Fungi takes center stage at Tencüi. Located in the Santa María la Ribera neighborhood, this tiny restaurant by Mexican chef Mario Espinosa uses seven varieties of mushrooms — cultivated locally in Puebla, Estado de México, and Tlaxcala — to create a mostly vegetarian menu. Dishes might include braised vegetables with shiitake and enokitake, a mushroom escabeche with pate, or roasted huitlacoche cob with epazote and molcajete salsa. The drink menu doesn’t skimp on the restaurant’s theme, with options like a Negroni infused with mushroom extract.

Located in the fancy Polanco district, Siembra Tortilleria works with native Mexican corn to produce the most delicious and colorful tortillas. Besides devoting most of their kitchen labor to tortillas, tlacoyos, sopes, and totopos, they also offer a small corn-centric menu, where a variety of tacos and tamales appear weekly alongside fresh salsas from the molcajete. Asada, carnitas, barbacoa, and shrimp tacos are among the favorites, as are the cochinita tamales. Stop by for a meal on the go, but don’t expect to linger at the casual window setup too long.

A gorgeous landmark from another era, El Cardenal serves a fantastic upscale breakfast (it's also open for lunch and dinner). Order the chilaquiles, which arrive perfectly sauced and with some crisp left in each drowning chip. White tablecloths and suited waiters turn an everyday meal into an experience.

Over the years, the celebrated tasting and omakase menus at Pujol have evolved into fine dining multicourse experiences focusing mostly on vegetarian or pescatarian items. That’s still true under the direction of chef de cuisine Jesus Duron, who honed his perfect execution during his formative years while cooking in France’s top restaurants before accepting the baton from Enrique Olvera at Pujol. In Duron’s hands, each dish on the seasonal menus speaks to the restaurant’s values: sustainability, respect for traditional Mexican cooking and local ingredients, and innovation. Book at least two months in advance.

Churrería El Moro, an 85-year-old churro shop downtown that was gutted by a fire in 2010 and painstakingly restored to its original glory, merits a stop for the live show alone. In front of a grease-stained window, two churro makers pipe wet dough into smoking hot oil and spiral the long stream into a spiral rep. After a flip, they come out and are cut into pieces and tossed, fresh to order, in either plain sugar or a sugar-cinnamon mix. Get a bag to go or grab a table to enjoy them with hot chocolate.

Café Ocampo is a cafe in the morning and an aperitif/cocktail bar by night. The small Italian-inspired bar sits in a quiet plaza in the Cuauhtemoc neighborhood. It’s gained popularity for its wide selection of vermouth and Italian amari, but it’s most famous for its well-balanced carajillos and espresso martinis, concoctions ideal to kick-start a night out in Mexico City. The food menu focuses on tapas and small bites to go along with the libations.

The top three reasons to go to Salazar are location, location, and location. The restaurant sits on a rooftop overlooking one of the most iconic roundabouts of Mexico City, creating the perfect atmosphere to enjoy dinner and cocktails during golden hour. Chef Allan Yañez’s menu combines bistro classics and family-style, country recipes, with dishes like organic roast chicken (sourced from an owner’s farm, which supplies the restaurant) with confit tomatoes, grilled shrimp with leek emulsion, or aged Pat LaFrieda rib-eye with sauerkraut. The portions are large enough to share, and the wine list includes beautiful organic and biodynamic bottlings. With stellar service and hospitality, it’s hard not to spend hours indulging in martinis and dessert after the meal is over.

You can’t leave Mexico City without exploring La Merced, one of CDMX’s most iconic markets. The Merced neighborhood has been a commercial area and food distribution center since colonial times, and the origins of this enclosed market go back to the 18th century. Nowadays, La Merced is home to some of the best street food, tucked inside maze-like aisles and sprawling rows of vendors. Take a few hours to explore the ins and outs of the market, or get an insider’s look at its social and cultural context with a tour group like Club Tengo Hambre, which provides a multicourse meal of tacos, comal quesadillas, and more.

Martínez offers good food and good wine in a casual-yet-chic setting, with an open kitchen that invites diners to watch the team in action. Located on Calle Puebla in Roma Norte, the cozy restaurant focuses on French-inspired dishes like vol-au-vent with celeriac and asparagus, steak frites with bearnaise sauce, or grilled leeks with dates and burrata. Overall expect lots of grilled items and creamy flavors on your plate. Give the bar seating a chance; it’s the perfect spot to sip a nice bottle of chardonnay while enjoying some oysters with mignonette. Reservations are strongly suggested, especially on weekends.

A lush, charming terrace houses Elena Reygadas’s latest culinary project: Bella Aurora. The restaurant continues the chef’s interest in Italian cooking, and it has quickly become a local favorite for brunch and casual dinner. Try the paccheri with fresh tomatoes and capers, the gnocchetti sardi with lemon preserves, and the selection of pizzas with in-house charcuterie. Do not skip on Bella Aurora’s classic martini or mango bellini during cocktail hour. The ambiance of the restaurant is Reygadas’s winning card, perfectly complementing the homey yet refined cooking.

Located in a restored Art Deco building overlooking colonia Roma’s most iconic park, Pigeon delights diners with a thoughtful approach to ingredient sourcing and seasonality. Chefs Mercedes Bernal and Rodney Cusic are behind the culinary project, inspired by casual European taverns. Though the menu isn’t vegetarian, options with vegetables are plenty and delicious, like roasted carrots with creamy tofu, rice with eggplant and turmeric, and rice croquettes with mushrooms and mozzarella. If you want something hardier, the roasted chicken with harissa and lemongrass is an excellent option, while the steak tartare with capers is a favorite among locals. It’s worth checking out the cocktail menu, designed by the team behind Pigeon’s sister cocktail bar, Brujas, next door.

Esquina Comun began life in a tiny second-floor apartment in the Roma neighborhood, but the weekend-only lunch experience had to move in late summer 2022 due to the increasing demand for reservations. Now perched on a Condesa rooftop (the exact location is revealed only after your reservation, made via social media, is confirmed), the restaurant serves a fixed six-course menu from chef Ana González Serrano. While the new location feels a bit more generic and less charming, Serrano’s cooking still shines brightly. Dishes might change weekly or monthly, but they always reflect the chef’s unpretentious style of cooking, with each course playing on the intersection of flavors from Mexico, India, and South America.

Chef Eduardo García is among Mexico’s best culinary talents. In 2020, his flagship fine dining restaurant, Máximo Bistrot, finally moved to a brand new location, a beautifully designed space filled with natural light. For García, the move provided a chance to revisit the menu, improving his classic dishes and creating new ones that celebrate Mexican flavors with a French twist.

What started as a ghost kitchen during the pandemic is now a weekend-only taco spot in Roma Norte. At Barbacoa Gonzalitos, Northerner chef Israel Mata brings Northeastern-style tacos to Mexico City, creating a menu that hits all the marks for a delicious, spicy, and hearty brunch. That means juicy beef barbacoa stew, chicharron in salsa verde, machaca (Northern-style dry, shredded beef) with scrambled eggs, and pork stew all carefully wrapped in flour tortillas. Pair the tacos with a cold Carta Blanca or michelada, as the Norteños do, and order at least one of your tacos “dorado” to crisp up the flour tortilla. Finally, don’t forget the oh-so-velvety add-on of Northern-style beans.

A cafe by day and bar by night, Café de Nadie has become a favorite in the Roma Norte district since opening in 2020. Visit during happy hour to sip one (or two or three) of the bar’s cocktails while contemplating the wonders of the high-definition sound system, which plays hits from a well-curated vinyl collection. The bar’s signature cocktails use Mexican spirits like sotol, charanda, bacanora, and mezcal, but the martini and Americano are perfectly balanced as well.

Start your evening with an aperitif at Oropel, a small vermouth-focused bar that, since opening in summer 2022, has become one of the go-to drinking spots for the hospitality and service industry in Mexico City. The bar’s wide vermouth selection features close to 30 options, including dry, sweet, red, rosé, and white, alongside a house vermouth spritz. If bitter vermouth is not your cup of aperitif, order from the solid, by-the-glass wine list. The food menu is tapa-style, with items like tinned sardines or squid served with aioli and red peppers. There’s a happy hour rush from 5 to 7 p.m.

Located above EM (also on this list), 686 impeccably edits classic cocktails for a 2022 drinking audience. Enjoy pre- or post-dinner libations like the Aviator, a take on an Aviation made with Armonico gin, St. Germain, and citrus, or the much sought-after Negroni Sbagliato (which was on the menu here before the cocktail’s viral moment). If the drinks make you a bit hungry, indulge in fried chicken or roasted baby corn.

Lucho Martinez is among a young generation of Mexican chefs redefining fine dining in CDMX. His tasting menu at Em relies heavily on quality sourcing and playfully engages with different traditions: Mexican, Japanese, French, Italian, and everything in between. Dishes can change according to availability, but the grilled fish with miso and chilhuacle and the tuna tostada with fried leek and chile ash are among the best dishes in the city. The experience is a journey of texture and flavor, neatly framed in the restaurant’s casual, minimalist dining room.

The nearby hospital supplies most of the clientele at El Sella. Suited in white lab coats and blue scrubs, everyone is here for the chamorro, a braised pork shank served with an endless supply of tortillas. Chamorro is a popular dish made at many restaurants across town but this version is particularly succulent. Arrive early because the dining room fills up fast every day of the week.

Chef Diana López del Río devoted several years to culinary research focused on the food traditions of small towns in different regions of Mexico. The menu at her Colonia Roma restaurant, Mux, is a collection of recipes she learned while cooking side by side with cocineras in the field. Along with especially friendly and eager hospitality, expect dishes prepared traditionally with masa, lots of moles, fermented drinks, and escabeches.

Comal Oculto is a small but sweet eatery in the San Miguel Chapultepec neighborhood with a menu based on hardy antojitos like flautas, enmoladas, and tlacoyos. The restaurant focuses on breakfast and lunch, so pair your fresh-from-the-comal snacks with hot chocolate or cafe de olla. The flauta ahogada with mole and the bean tlacoyo with avocado leaf are favorites among customers.

Chefs Norma Listman and Saqib Keval created this casual mix of Mexican and Indian cuisines. Located in the San Miguel Chapultepec district, Mari Gold offers breakfast and lunch menus in constant evolution, with vegetarian stews like chickpea chole served with a fried egg and tortillas, or a fried fish bun with achaar mayo. A short but stellar wine list and super-friendly service round out the experience.

Chef Fernando Martínez Zavala creates a menu inspired by the intersection of flavors and culinary traditions from Mexico, Europe, and Asia. The open kitchen is the highlight of the casual space, and it turns out beautifully plated dishes that highlight combinations of textures, culinary techniques, and locally sourced ingredients. For a taste of Migrante’s culinary range, try the six- to nine-course tasting experience with the optional pairing. If ordering a la carte, try the scallops with a green apple emulsion and tomato gelée or the braised duck with carrots and sumac jus.

Anonimo sits at a busy intersection in Condesa, but inside the restaurant instantly sets diners at ease with its casual warmth and attentive service. The menu has a distinctive Italian influence. Don’t skip the risotto with octopus and aioli, or the quelite ravioli with queso Chiapas. The restaurant offers a wide selection of raw wines, with several options to explore the local juices of the grape.

Head to Caiman in la Condesa to try some of the most avant-garde creations from Mexican wine country. The food menu is designed to complement the cocktail and wine experience, with munchy snacks like french fries with mussels and quail egg, or canned items for no-fuss clientele. The classic cocktails are well-executed, but explore the house pet-nat selection, which comes mostly from Baja California. The vibe is chill but the bar still delivers that Condesa it factor.

Located in a quiet corner in Condesa, Saint has become a neighborhood darling for excellent pastries and sourdough bread. The place offers a short but sweet menu with small bites like a salami and peperonata sandwich and a bacon brioche that can be paired with a reliable cup of coffee during the day or a glass of wine as the afternoon sets in. The croissant, pain au chocolat, and Spanish-style cheesecake are all musts.

Located in a restored art deco mansion in Condesa, Botánico is the first solo project of chef Alejandra Navarro, an alum of acclaimed Mexican fine dining restaurant Quintonil. The lush courtyard is an elegant setting for a long afternoon of cocktails, wine, and shareable plates. The menu has an international touch, so expect dishes that combine flavors from all over the world with high-quality ingredients. When in doubt, go for the oyster platters, fried squid, and pork Milanese with a salad of field mustard and buttermilk dressing.

It is said that the Gonzalez family — which runs three separate barbacoa spots in town — goes through more than 100 pasture-raised lambs each weekend, wrapping them in agave leaves and roasting them in an underground pit. The resulting barbacoa consomé is a mind-bendingly heady concoction, fortified with all of the slow-cooked lamb drippings. Los Tres Reyes is only open on weekends, but around 10 a.m. each Saturday and Sunday the Norteño band arrives and the beer begins to flow. Meat is sold by the pound, with sides like tortillas and avocado sold separately.