Lydia Carey

Before 1973, visitors to Mulegé, Mexico arrived by tiny prop plane on the dirt runway next to Hotel Serenidad. The airstrip was built in the 1950s, when the transpeninsular highway that runs north to south along the Baja peninsula was still just a dream in some civic engineer’s mind. The hotel’s longest-running owner, Don Johnson, was an early transplant to Baja California Sur, and he bought Hotel Serenidad in 1968 and turned it into the famed vacation spot it became during that era.

Colorful colonial-era towns give way to verdant inland landscapes, which morph into sun-burnt fields, which fade into lush coastline as the Tren Maya loops its way through Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Locals and government officials hope travelers will hop off the train to get to know the area’s many charming communities — and their culinary specialties.

This is an ongoing list of the best of the best in Mexico City restaurants. I am constantly updating this list as I visit new bars and restaurants for the various publications that I write for.

Longtime popular cruise ship destination, the port of Ensenada has been known more for its animated tourist bars and trinket shops than as a cultural and culinary hub—but all that is changing. These days, the city is holding its own against Tijuana, Valle de Guadalupe, and other nearby food hot spots. A population of young professionals, many who work in the wineries and fine dining restaurants of Valle, are choosing to live in the more affordable Ensenada and making it their own with moody b...

The floor of Vancouver’s J.W. Marriott ballroom reverberates from the dance music and buzz of conversation at the 2025 50 Best Bars of North America awards ceremony. Lining the edges of the room are stands sponsored by the event’s patron — Cointreau, Perrier, Rémy Martin and others. Team members from Mexico City’s Rayo bar make spritzes and negronis, as they stand bathed in the hot pink light of the Campari stand, unaware that Rayo will became one of the night’s most high-profile casualties, disappearing from the list completely, despite ranking fifth in last year — the only Mexican bar to be

I always tell people that these days Mexico City is more like London or New York than Oaxaca City or Guadalajara. While delicious traditional Mexican cuisine remains paramount, the city now has incredible Singaporean, Korean, Japanese and Indian food. Newcomers are introducing a whole new audience to regional cuisines from around the world with touches of mexicanidad that add to their specialness.
Young Mexican chefs have moved beyond moles and molcajetes to create thrilling contemporary Mexi...

Second in a series on female winemakers in Baja California

Things are going well for women’s representation in Mexico recently, with the first female president, second female mayor of Mexico City and historic numbers of women all taking political office in the last months. And the trend isn’t limited to politics: traveling through Baja California, you’ll also notice that many of the top wineries are led by passionate female winemakers, who lead both the production process and the businesses themselves.

Mexico City offers a wealth of culture, food, music and art. There is so much to see and do here that it would take you years to explore it all. After 14 years' living here, one of my favorite things about my adoptive hometown is that I will never run out of local experiences. CDMX, as it’s often called, is just a few hours from most major US cities, and in the Central Time zone making this the perfect weekend getaway for a group of friends who don’t want the hassle of jet lag but do want to be immersed in a completely different culture and vibe.

Besides my home base in Mexico City, Valle de Guadalupe and Ensenada in northern Baja California are my hands-down favorite places to eat in Mexico. The fresh seafood needs almost nothing added, the wine is outstanding and the chefs who live here have taken the culinary influences of the area and created a food scene that is a multicultural mosaic of flavor.

Billows of steam drift through the early morning sunlight that streams into the Real Minero mezcal distillery. Graciela Angeles Carreño watches as young men clear away the layers of earth and cloth that have encased six tons of agave hearts in the pit oven for the last several days. The air fills with the scent of burnt sugar as the cooked hearts are placed on pallets to dry before they’re chopped and mashed for fermentation.

In a country as massive as Mexico, with a selection of regional cuisine that is just as vast, it can be hard to know what to eat in Mexico. While Tex-Mex exports across the world teach us that every plate comes with refried beans, sour cream, and flour tortillas, spend any time in Mexico beyond the border and you will find that those expectations don’t meet the reality of food stands and Mexican restaurants.

On Sunday morning, the dining room at Le Fu is dominated by the soft tapping of bamboo dim sum steamers being shuffled around by the server behind the food line. “Hottest ones on the bottom,” she says to me as we point out our selection. Inside each bamboo steamer, or zhēnglóng, there are char siu bao buns with savory pork filling and Chinese five spice; ngao yuk, or Cantonese steamed beef meatballs with green onion; and pork and ginger rice paper dumplings slightly crispy on one side, along with dozens of other options. As it turns out, Chinese food in Mexico is serious business.

Travelers once sought out Mérida as a sleepy alternative to Yucatán’s buzzy beaches, but the peninsula’s inland capital has come into its own. The new Cancún-Mérida leg of the regional Tren Maya train line will clue in even more visitors to this bastion of regional cuisine, where patrons line up at market stalls like Taquería La Lupita for relleno negro and cochinita pibil tacos, or seek out roadside vendors for fried, Lebanese-ish kibi.

For some diners, eating anything but Mexican cuisine in what is one of the best cities in the world for it is blasphemy. But I would caution that ignoring the amazing new arrivals just because they are from a different culture or kitchen, is missing out on some of the most exciting dishes currently on offer here in the capital.