349 Best Restaurants in Mexico

The name "Titanic" may refer to the amount of food you'll get at this restaurant on the edge of the city. Sit down and just say "surtido," and you'll be brought a sampling of obscure local specialties, often including unusual parts of the pig. The food doesn't stop coming. You'll enjoy multiple courses in rapid succession, ranging from lengua (tongue) to the more pedestrian pollo en mole (chicken in mole). If you’re feeling less adventurous, you can also just order off the menu. The out-of-the-way location has kept the place supremely local (you'll want to go by car or taxi), and you'll probably be the first foreign visitor in weeks.

The Tunnel—named for its long, narrow entrance across from the exit of the Teatro Angela Peralta—has been in business since 1945, and black-and-white photos of classic Mexican stars line the yellow-and-lavender-trimmed walls. You can taste its experience with faithful renditions of such famed regional snacks as gorditas (fried rounds of cornmeal topped with garnish), tostadas, meat or potato tacos and pozole (pork-and-hominy stew), and its specialty, asada de la plaza de res (chopped beef and cubed potatoes, spiced and smothered in lettuce, carrots, and onions).

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). 

An outpost of Eladio's in Mérida, this lively bar and restaurant on the malecón is popular with beachcombers and cruise-ship passengers. You can sample typical Yucatecan dishes like longaniza asada (baked sausage) and pollo pibil (citrus-pickled chicken) while seated beneath a tall palapa on the beach. As you’d expect, fresh seafood dishes are also on the menu. Tasty appetizers are free with your drinks, and there are plenty to choose from. Live music every afternoon except Tuesday adds to the party atmosphere.

It may not have the easiest name to remember, but Estrella Fugaz (which means "shooting star") is one of Mazunte's most popular hangouts. This funky Mexican café-restaurant offers an impressive collection of artisanal mezcal, good Wi-Fi, strong coffee, and a breezy second-floor location with fantastic views of Playa el Rinconcito, Mazunte's most swimmable beach. The menu is packed with choices from Mexican breakfast specialties to seafood to pasta, but if you're undecided, the chiles rellenos stuffed with vegetables (or seafood or cheese) is a whopping portion that will fuel you for the rest of the day. Live jazz and special theme nights keep the action happening until long after dark.

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. 

In a low stone building on a tree-lined street, this unassuming café is overlooked by most travelers but is always packed with locals. The series of small dining rooms means it won't be hard to find a quiet table. The delicious traditional fare includes such dishes as chicken broth with creamy avocados and strips of cactus flambéed with bits of onion and chilies. Ask your waiter if there's caldo de habas, a bean soup with strips of cactus; it's something of a local specialty, and is quite tasty. Open until 8 pm, and quiet after 6, it's best for breakfast and lunch.

For an informal bite on any given evening, there's nothing like Food Park PV. Here you'll find a variety of snacks, beer, live music, and good vibes, all in a refreshing outdoor atmosphere.

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.

Even in low season, Fredy's, next door to the Hotel Posada de Roger, is packed full of Mexican families, gringo friends, and local businesspeople. Your mug of coffee will be refilled without having to beg; service is brisk, professional, and friendly. Breakfast is the meal of choice, with pancakes and waffles, Mexican specialties, omelets, and eggs Benedict with thick slices of ham. The lunch menu is abbreviated but offers soups, salads, burgers, nachos, and quesadillas. Eat on the pretty covered patio, or inside, where big plate-glass windows let you keep an eye on busy Calle Basilio Badillo.

The scent of fresh-baked French baguettes and a picture-perfect display of croissants, éclairs, colorful candies, and ice creams greet you at this café-bistro just off San José del Cabo's main square. In the creperie area, the cook tucks delicate crepes around eggs and cheese, ground beef and onions, or shrimp and pesto. If you choose to eat in, salads, pizzas, and other standard fare are offered. The patisserie has a well-designed drink menu of fine wines and tequilas and a full list of organic coffee and tea-based drinks.

Run by an Italian couple who have lived on the island since 2005, Gelateria Montebianco serves a wide variety of gelatos, as well as tasty desserts like tiramisu. It's the place to take a break and enjoy what many consider the best ice cream on the island.

Nothing beats walking down the malecón with an ice cream in hand ... or in this case, Italian gelato. Choose among 28 artisan flavors at Giulietta e Romeo.

Much loved by locals, Doña Julia makes dozens of varieties of gorditas day and night—it seems there's nary an hour when the place isn't full of people, in part because of the rock-bottom prices. In the wide-open entrance to the simple shop, you'll watch a woman shaping your fresh tortilla with her hands before putting it on the open fire. Many fillings are available, such as delicious regional specialties like beef tongue, rice with mole (a rich dark sauce, not an underground animal), rajas con queso (chili strips with cheese), and cactus. There are other locations around the city, including one on Avenida 5 de Mayo.

A leisurely stint here in the sun, watching ships unloading their cargo, is what Veracruz is all about. This family restaurant was so popular it split off into side-by-side establishments run by two brothers. The menus are nearly identical, both serving renowned traditional lechero. The milk is flamboyantly poured from silver jugs at a great height by a server. Visit the Gran Café closest to Hotel Emporio for classic picadas y gordas (puffy, deep-fried tortillas with beans, onion, mole, and cheese).

Try for a sidewalk table under the arches, if you can withstand the competing marimbas and the appeals of women selling crafts.

Sit in a shady arcade, near the live music, or in a dining room with copper columns and beamed ceilings at this famous café, which was opened as a candy shop in 1824. The menu has lots of dishes from Veracruz, including a delicious huachinango a la veracruzana (red snapper simmered in tomatoes, onions, garlic, green olives, and capers). The $8 weekday lunch special includes a soup or salad and a meat dish. The Gran Café del Portal has an ongoing rivalry with the Gran Café de la Parroquia as to which place serves the real lechero—here white-jacketed waiters bring you one kettle of strong coffee and another of hot milk, and let you do the mixing.

Look beyond the lumpy wall with peeling paint behind the tiny exposed kitchen—that's fairly normal in buildings over 300 years old. At this tiny hole-in-the-wall you'll find healthful, vegetarian (mostly vegan) tabbouleh, falafel, hummus, and other delicious Middle Eastern dishes at bargain prices. The baklava and other honey-nut-phyllo desserts are also very tasty. You can also order small or giant falafel sandwiches and salads.

There are only five small tables and three bar stools, but if the place is full you can order to go and eat outside at one of Guanajuato's many lively little plazas.

By day it looks like a hole-in-the-wall, but when the sun goes down, the rummage-sale-meets-taco-stand atmosphere of this open-air local favorite truly comes to life. Get beyond the ghoulish silhouette logo—ahorcado means "hangman" in Spanish—and you'll find that the food is pretty good. One of the few area restaurants open late, it's packed until closing, usually around midnight. Old pots, baskets, antique irons, sombreros, and other tchotchkes hang from the walls and rafters. Quesadillas come with vegetarian fillers such as flor de calabaza (squash blossom), nopales (cactus), and rajas (poblano chilies), while meatier house specialties include beef tongue tacos in mustard sauce, cochinita pibil tacos, Cantonese-style beef rib tacos, and cuchiviriachis—a tostada filled with cheese and meat and roasted for a perfect melt. This is the place to get a chilled Corona for a handful of pesos.

Follow your nose to this Mexican grill house, where locals gather for some of the best-tasting steak in town. The open-air restaurant is filled with the sounds of mariachi music blaring from the radio, and a mounted bull's head hangs above the plastic tables and chairs. The main draws are the huge cuts of beef, pork, and chicken served with baskets of corn tortillas, baked potatoes, and ripe avocados. This might just be the tastiest arrachera (skirt steak) you'll find on your vacation. There is a second location on Calle 1ra Sur.

When locals, be they Mexican or expat, ask each other where to eat, the answer is very often, "Let's go to Hecho!" Both the service and the food are consistently good. Choose one of the side dishes (including onion rings, garlic mashed potatoes, cactus salad, green salad, and many more) when ordering a burger, or two side dishes for the well-prepared salmon fillet, ginger chicken, or tender arrachera steak. Favorite desserts include the monster brownie topped with vanilla ice cream, peanut butter pie, and crème brûlée. On weekends musicians often serenade diners on the pretty outdoor patio, which has a retractable roof high above the café tables. One of the two inside rooms—both of which open onto the plant-filled patio—has booths; the other, larger room has tables for four or six diners.

After 70 years in a tiny alley of a shop deep in Centro's fabric district on Calle El Salvador, Lebanese grocer and baker Helu's moved to bigger, shinier digs on Mesones, where they serve tasty shawarma on homemade pan arabe and empanadas libanesas stuffed with spinach, cheese, or meat. There are also Lebanese groceries like labneh and tahini for sale, popular with members of the community coming through the neighborhood for work.

This two-story family restaurant has a large indoor fish tank, a play area for children, and shaded tables on a white patio. The menu includes salads, pastas, meat dishes, and thin-crust pizzas. The cuatro formaggi pizza with mozarrella, blue cheese, Gruyère, and provolone cheeses is heavenly, especially with chimichurri sauce. The insalata golosa, a large salad served with a zesty house dressing, Gruyère cheese, bacon, and crushed nuts, is especially tasty.

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.

Juanito's has had American owners for four decades, and the evidence is obvious everywhere from the menu (which includes burgers, milk shakes, fries, barbecued ribs, and fried chicken) to the quick service to the U.S. sporting events on the big-screen TV. But the place has been enthusiastically embraced by the locals, who crowd in every morning for breakfast and stay late into the evening to watch telenovelas (Mexican soaps) when there's no game on. The menu features a full range of Mexican food, too, and there are Internet computers for your use. A smaller branch in a modern building near the port (Blvd. Miguel de la Madrid 426,Tel.314/114–0318) dishes up the same great food.

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 Tapatío institution has held the Guinness World Record for fastest restaurant service: 13.5 seconds for a table of six. Lightning-fast service is made possible by the menu's single item: carne en su jugo, a combination of finely diced beef and bacon simmered in rich beef broth and served with grilled onions, tortillas, and refried beans mixed with corn.