One Day, Three Meals
It’s early morning in Mexico City. Say 8:00 AM and there’s already a line outside of La Fonda Margarita restaurant. Small, unpretentious and tucked in the quiet neighborhood of Colonia Del Valle, the hungry crowd is a melting pot of locals, sleepy teens, construction workers, and of course, tourists. You’ve come for the best breakfast in town so expect to wait (but hopefully not too long, the food usually runs out by 11 AM).
Inside, the dining room is strewn with long communal tables and plastic benches. Amid the clinks and clanks of the open kitchen, the owner, Margarita Lugo de Castillo, stands behind a counter keeping a watchful eye. Sit back, order a warm cup of cafe de olla (black coffee steeped with cinnamon and piloncillo) and watch the inner workings of homespun magic; the kind you only get in a place like this.
Then, don’t waste any time ordering the life-affirming frijoles negro con huevos, a mound of scrambled eggs and lard-rendered refried black beans. As for rotating specials, there are guisados, homespun hearty stews (that the kitchen has been cooking all night) with tender chunks of meat simmering in massive coal-fired ceramic cauldrons called cazuelas.
The glistening pork guisado is served with a tangy salsa and stacks of steaming tortillas (for dipping into a smattering of smoky salsas). You can also opt for the chicharrón en salsa verde (crispy pork skins in green salsa) and bistec en pasilla (thin steak in pasilla chile salsa). Maybe you’ll order all three. Whatever you do, dunk your warm sugary churro in your third cup of cafe de olla.
Outside, people are still lined up. Lucky them. La Fonda lives up to the hype.
Now, for a siesta, until….lunch.
In a quiet pocket of La Roma, you arrive at Maximo Bistrot. Here, chef Eduardo Garcia (who cooked at NYC’s Le Bernardin and Mexico City’s Pujol) creates farm-to-table French plates made with local Mexican-grown ingredients, many of which come from the nearby chinampas of Xochimiclo. The dining room is minimalist: a white brick-meets-stone affair with wooden chairs and tables.
The crowd is quiet and discerning. The food? Well, deceptively simple. A hunk of crusty-soft French table bread finds its way into a silky, roasted eggplant ash (that chef Garcia created after cooking over a campfire). You might also try a red snapper with lentils, a rib eye with a beaujolais reduction and Jerusalem artichoke puree, or perhaps you’ll nosh on the mussels with coconut and saffron. Pair your meal with a beer or bring your own bottle (the corkage fee is around 300 pesos). Dessert? It’s always changing but you’ll enjoy the palate-cleansing strawberries with rhubarb sorbet and creme fraiche.
And now for supper.
It’s true, all roads lead back to Pujol, chef Enrique Olvera’s timeless, mid-century bastion. Tonight, you pull up a seat at the low-flung, 10-seat bar for the sushi-inspired “taco omakase.” Little bites with big ambitions. Carve out a few hours, you’ll be here for a while.
First, a trio of street snacks. A blue corn tostada with salted escamoles (ant larvae known as “Mexican caviar''), a chilled white corn tofu with a chile on top and the famed baby corn coated with chile chicatana mayo. You taste the sea with a bite of the silky baja scallop tostada with black sesame seeds, cilantro and burnt chile. Your glasses (one featuring Sauvignon Blanc from Valle de Guadalupe and the other a sipping mezcal) never go empty.
The food continues to fan out. A soft shell crab taco with shishito pepper, shiso leaf and just-sweet-enough tomato marmalade. There’s an eggplant taco with hoja santa, hummus and suisho. It’s a loving and gradual assault on the senses. The amberjack taco with avocado and seaweed is served with Mexican sake. The main event is the aged mole madre, mole nuevo; a triangle nixtamal tortilla slathered in deep, slow-roasted spices and topped with toasted sesame seeds.
At the meal’s end, you’re ushered to the leafy candle-lit patio for dessert. Another delicately fried churro makes its way onto your plate (to which you might say: start your day with churros, end your day with churros).
The night is hardly over, and tomorrow is dedicated to the city’s best street tacos. Now you understand slow, languid movements are required for this kind of eating. As for discretion? Of course, that is entirely up to you.
