Under constant revision

This is chiefly a guide for visitors to the National University who are staying at one of the hotels in the south of the city. I start with a few general fall backs which you are bound to encounter. These are not for the gourmet experience but simply places that play a role in the life of Mexico City.

Sanborns (in shopping centres and strategic locations across Mexico City and Mexico as a whole). This is a Mexican institution. It was founded at the beginning of the twentieth century by Americans. It’s a glorified drugstore with lots of businessmen who breakfast, and ladies who lunch. The food ranges from unexciting to bad and the coffee, as one friend put it, tastes like sock soup. The chicken soup is usually reliable. And by reputation Sanborns launched enchiladas suizas on the world. You come because you know just what you are getting into, to pick up medicines in the drugstore, to buy from the wide range of newspapers, magazines, to get access to a bigger range of books than is normally available. Because Sanborns is now owned by Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man and owner of Telmex, there’s wireless internet access.

Palacio de Hierro. Mexico’s most upmarket department store. Good deli and wine store. OK restaurants in some places. Lunch restaurants really.

Liverpool. The competitor to Palacio de Hierro. In Perisur and probably other locations it has a deli and bakery that you can use to stock up for the hotel room. Or you can eat there. Their pies, quiches, pastries, sandwiches are not bad at all, also cheeses, cold meats, wine, etc.

VIPS. Attached to Wal-Marts across the City. “Family dining” in American parlance. When you don’t want to fuss with an upscale restaurant. You can get beer and wine. Similar chains are California, TOKS, etc, instantly recognisable by their décor, menu etc.

Jekemir. Nice small chain of Lebanese coffee shops. Have coffee and a sandwich or buy take out coffee, olives, tabbouleh, and other Lebanese delicacies.

Now to restaurants.

Perisur and Plaza Cuicuilco

Two big shopping plazas in the south of the city close to where lots of visitors to the University stay.

Food court in Perisur. Always crowded. Unlike American food courts it has real restaurants.

Taba, the sit down Argentine restaurant, has what Larry describes as the best hamburgers he has ever eaten. They’d better be at MN $100. I love the mollejas (sweetbreads).

Plaza Cuicuilco. Just within walking distance of the Radisson Paraiso, especially if you have been to the pyramid first. Lots of restaurants from the American TGIF to beer places. Flor y Canto is a nice Mexican restaurant especially if you can sit in the garden. The Argentine restaurant opposite is also good.

UNAM Campus

Azul y Oro in the Cultural Center. Lucky university. This cafe, run by Ricardo Muñoz, one of Mexico’s best chefs, is a cut about university food almost anywhere in the world. It serves Mexican and international food. Main dishes come in at less than $10. There’s an excellent mole oxaqueño with enchiladas, chicken, or deep-fried duck-stuffed ravioli. .

Or try a bean-stuffed filet of fish.

You can order from the menu, or at the counter, or sit outside by the fountain, surrounded by university faculty and graduate students. Busy at the dinner hour between 2 and 5. It’s open from breakfast to about 7 or 8. No alcohol. And there’s a new branch in the School of Engineering further north on the campus.

San Angel

One of the most prestigious of Mexico’s suburbs. The food market is great.

La Cava. One of Mexico City’s most long-standing up-market restaurants. It’s where you go for classic dishes such as leg of lamb or trout in a variety of different ways, with nary a nouvelle dish in sight. Some Mexican dishes and a good dessert tray including profiteroles filled with creme patisserie and lots of chocolate sauce. Meanwhile you watch politicians, businessmen and other movers and shakers catch up and (you suspect) cut deals in the tables spaced out around a central fountain. Insurgentes at the northwest corner of the Cuidad Universitaria. 5550 1106 or 5616 1376

Fonda San Angel. Plaza San Jacinto, San Angel. Mexican. Sit outside and watch the goings on in the square except perhaps for Saturdays when the Craft Fair takes place and everything is jam packed. The food is usually good though on my last visit the huazontle en chile pasilla was stringy, oversalted and came with mole not pasilla. Good base for prowling round old streets of San Angel as well as the Carmelite convent.

Trattoria della Casa Nuova (formerly Petit Cluny). Avenida de la Paz, San Angel. French-ish. Nice place for lunch. Its take out and deli is now sadly diminished though the bread is still excellent.

Bistro Mosaico. Avenida de la Paz 14 on the corner with Insurgentes. Fashionable, pleasant, nice garden setting. Also has deli with excellent bread and tempting-looking quiches, cakes, pies, pates, sausages, icecreams, and take out salads. Avoid buying sausages and pates (which are generally excellent) on Mondays as they are at the end of their shelf life. 55 50 97 78

Le Bistrot Litteraire. Inside the French bookstore. Small, delightful, good food.

San Angel Inn. Another of the city’s longstanding favorites. Fine Mexican food in an exhacienda.

La Taberna de Leon in Plaza Loreto, Monica Patino’s Mexican fusion restaurant has an excellent reputation.

West of Perisur on the Periferico

Tezka in the hotel Royal Pedregal is a Mexico City branch of the famed Basque restaurant run by the famous chef Arzak. Open for comida and in the evenings on weekends. Excellent. There is another branch in the center of the city.

South of the Periferico: Tlalpan

Lovely neighborhood in the south of the city, ten minutes from Perisur and UNAM in a taxi.

Restaurant Enrique. Insurgentes 4061. 5573-6459. Huge establishment with good renditions of meaty kinds of Mexican food usually found in spots in the country. Good jugo de carne (meat broth), barbacoa (lamb cooked in a pit)and carnitas (chunks of pork fried in their own fat). It’s fun if you want to listen to mariachis and watch big Mexican families out for a meal. They have a second restaurant on the other side of the alley that serves the same food but is much quieter. Open 8 am -10:30 pm every day. Music is usually sometime between 3 and 6. Also take out, catering, etc. www.enrique.com.mx

Arroyo.

Insurgentes a block or so before Enrique.  Another huge establishment with much the same menu as Enrique.  A long-time favorite in Mexico though for some reason we’ve not yet been there.

Ex-Hacienda de Tlalpan.

Peacocks in the garden, excellent Mexican food including a wide selection of insect dishes. Wander round the historic center afterwards.

North East of the Periferico/Insurgentes

Coyoacan

Together with San Angel and Tlalpan, one of the three upmarket suburbs in the south, all of them centered on old colonial towns.

Jardin del Pulpo

On the corner of the public market

Tamales Especiales Eventos Gastronómicas

All kinds of traditional tamales prepared under the watchful eye of Beatríz Ramírez Woolrich who is a real expert in the history of Mexican food. 55-54-59-96

Los Danzantes

Novo’s Cantina Gourmet

La Gruta Edhen.

One of Mexico City’s most venerable Lebanese restaurants. Big third and fourth generation Lebanese families dining. Good food.

El Tajin. Tucked away in the echoing Veracruz Cultural Center, this lovely place was one of the first to offer upmarket Mexican food. Run by Alicia Gironelli, a grand dame of Mexican food. Delicious. Open for breakfast and lunch.

Condessa/Roma

The newly-trendy area of Mexico City. Lots of old Art Deco buildings.

Ticoncito

Tacos al pastor

El Bajio

A great choice if you want to taste Mexican food. Parque Delta on Ave. Cuahetemoc. Owned and run by the delightful Carmen Delgollado.

El Raco

A delightful small restaurant where Alfonso Cuevas serves Spanish food with an emphasis on Catalan. You can sit outside and look at the Parque Mexico. Order a glass of cava and the huachinango (red snapper) baked in salt. Ave. Sonora.

La Botica

Campeche 396. Mezcal tastings

Frutos Prohibidos

Amsterdam 244. Fresh juice combinations

Condesa DF hotel.

View and drinks on the roof top terrace. Ave. Veracruz.

La Lampuga

Omestusco 1, esquina  Avenida Nueo León.  Fish.  We enjoyed a meal here: soft shell crab, fish and chips,  shrimp tacos, and a tuna tartare were all tasty and the prices very reasonable.

Polanco and the Chapultepec Area

The upmarket neighbourhood of central Mexico City.

El Izote.

Half an hour in a taxi from Perisur. Good if you visit the Museum of Anthropology. Upscale restaurant run by Patricia Quintana. Excellent.

Jaso.

Upscale restaurant run by chefs from New York. My visit was not a fair sample as it was late at night just before closing time. 88 Newton, Polanco. Phone 55 45 74 76.

El Jardin del Corregidor.

Just south of Chapultepec Park. Delightful restaurant particularly if you have a table in the garden. Self-described as international, the owners are from Galicia in Spain so that it has both Spanish and Mexican touches. The lions are family pets and really well cared for, ditto the guacamayas. The owners have two adjoining hotels, one inexpensive, the other, The Green Park, a lovely and well-priced luxury hotel with a fine dining room (The View) and views of the Park.

General Cano #22, San Miguel Chapultepec. Phone (01 55) 52 71 19 56. www.jardindelcorregidor.com.mx (with menu). reservaciones@jardindelcorregidor.com.mx

El Cardenal

El Lago de Chapultepec.

Lovely setting on the lake.