City Stories: Restaurante Don Lázaro El Viajero at 80
Good Food in Mexico City
by Nicholas Gilman
4M ago
ESPAÑOL “There are 8 million stories in the Naked City” asserted the narrator of that old New York-set TV series. Here in CDMX there are more like 18 million. And Don Lázaro is one of them. Back in 1944, Lázaro L. Torra, a Spanish Jew, arrived in a post-revolutionary Mexico welcoming to exiles of every description, without a peso in his pocket. The enterprising immigrant saw that just about every housewife was busy cooking up the same beans and rice every day so he opened an unheard-of take-away beans and rice stall, to save some the trouble. The business, located in the then solidly middle-c ..read more
Visit website
Painting the Town Red: Old Time Cantinas & Bars
Good Food in Mexico City
by Nicholas Gilman
5M ago
El Tio Pepe photo: Juan de Díos The cantina is Mexico’s answer to the British pub. It has, since the 19th century, been an essential element of urban Mexican life. Despite the arrival of fast-food chains, cocktail bars and other contemporary hangouts, old-style cantinas have remained popular and have had a resurgence in popularity in recent years. There are lots of historic cantinas and bars with great old-time atmosphere, especially in the Centro, some serving food or free appetizers; the opening date, in parentheses, follows the name. Cantina La Montañosa (1948) This traditional cantina ser ..read more
Visit website
Taco Time: Cochinita @ Mi Taco Yucateco
Good Food in Mexico City
by Nicholas Gilman
5M ago
ESPAÑOL The Yucatan peninsula’s renowned dish, cochinita pibil, is pork slathered in citrus and achiote paste then wrapped in banana leaves and roasted in an outdoor pit called a “pib” till falling-apart tender. Tacos of the meat are dressed with pickled red onions and fiery habanero salsa. In the city, the dish is made on the stove but can be almost as good as that cooked the traditional way.  There are a number of venues for cochinita in the city; I’ve tried them all; this one has always been one of my favorites. This tiny taqueria purveying excellent cochinita tacos used to be just a ..read more
Visit website
Taco Time: Amor y Tacos
Good Food in Mexico City
by Nicholas Gilman
7M ago
A trip down memory lane ESPAÑOL Amor y Tacos “desde 1958” Amor y Tacos, which proudly proclaims its age in its title (“since 1958”), occupied a cavernous space just east of the Zócalo or decades on the pedestrian Corregidora. It survived the pandemic but not the ravages of real estate avarice: its locale has been supplanted by a Burger King. The good news is that this venerable downtown institution has reappeared a few blocks away, near what was once our city’s “Ladies Mile” i.e. the confluence of grand department stores, only one of which, Palacio de Hierro, is extant. It continues to offer ..read more
Visit website
Taco Time: Castacán, Yucatecan Pork Done Right
Good Food in Mexico City
by Nicholas Gilman
8M ago
Castacán, named for the carnitas-style crunchy pork belly as it is done in the Yucatan, is an infinitely likable new taqueria designed for lovers of that southern regions’ renowned pork concoctions. It’s set on a quiet corner of Roma Norte and features décor recalling mid-century urban taco joints once common in the capital, complete with hand-painted signs, tubular folding chairs, tiled walls and pass-through-to-street service. But the populist façade belies an enlightened 21st-century sensibility: ingredients, principally the Berkshire pigs, free-range chicken and corn are grown on small far ..read more
Visit website
A Room with a View: Mexico City from Above
Good Food in Mexico City
by Nicholas Gilman
9M ago
The combination of a beautiful view and great food is hard to find. Too often I’ve tolerated ‘meh’ meals backed by spectacular vistas, from the rooftops of Paris to the docks of Singapore. We spent one Fourth of July on the 50th floor in a mid-town Manhattan clip-joint downing watery martinis accompanied by cheese hors- d’oeuvres – Miss C. remarked that she was sure they were done with “Whiz, right out of the jar” and indeed they were. The managements of such venues tend to feel that the sight of a city or seascape is enough to warrant high prices and lack of attention (to put it kindly) in th ..read more
Visit website
Tortas in la CDMX
Good Food in Mexico City
by Nicholas Gilman
9M ago
The torta, Mexico’s version of the sandwich, is the quintessential comida capitalina – fast food that is both European and truly Mexican. According to legend, tortas were “invented” at the turn of the 20th century by one Sr. Armando, an Italian immigrant, as his riff on the Italian panino, adapting it to available ingredients like roast pork and locals’ penchant for avocado and chili. His family restaurant still exists, although I find their tortas insipid – perhaps Don Armando took the recipes to the grave with him. Prepared by a specialist called a tortero, a soft roll called a bolillo or t ..read more
Visit website
Chinese for Chinese – the Real Thing (Part 1)
Good Food in Mexico City
by Nicholas Gilman
9M ago
When people ask me what I miss about my former life in the Big Apple, my usual answer is “family, friends, and good Chinese food.” To make authentic foreign food, you need authentic foreigners, and Mexico City, unlike other great world metropolises, is not so culturally diverse for its size– most people here are Mexican. So if, like me, you’ve slogged through gloppy, celery and corn-starch-laden meals in our ersatz ‘Chinatown’ (Calle Dolores in the Centro Histórico), or paid through the nose for disguised chop suey in Lomas, you’ll be happy to know that there is good, genuine Asian food in thi ..read more
Visit website
City Focus: Kolkata
Good Food in Mexico City
by Nicholas Gilman
10M ago
Reprinted courtesy Foodservice Consultant Magazine, Spring 2023 ..read more
Visit website
Where to Buy Chinese & Asian Ingredients in CDMX (copia)
Good Food in Mexico City
by Nicholas Gilman
11M ago
I take a brief pause from my usual review column to fill in do-it-yourselfers on my favorite sources for buying Asian products. Mexico City has become increasingly international, especially since the pandemic. And there seems to have been an influx of Asian, particularly Chinese, immigrants. The rather non-descript Colonia Viaducto Piedad (at metro Viaducto on the blue line) is one Chinese residential area where some good restaurants are located and others are scattered throughout the city, several clustered towards the western end of Polanco, that cater almost exclusively to them. The good ne ..read more
Visit website

Follow Good Food in Mexico City on FeedSpot

Continue with Google
Continue with Apple
OR