Food Basics

Everybody’s here for the Food.

Mexican cuisine is arguably the most influential in the world. While you’ll find Mexican Restaurants all over – there’s nowhere quite like Mexico City for authentic Mexican cooking, food, and the sheer experience of it. 

There’s a lot to learn. Part of what makes cooking (and eating) in Mexico City so interesting is that multiple regional cuisines meet here, interact, and combine. Purists share the same range with fusionist chefs and hardcore traditionalists. You can see them all in the Gastronomic Guide to Mexico City, mapped throughout the City. 

Mexico’s seven most important regional cuisines are roughly as follows. Mexico City is home to all of them. 

1. The North – which is heavier on beef than anywhere else in the country and gives us burritos, fajitas, and arracheras. 
2. The North Pacific Coast – from places like Jalisco, Nayarit, and Sonora, where we get the Pacific seafoods, marlin, shrimp, and even oyster chimichangas and enchiladas. 
3. Bajio and Huastecan cuisine – the enormity of Central Mexico: lots of barbacoa, tlacoyos, lamb, and rice based dishes!
4. The South Pacific Coast – Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas, with deep and exotic moles, and dishes made with platanos, and of course, Oaxaca cheese. 
5. The Gulf Coast – Veracruz and Tabasco have a unique, spicy take on seafood (especially), but there are tons of African, Caribbean, and Cuban influences in their peanut sauces, plantains, and salsas, too. 
6. Puebla – Nearby, but of a hugely influential history, poblano cooking is everywhere in Mexico City. (Sadly, very few chalupas are to be found, however.) 
7. Yucatan – Heavily Maya in character, there’s some European influence, but the flavors of the peninsula are ancient, often striking, and unique in the world.  

Within these pages, we hope to introduce you to some of it, issue a brief word of caution, and provide plenty of advice on how to avoid Moctezuma’s Revenge, to keep you healthy and coming back for more.  

Food Poisoning – and avoiding it!  |  Gastronomic Guide to Mexico City