The servers, bartenders and pooch walkers of the trendiest quarters will accommodate you β even as young chilangos grouse about the rising rents and declining authenticity these interlopers have wrought. None of this would be possible, however β or indeed bearable β without some of the finest restaurants on earth serving grub, both Mexican and Mexican-adjacent, that has made CDMX a city on a culinary par with Bangkok and Mumbai , Paris and Rome. I check in to the year-old Ritz-Carlton, which is huddled in a cluster of space-age skyscrapers on the central Paseo de la Reforma.
On one side of the park, I spy the upscale Polanco neighbourhood and on the other, the jet-setting Condesa and Roma Norte. The reason? The tuna tostadas. The combination of chipotle and avocado may be familiar, but placing the raw fish in your mouth is akin to tasting silk. I follow up with an afternoon mezcal and a ceviche of red clams and cherry tomatoes, but nothing can quite match the genius of the appetiser, except maybe the soothing fresh fig tart at the end of the meal.
I take an important nap, then meet my friend David Lida, author of First Stop in the New World , widely considered to be the definitive guide to Mexico City. David has spent the better part of his adult life in CDMX. He has loved and lost here, been battered and captivated, but most of all he has drunk and eaten well. As we walk and kibitz around Roma Norte, he points out the palimpsest of old and new places that have grafted themselves upon the 19th-century French-inspired architecture.
After discussing the merits of a dozen restaurants, we continue my seafood theme at La Docena, an import from Guadalajara. In between redistributing his pesos to children selling schlock on the busy street out front, David introduces me to chilpachole.
After dinner, we visit the apartment of our mutual friend Diego Salazar, a reporter I first met in Madrid. The last time I saw him in Europe we barely made it home, but we are both older and married now and, instead of being devotees of long, boozy nights, we are proper burghers who dream of square footage.
