“Everything was delicious and thoughtfully curated.”
— Marley, 2025
01 Food tours
Original food tours, curated with our local tastemakers to showcase the neighbourhood kitchens, markets and family-run eateries that define Mexico City.
Bohemian Bites
Mexico City
Eat CDMX at lunchtime — tacos al pastor, mole from the comal and lime salsa.
Coyoacan Tales
Mexico City
Explore CDMX in salsa vocabulary — nixtamalised corn, dried chillies, mole and comal char.
02 Meet the tastemakers
The local food experts who help us research, refine and lead every A Chef's Tour.
Nixtamalised corn worked by hand, dried chillies stewed into moles, comal char, salsa with a squeeze of lime. Nowhere on earth uses chilli with the vocabulary of Mexico.
04 The pantry
- Masa, freshly nixtamalised corn dough for tortillas and tamales
- Dried chillies, ancho, guajillo and pasilla for endless salsas and moles
- Epazote, wormseed herb folded into black beans and quesadillas
- Queso Oaxaca, string cheese pulled fresh from Oaxacan producers
- Chapulines, toasted grasshoppers with lime, salt and chilli
05 In the kitchen
- Nixtamalising corn overnight in cal water before grinding to masa
- Charring dried chillies before rehydrating them for salsa and mole
- Steaming tamales wrapped in corn husk or banana leaf
- Toasting spices on a comal before grinding on a metate
- Slow-braising barbacoa lamb wrapped in maguey leaves in a pit
06 Eat this first
- Tacos al pastor, marinated pork sliced from a vertical trompo with pineapple
- Tlacoyos, blue-corn oval cakes stuffed with beans and topped with salsa
- Barbacoa, pit-cooked lamb served with tortillas and consomme
- Mole poblano, dark chilli and chocolate sauce over turkey
- Chilaquiles, torn tortillas simmered in green or red salsa with egg
What happens inside a hammam kitchen
A morning with the cooks who feed the neighbourhood before dawn. Charcoal, dough, the smell of a bakery working its second oven.
09 Recipes
A collection of authentic recipes we couldn't leave behind.
Fluffy corn masa filled with pork shredded in red guajillo-ancho salsa, wrapped in corn husks and steamed. The classical Mexican tamal, red edition.
Oaxaca's street mash-up: a crunchy tostada base piled with hot esquite corn, mayo, cheese, lime and chile. The prehispanic dish gets a modern platform.
Fried tortillas stuffed with black beans and topped with shredded turkey, pickled red onion and avocado — the Yucatán's crunchy answer to the tostada.
Fresh fruit blended with water and a splash of lime — the mercado thirst-quencher. Jamaica, horchata, tamarindo, sandía or piña, poured from big glass tanks.
A silky caramel-topped custard, richer and denser than the European original. Mexico's most-eaten dessert, born in nuns' kitchens 300 years ago.
Pineapple-marinated pork carved off a spinning vertical trompo, caught on a small tortilla with a flick of chopped pineapple, onion and coriander. Mexico City's most famous taco.
10 Field Notes
Quick field notes to help you get accustomed to Mexico City.
Weather
High altitude at 2,240 m. Mild spring-like weather most of the year (15–25°C). Rainy season May to October; afternoon storms are dramatic and short.
Currency
The Mexican peso (MXN); cash for street food, markets, and small purchases; cards for restaurants and hotels. Small notes are always useful.
Language
Spanish (Mexican Spanish is famously clear); English coverage is decent in Roma, Condesa, and Polanco, thinner elsewhere.
Etiquette
Warm and formal — 'buenos días' or 'buenas tardes' opens every interaction. Modest dress at churches and religious sites.
Getting around
The metro is one of the world's largest and cheapest — women-only carriages marked. Uber, DiDi, and Cabify are all reliable; regular taxis less so.
Prayer
Deeply Catholic — the Basilica of Guadalupe is the most-visited Catholic shrine in the world. Pre-Hispanic spiritual traditions survive at Teotihuacán and Xochimilco.