955 Best Restaurants in Mexico

This large restaurant is rather institutional-looking, but it's a great place to try regional specialties. There's a set menu—meals are designed for two or more, and typically include carne asada, ribs, tripe, vegetable salad, beans, and fresh flour tortillas. It's popular with both locals and visitors from across the border.

The oldest Japanese restaurant in Cancún serves the best sushi and sashimi in El Centro with a menu of traditional Japanese dishes like chicken teriyaki and tempura for those who prefer their food cooked. Large groups can order combination platters of sushi, sashimi, kushikatsu, and gyoza. The dining room is tranquil, with Japanese art and bamboo accents, but you can also call to have food delivered to your hotel room.

The Yacht Club is a restaurant and bar on the town beach—it's not a yacht club at all. Their breaded fish fillet is famous among the villagers and tourists, as are their chicken dishes. The place is always full. At 10 pm the disco starts and it lasts until 2 am.

Zai may be one of just a few restaurants in the La Fortuna area, but that doesn’t mean you should go only as a default. It is the most buzzed about restaurant in the East Cape, with plenty of diners making the drive up from San José just for a taste of their sushi, which is said to be the best in Los Cabos. If you’ll be driving along Camino Cabo Este, plan intentionally to stop here.

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.

Near the main square, this unpretentious family-run restaurant is one of the oldest (and most affordable) eateries on the island, and it's considered one of the best places to try island-style food. There are quite a few tasty seafood dishes, including a huge mariscada for two that includes a fish fillet, a whole fish, a lobster, and octopus on a bed of shredded lettuce. The delicious seafood soup includes the freshest seasonal seafood and is an island classic. People come here for the food and not the ambience, so grab a seat at a plastic table, listen to the Mexican music, and take your pick from the extensive menu.

The restaurant attached to the culinary school at the Claustro Sor Juana is one of Centro's best-kept secrets and one of its few options for fine dining. The cooking here leans toward the traditional with well-executed moles and classic antojitos like corundas and gorditas, but the space, tucked inside the school's quiet campus, is old-world elegant and the service is impeccable.

Pick out your goodies with a pair of tongs—that’s the way bakeries operate in Mexico—and bring your tray to the front counter. Take your food (cakes, pastries, breads) to a table indoors or on the front porch or get it to go. Don’t’ forget the coffee—these folks brew it strong.

With tables under a palapa on the beach, this restaurant is a perfect place to sink your toes in the sand while dining. Chef Sandra offers understated appetizers like tuna nachos (tuna tartare and avocado with tortilla strips) or shrimp and chipotle sopes (corn flour "disks" with different toppings). Veggie fans will love salads made with cooked potatoes, peach, avocado, and sunflower seeds. The fish is about as fresh as it gets—if you’re an angler, the kitchen will even cook up your catch. By day, the menu focuses on sandwiches and wraps; by night the attention turns to ribs and surf and turf. And the bar, where they've traded in bar stools for swings, is just as nice as the table seating. Service can be slow, but it's worth the wait. There's Mexican wine tasting on Thursday and Caribbean Latin Rhythms on Saturday.

Popular with the surfing crowd, this palapa-covered joint is right on Costa Azul beach, just south of San José del Cabo. Though their burger is the reason to come, the aroma of grilling lobster and tacos, and a soundtrack of surf tunes are why many return. The crowd can get downright rowdy. There's no question that owner "Big Tony" feeds you well for your pesos. With half-pound burgers, slabs of prime rib, or steak and lobster for two at under $30, you'll leave the beach a glutton, albeit a jolly one. Bring the kids in the daytime; they'll enjoy running from the dining table to the sand between every couple of bites. Sporting events sometimes blare on the TV, and live music is offered nightly.

North of Banderas Bay, in little San Pancho (aka San Francisco), the multitudes rave about the fish and shrimp tacos at Baja Takeria.

This is the best place in town for seafood; the ocean view from under the tall, peaked palapa roof isn't bad either. In addition to the garlic-and-oil fish fillets and breaded shrimp, there's grilled chicken with baked potato, beef tips with rice and beans, soups, quesadillas, steak, great guacamole, and fries. It's open all day (8 am until 10 pm) and serves everyone from white-collar business types to families and friends meeting for lunch to tourists cleaned up for an evening out. Popular with local families, business people, and travelers, it's a simple and unadorned but large restaurant facing Christmas Bay. After your meal, kick your shoes off and take a walk on the beach.

If chef Alfonso Cadena weren't so cool (he looks like a refined, former rock star because he is one!), then La Leche's main dining room, an all-white rotunda lined with shelves of milk cans, could come off as gimmicky. But each night as Cadena personally presents a different menu on a chalkboard, his "blank canvas" dining space becomes the perfect backdrop for a unique meal. For instance, a delicate seafood bisque, unveiled in whimsical ceramic tureens, might precede an exquisite mahimahi in a citrus reduction that provides the perfect balance of sweet and sour, rich and refreshing. Servers are attentive and friendly, but there is ample time between courses, so be prepared for an enjoyable but lengthy evening. Reservations aren't required but are a good idea.

You'll find the best views at a series of open-air patios under a huge palapa roof at Le Kliff, south of PV.

The locally owned bakery Los Chatos sells cakes, tarts, and house-made gelato. They have expanded to new areas, too, in Bucerías, the Marina, and more.

Two Canadian women have teamed up to bring sophistication to San Patricio–Melaque's dining scene. East meets West in contemporary dishes such as tequila-lime prawns and corn, and Gouda-cheese fritters with a smoked jalapeño aioli. Favorite entrées include Szechuan prawns and prosciutto-wrapped chicken. The hours of operation are complex and subject to change; it's best to check the Web site or confirm by phone. There's often live music including jazz or blues.

In Sayulita, Panino's produces good brownies, croissants, and other baked goods just a few steps from the beach.

In El Centro at Paris Café, a gruff and eccentric Frenchman who bakes bare-chested is PV's version of Seinfeld's "soup Nazi."

Grab a mini-cheesecake, crunchy chocolate cookie, or an infamous mango pie at Pie in the Sky. The store has expanded to Puerto Vallarta and its marina as well.

Healthy and nutritious food with lots of flavor is what has crowds coming here every morning for breakast. There is no guarantee that there will be space for you to sit at any time in particular, but there's always takeaway to be eaten at the boardwalk. Don't miss the smoothies!

On Bucerías's South Side, a dedicated following snaps up the cinnamon rolls at Sweet Things Bake Shop.

Bucerías's Tacos Linda occupies a small patio surrounded by hurricane fencing. Watch a telenovela on the overhead TV as you wait for savory meat tacos and other snacks served on huge, just-made tortillas.

In downtown Vallarta, locals love the quesadillas, shredded beef burritos, and tacos at Tutifruti, where you can also get a sandwich, burger, or fruit smoothie.

Portions are large, and the cooking seems to have improved with time, although the main reason to visit is the lovely views of a solitary beach, uninhabited Coral Island, and the beaches of Rincón de Guayabitos. The hawk's-eye ocean view is especially wonderful around sunset. Order a full Mexican meal or just a shrimp or fish taco and a beer or cocktail. Changing daily specials like ribs, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob, with a glass of wine or beer, are filling if unimaginative. Shrimp is prepared in a handful of ways; for kids there are hamburgers (or shrimp burgers) and fries or quesadillas. Food service begins at noon, although the stated opening time is 11:30 am.

For European-style chocolates, succumb to Xocodiva, in Zona Romántica.