Eat your way around Mexico City

No offense to other food cities—you may have fantastic restaurants, but nothing comes close to Mexico City. This sprawling metropolis feels like a home away from home for me, and I’ve spent enough time scouring the dining rooms, markets, and food stands to say for sure that Mexico City is the best place to eat in North America.

I’ve picked out a few favorites, from low-key counters to Michelin-starred tables. (With a population of 9.2 million, there’s something for everyone in Mexico City.) Plus, given the favorable exchange rate, even the high-end meals are a good value. It’s one of the reasons why eating here feels like a nonstop party. Without further ado, these are the tastiest bites in town.

Five years ago, Meroma was the new kid on the block, blending global influences with locally sourced ingredients in a chic 1980s mansion in Roma. Now, its married chefs and owners, Mercedes Bernal and Rodney Cusic, are torchbearers of the modern culinary movement. I always request a seat upstairs on the petite terrace; fringed by a canopy of flora, it feels like a secret treehouse.

What to order: This is a large menu you’ll want to peruse over smart, refreshing cocktails. I particularly love the tuna crudo with miso and yuzu koshō, charred fish collar lacquered in guajillo salsa, and all of the homemade pastas. Bernal crushes dessert, especially anything combining chocolate and passionfruit.

Lunch at Contramar is a Mexico City rite of passage. Gabriela Cámara’s frothy white-and-blue dining room feels ethereal—and eternally busy. If you’re seated on the sidewalk, don’t be afraid to ask the elegant waiters for a table inside to give you the full experience.

What to order: Seafood is the focus, so start with the impeccable tuna tostada, the dish Cámara is most famous for, then go onto shrimp aguachile, octopus carnitas, and butterflied fish divorciadas, which comes painted like Christmas with red and green salsas. The towering strawberry cake crusted in shards of meringue is out of this world.

Consistently ranked among the top restaurants in Latin America, Pujol is Enrique Olvera’s love letter to Mexico’s ancestral foodways, reinterpreted through stunning plating and creative takes on the classics. The restaurant unfolds throughout the gardens and salons of an airy Polanco mansion, a setting so intimate you might not want to leave. Fortunately, you can expect a meal here to last a few hours. I recommend going for a long lunch, when there are fewer crowds.

What to order: There are two menus at Pujol: an all-taco affair served at the 12-seat omakase bar, and the star tasting menu available in the rest of the dining room. If you want a deep meditation on corn, go with the former, while the latter brings more variety, including the famous duo of new and madre moles.

Multiple outposts of Monterrey-based Orinoco dot CDMX. You can’t mistake it: They’re as red-and-white-tiled as a Five Guys and just as speedy. A friend who lives in Mexico City recommended the Norteño-style shop to me on my first trip, and I never stopped going back, most often to the convenient (and always busy) location by the intersection of Avenidas Obregón and Insurgentes. It’s neither a local’s secret, nor a tourist trap, but somewhere comfortably in between.

What to order: Campechano tacos are my move—a mix of beef and trompo-roasted pork, one corn tortilla, one flour. A side of the crusty smashed Papas Orinocos are nonnegotiable. Place your order at the cashier and hunt for a free Coca-Cola folding chair in the snug dining area.

Filipe Estevao das Neves, a Portuguese chef who went to culinary school in Cape Town, is a member of the young new class of genre-bending CMDX chefs. Imbiss, his eccentric bistro in Juarez, has a European-leaning menu paired with natural wines, craft beers, and cocktails.

What to order: A hybrid of American and Korean styles, the fried chicken has a crackling crust and is served with a pile of sweet bread-and-butter pickles. It’s a must-order dish, but I also love the vegetable-focused options like radishes bathed in salsa macha.

If I only had time for one meal in Mexico City, I would make a beeline for Panaderia Rosetta. I can’t resist the pastries, cakes, and homemade bread. In Roma Norte, this daytime darling always has a line down the block shortly after opening, so get there early. If you can’t snag a table, there’s always take-out.

What to order: While the massive menu includes plenty of cooked entrees, I concentrate on the bread and pastries: bollo de romero (sugared rosemary bun), rol de cardamomo (cardamom), canela (cinnamon rolls), and guayaba (guava). You have to try at least one berlinesa (stuffed donut); get the fig leaf cream, which has a subtle marshmallow and coconut flavor.