented sap of the very agave plants that give us mezcal and tequila. The most popular seating area, especially on warm evenings, is the expansive roof-deck. Top DJs and occasional live bands provide a nice beat to the socializing. And if you're not much for pulque, fear not: there's a full selection of liquor and beer, plus nachos, tacos, burgers, and the like.

Reservations are a good idea, especially on weekends, at this beautiful bar perched on the rooftop of a dapper early 20th-century town house that houses the similarly trendy restaurant Fonico on the ground floor. You can sample the superb, inventive cocktails before deciding on which one you'd like to order. 

The slogan of this classic dance halls says it all: "Whoever doesn't know Los Angeles doesn't know Mexico." A flashback to the hot pink splendor of Mexico's mid-century boom years (it opened in 1937), Salón Los Angeles is a fairly quiet place on most nights, where older couples from the surrounding neighborhood come to dance to live bands playing salsa, cumbia, and danzón. But when big acts come through town, the hall, large enough for 600 people, bursts to life. These are the nights to be here, so keep an eye on the line-up on their website. Just note that this is out of the way for most city visitors, so plan to take an Uber to get here.