41 Best Restaurants in Mexico

While you wouldn’t want to push gringo cuisine on anyone visiting Mexico, Pinche Gringo BBQ has created a little barbecue sanctuary for itself, with live music and football on the television screens. Serving Texas-style brisket at Texas prices, it has a small but loyal following of patrons who enjoy food it's hard to find elsewhere in CDMX.

Puerta Vieja translates into "Old Door," and the beautiful door you enter through, imported from India, is indeed over 160 years old. Though Puerta Vieja serves lunch, we suggest dinner at sunset, when the view of El Arco is the most impressive. The cuisine pulls from Continental, Latin, and Mexican traditions, with a touch of Asian flavorings. Specialties feature lobster, shrimp, and Sonoran cuts of meat. There's live piano music nightly from 7 to 10 pm.

Open to the ocean air, the wood-and-palm exterior of this restaurant looks right at home on Conchas Chinas Beach. The menu is a mixed bag of Mexican specialties such as chile relleno, international cuisine add-ons like chicken masala, and seafood dishes like the delicious crab enchiladas with chipotle sauce. There are wonderful views of waves crashing on or lapping at the shore at its bar El Set. If you're driving, look for the sign for Hotel Lindo Mar on the coast highway.

This outdoor restaurant is one of a handful of eateries along the lakeside in Teuchitlán. While not fancy, it offers a variety of Mexican dishes, including fish, molcajetes dishes of mixed meats, cheese, and vegetables in a stone bowl), and fajitas, and provides a grand view of the lake teeming with fish and birds including herons and pelicans. There's also a fish pond where kids can borrow a homemade rod for some catch and release. As you turn into the street, don't feel pressured by the parking attendants at the other restaurants who will make attempts to get you into their locales.

Just a handful of blocks from the entrance to La Merced, Roldán 37 may well be Centro's most surprising restaurant. Set over two floors in a 200-year-old house, the restaurant, run by chef Rómulo Mendoza, is an elegant oasis of high ceilings, French doors, and lovingly prepared family recipes, some drawn from Mendoza's grandmother's handwritten cookbook, which he keeps out of sight but on the premises. If you find yourself overwhelmed by the pace and crowds on this side of Centro, Roldán 37 is the place to stop for a bite and a breather.

The perfect spot for a quick coffee or pastry, Signora Mariola is a tiny place with very few tables placed on the sidewalk outside, so be prepared to take your meal to go as you stroll through Polanco. The croissants and bread are to die for, and the Mexican breakfasts are tasty and light.

Stunning views of El Arco from cocktail tables along the cliffs make this restaurant just outside Cabo San Lucas the best place to toast the sunset. Chef Hector Morales' menu offers a variety of dishes including beef tenderloin delivered on a hot stone and grilled table-side, but portions are on the smaller side, so it's worth splurging for the Mona Lisa signature five-course menu, which includes truffle fettuccine and Australian Wagyu. If the breeze is still, stay outside and enjoy dining alfresco; if not, move into the candlelit dining room under a palapa. And, if you arrive without a reservation, you can always head upstairs to the more casual Sunset Point, a gastro pub offering a wide range of top-shelf cocktails and à la carte menu.

A beautifully redone adobe home sets the stage for this classy dining experience on an open courtyard under the stars. A lengthy tequila list tempts diners to savor the finer brands of Mexico's national drink, and an extensive wine cellar will give you plenty of choices for what to sip as you sup. The menu offers modern Mexican cuisine with Asian influences; select from excellent regional salads made from produce grown on the restaurant's organic farm, then move on to seafood choices like baked lobster, tequila shrimp, or mesquite grilled catch of the day with pepper sauce. Another wonderful dish is the roasted bone-in pork shank served with Oaxacan green mole. The garden setting attracts mosquitoes, and the waitstaff requests tips in cash, so come prepared.

A pretty café on the border of Centro and Juárez, with a focus on farm-to-table cuisine, Tirasavia is a sweet, sunny spot for a coffee, breakfast, or a cold beer or glass of wine in the afternoon. Set in the street-level corner of a spare, glass-and-concrete modernist building occupied by architecture firms, photo studios, and a design company, this place is the happy cousin to its moodier, bolder neighbors and as pleasant a place as any for a quick refuel.

This funky café, where expats and locals congregate, serves up smoothies, baked goods, tacos, homemade ice cream, and everything in between. The breakfast menu spans acai bowls, eggs Benedict, pancakes, and fruit plates, and for lunch and dinner you'll find blackened fish tacos, coconut shrimp, burgers, and vegetable wraps. Set back from the little plaza, the colorful garden is a pleasant place to have a coffee, and its location by the ecological center makes it the closest thing Akumal has to a downtown. If you fall in love with a local stray, the owner will help you get the paperwork to take your new pet home. The restaurant is open until 10 pm and has free Wi-Fi. This is the only place in town where happy-hour specials include food. Stop by between 4 and 6 pm any day of the week for pizza, taco, and drink specials.