The bubbling of a miniature waterfall melds with the twitter of birds and the sounds of the cats that chase them in the Asociación México Japonesa (The Mexican Japanese Association)’s outdoor gardens. A hodgepodge of cypress trees, elephant’s foot plants, and ferns frame the koi ponds surrounded by red umbrellaed tables. Once an area strictly for members of the AMJ, the outside patio now fills with diners of all stripes enjoying an afternoon at Restaurante ICHI, the association’s highly acclaimed restaurant. It all started in July of 1956 when a group of 20 Japanese immigrants and local Mexicans interested in Japanese culture decided to form the Asociación México Japonesa on a plot of land in the Las Águilas neighborhood.

After a long, hot day of shopping (locals) or visiting museums (tourists) in Mexico City’s Centro Histórico, La Azotea rooftop restaurant may seem like a mirage at first. Located on the terrace of Barrio Alameda, a boutique mall and Mexican Art Déco building that was charmingly restored several years ago, La Azotea looks out over green trees, colonial bell towers, blue-tiled cupolas and the avant-garde buildings of Mexico City’s center and Alameda Central park. This oasis is for real, says its bartender, Ángel Salatiel Flores (32), who is quenching people’s thirst with more than just sparkling water. Dating back to the 1920s, the Barrio Alameda building was constructed by a German doctor and soon after became a professional services buildings for folks like lawyers and accountants.

Back in 1972 when Marsicos Romulo’s opened at the Mercado 1 de Diciembre, a neighborhood market in Mexico City´s Colonia Narvarte, it was just a small seafood joint surrounded by fruit and vegetable stands. What started as a tiny bar with only three chairs soon became known for its fresh ingredients and abundance of dishes. Eventually, Romulo’s acquired the adjacent premises and a couple more stands just in front of the original, meaning a bigger kitchen and some tables for his customers. Ten years later, Romulo’s opened a full brick-and-mortar restaurant just one block away at Calle Uxmal 52, with the same name and food on offer. Even then, the original location in the market just kept growing.

In a town that runs on tacos, tacos de guisado may be the most ubiquitous version of the iconic dish in Mexico City. They can be found almost anywhere in the city, from specialty restaurants to markets, tianguis and street vendors selling them at stalls or even out of the trunk of a car. It may be an obvious point, but what distinguishes some tacos de guisado from others is how well prepared the guisados (home-style cooked meats or vegetables typically displayed and kept warm in earthenware dishes called cazuelas) are – and sometimes those coming out of the back of a car top ones from more “established” places. With so many places to choose from, how to determine who makes the best tacos de guisado in town? One contender we had long heard about is Beatricita, a brick-and-mortar taquería in the Zona Rosa that has quietly been using the same recipes to great acclaim for almost 110 years – certainly strong evidence that its guisados could be some of the best in the city.

Initially, it was books that led Fernando Rodriguez Delgado to his interest in cacao. Today Rodriguez runs Chocolate Macondo, a café that specializes in ancient preparations of cacao, but prior to that he was a bookseller, fanatical about reading and fascinated by the history of Mexico. The day that he came across the Florentine Codex, a 16th-century manuscript documenting Mesoamerican culture, was an important one: it would eventually spark his countrywide search to discover the traditions of cacao and seek out ingredients, the names of which he only knew in Nahuatl. Rodriguez didn’t speak this native language of Mexico, so trying to work out the recipes for cacao drinks he found in the codex was no easy task.

In Mesoamerica, beans have been a pillar of culinary traditions – not to mention civilizations – from time immemorial. Pre-Columbian peoples depended on legumes as their primary source of protein, but they were more than mere sustenance. Beans (along with corn) were some of the most important crops for sale at the local markets because they could be used as currency. Their value was based on the physical appearance of the product (color and size). The Aztecs included beans in the list of tributes that their vassal states had to pay. Bernardino de Sahagún, a Spanish friar, documented the use of beans in the Aztec empire, noting that the native people ate tamales mixed with beans. Storing and administering these crops was critical in order to be prepared for times of shortage.

“People say, when are you going to expand? when are you going to change locations?... never.” Chef Selene Montero sits at one of the eight tables that comprise her restaurant Malportaco – a play on the word malportado, or “badly behaved” in Spanish. Multicolored ribbons hang from strings attached to the wooden rooftop that covers the sidewalk diners. Around us waiters weave among regulars, handing out Barrilito beers, aguas frescas and Mexico City’s best vegan tacos. “My goal is for people to taste something here they can’t anywhere else, not because we are particularly badass, but because I have studied a lot about how to get to this point,” says Chef Selene, who started out post-college with a marketing degree that she says made her father happy but no one else, including her.

2022 has been another challenging year in countries around the world. Mexico is no exception, but here in Mexico City we’ve seen our megalopolis gradually return to the normal chaos we are used to. We were happy to see museums opening their doors, busy neighborhoods, streets teeming with people, businesses coming back to life, tourists in the trendy barrios and colonias, and more tour requests as Covid-19 restrictions were lifted little by little. People seemed anxious to get back out in the streets, parks and open spaces. Probably one of the few good things about the lockdown here was that many restaurants were allowed to set up tables on the sidewalks or even on the streets.

“Caliente!” Juan calls out, and we all duck to avoid the steaming hot pan as it floats across the kitchen. He holds one side with a folded up towel, the other with a pair of pliers. Kitchen might be a bit of a misnomer. The small stall sits on the sidewalk, with a temporary tin roof overhead and brand new white tarps tied tightly to the back to protect against Mexico City’s afternoon thunderstorms. Each day for the three weeks leading up to Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead holiday, Tito Garcia, the stand’s owner, and the rest of the crew, will make hundreds of pan de muerto sweet rolls, as part of the Jamaica Market’s holiday romería.

Pastel de tres leches is beloved throughout much of Latin America, and yet its origins remain a mystery. Some people claim that it was first baked in Nicaragua, others that the recipe was first printed on the label of a well-known brand of canned condensed milk in Mexico. Tres leches is usually a sponge cake soaked – as you might have guessed from the name – in a mixture of condensed, evaporated and regular milk, which might be flavored with vanilla, rum and cinnamon. The cake is baked and soaked in the milk mixture while it’s still warm and in the pan. It sits overnight so that the milk and flavorings thoroughly saturate every bite.

Tucked against the back wall of the Expendio de Maiz kitchen are three massive metal pots. Containing cloudy mixtures of corn kernels and limestone water, they seem to sit unattended, when in fact intermittent yet constant attention is being paid to their progress. What is happening is one of the most ancient and important processes birthed by Mesoamerica: nixtamalización. For a people whose main staple was corn, the discovery of nixtamalization was just as important as the domestication of corn itself. This process of mixing corn kernels in an alkaline solution not only loosens the husks of the corn kernels, making them easier to grind, but also provides all kinds of additional nutritional value.

On a neighborhood back street, hemmed in by cars on both sides, sits a house-turned-secret dance club, a girl selling Maruchan soup-in-a-cup under a pop-up tent, and La Chubechada – a tiny storefront with a cutout window just big enough for Maria Guadalupe to poke her head out and take your order. When your drink comes up and she hollers out your name, you better be quick on your feet to go pick it up. For tourists venturing out of the center of Mexico City, La Chubechada feels far from the trendy spotlight and more than a little intimidating, but upon arrival the place hums with a neighborhood vibe – kids hanging out and getting tipsy on the sidewalk with their friends, locals stopping by to say hello.

As you step into one of the gleaming chocolate-colored booths and slide along the ruby-red upholstered cushions, the nostalgia that permeates La Opera Bar is palpable. From an intimate corner booth you watch the hustle and bustle of the dining room, but remain inside your own dining world. One of the few centenarian businesses in Mexico City, the booths of La Opera have served as the meeting place of notable journalists, politicians, scoundrels and authors. Gabriel Garcia Marquez once refused some fans an autograph on a napkin, left the bar and returned an hour later with signed books for them. A faded newspaper clipping on the wall shows Carlos Monsiváis, José Luis Cuevas, Fernando Benitez and Carlos Fuentes seated around a table, deep in discussion.

It’s hot in Mexico City and Gerardo Vazquez, head chef of Nicos Restaurant, is thinking about cooling off. “Spring in Mexico City is hot,” he says, “And for me, it is very connected to Lent…so, fresh foods, cool things, vegetable-focused dishes.” Tostadas are on the menu at Nicos today – crunchy baked tortillas, one with a cobia fish ceviche, and another with smoked trout, yogurt, arugula and tomato – as well as an Acupulco ceviche with olives and capers, and a cool mango ceviche.

Sunlight filters through turn-of-the-century stainglass windows as the Cardenal waiters descend in but-ton-down white dress shirts and black vests. They offer a coffee, a concha, a hot chocolate – and in a flurry of dining activity you suddenly feel like the only person in the room. One of Mexico City‘s most well-loved eating establishments, El Cardenal overflows with extended families having Sunday lunch, tourists gawking at the restuarant‘s dining room murals, and long-time clients greeting the hos-tess by name as they pass by on the way to their favorite table. There’s a reason why El Cardenal is always mentioned in the best of the best restaurants in Mexico City. From humble origins, the restaurant has transformed into a veritable institution and has remained an iconic part of the community for over 50 years.