The Best Things That We Ate in Mexico City and Oaxaca

Oct 11, 2024

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the radio silence! We left last Friday for Mexico and I forgot to tell you I wouldn’t be doing a newsletter this Monday or Thursday. But here I am, it’s Friday, and I’m ready to tell you all about our amazing trip.

Our close friend Chris Dufault turned fifty on Tuesday and instead of hosting some lame old party at a restaurant (not that there’s anything wrong with that), he invited twenty (or more) of his closest friends on a three-part trip to Mexico starting in Mexico City, moving on to Oaxaca, and finishing in Zipolite. We signed on for parts one and two.

Our friend Chris, aka: The Birthday Boy.

I’d been to Mexico City once before, where we visited the greatest hits (the ones that were still open because it was New Year’s) including Pujol and Contramar. This time we started at a restaurant that our friend Josh called one of his “favorite restaurants in the world”: Lardo, an Italian restaurant with Mexican flair right next to our hotel in Condesa.

Everything that we ate there was delish, but this huitlacoche pizza — that’s Mexican corn fungus pizza — was outrageously good:

Look carefully on the lower left and you’ll see what looks like a piece of corn with a mushroom growing out of it… very cool!

We stayed at the same hotel this time that we stayed at last time: Condesa DF, a lovely, quirky hotel right in the middle of the Condesa district. Their breakfast buffet (included with your room) is very cute.

We had many terrific meals in Mexico City, but the one that stands out the most was our lunch at Expendio de Maiz Sin Nombre, suggested to me by food writer extraordinaire and Substack superstar Susan Spungen.

Expendio doesn’t take reservations: you show up, they take your number, and give you an approximate wait time. We showed up at one, got told “two hours,” and they called us an hour-and-a-half later. What followed was sort of a Mexican omakase — they brought out course-after-course and would keep going until we told them to stop.

The first course (the lead picture in this post) was a sort of quesadilla made with blue masa, as was the taco that you see above featuring pork and a bevy of other ingredients. This is definitely a “Top Five Taco of My Life” situation. The next one, which had all kinds of vegetables, was a bit more unwieldy but still delicious.

That night, a large group (the largest group of the trip), went to La Capital restaurant for Chris’s big birthday dinner.

I’d never heard of La Capital, but Chris had gone on a scouting trip to Mexico City to find a restaurant that would accommodate twenty people and still be really good. Turns out it was better than good; it was one of my favorite meals of the trip.

These tuna tostadas were beyond good; the thing that made them extra special were the potato chip-like burnt corn husks on top:

My pollo pastor was dreamy. I’d share a picture, but I need to save room for Oaxaca pics.

Leg Two of the trip, Oaxaca, was extra exciting for me because: (a) I’d never been; (b) I’m fascinated by Oaxacan cuisine.

Our first morning there, we went to Boulenc which should be mandatory for any visitor. Not just because the pastries and coffee are excellent, but because the atmosphere is delightful.

I loved the mug they served my cappuccino in:

Lunch that day was at Tacos del Carmen, a street stand right in the middle of town.

The chile rellenos taco and the chorizo tacos are not to be missed; especially when you watch them made right in front of you.

My favorite meal of the entire trip, though, took place at Levadura de Olla.

This was the most recommended restaurant and I can see why: the ingredients were all locally grown and indigenous to the region. That tomato salad was unlike any I’d ever had before. And this dish — a mushroom quesadilla in a spicy sauce — was mind-expanding, it was so complex both in texture and flavor.

Here’s a video I made of the entire journey that’ll bring some of this to life:

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A post shared by @amateurgourmet

I’m getting a notification that this post is too long for email so I’ll cut things off here. Trust me when I say we also ate molé, drank Mezcal, and did all of the things you’re supposed to do in Oaxaca.

To recap, these were my favorite places in Mexico City and Oaxaca:

Lardo, Agustín Melgar 6, Colonia Condesa, Cuauhtémoc, 06140 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico.
Expendio de Maiz, Av. Yucatán 84, Roma Nte., Cuauhtémoc, 06700 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico
Restaurante La Capital, Av Nuevo León 137, Colonia Condesa, Cuauhtémoc, 06140 Ciudad de México, CDMX, Mexico
Boulenc, C. Porfirio Díaz 207, RUTA INDEPENDENCIA, Centro, 68000 Oaxaca de Juárez, Oax., Mexico
Tacos del Carmen, Jesús Carranza 110, RUTA INDEPENDENCIA, Centro, 68000 Oaxaca de Juárez, Oax., Mexico
Levadura de Olla, C. de Manuel García Vigil 304, RUTA INDEPENDENCIA, Centro, 68000 Oaxaca de Juárez, Oax., Mexico