Mexico City

By Eduardo | @cazadordelomejor

If you’re a very early morning person who will eat lots during breakfast – Fonda Margarita is for you. If you’re not – you still need to go. It’s a true Mexico City breakfast experience. Lots of plate-licking involved.

Fondas are small, simple and unpretentious restaurants serving real, delicious inexpensive Mexican food. You feel as if your grandma was cooking some of her best dishes for you. Well, only if your grandma was Mexican, and had the best sazón.

My grandpa was the first person to introduce me to this 50-year-old fonda. I’m not super keen on waking up at 5:00 in the morning, yet will wake up without a problem just thinking that I’ll soon be wrapping a fresh tortilla around all the different guisados. They open at 5:30AM and that’s when everything is the freshest. This early in the morning you’ll be bound to encounter people who sneak in a quick breakfast before work and crazy people like myself who simply have a strong craving. Closing time depends on how fast all the food they have prepared for the day is eaten, which is usually around 11:00AM.

Long communal tables, an open kitchen, large casseroles, stacks of crispy churros, fast moving waiters and a live guitarist make up the feel of this place. Alberto Castillo, one of the three siblings who inherited the fonda from his hard-working mother will always be at the front of the kitchen, welcoming people as they walk in and making sure everything’s running smoothly.

Like most fondas, there’s new and different menu items every day of the week. There’s also the traditional dishes they’ve been preparing for years. Frijoles negros con huevo (black beans scrambled with eggs), chicharrón en salsa verde (crispy pork skins in tangy green salsa), bistec en pasilla (thin steak in pasilla chile salsa) are just a few of the classics. The communal seating allows you to take a peek at what everyone else is eating. The best way to make the most of the experience is to go with friends, order a variety and wrap everything you eat with a warm tortilla. Finish off your breakfast with a hot, sugary churro dipped in a steaming café de olla.

Thank you, abue Miki, for introducing me to one of my favorite breakfasts in Mexico City about 10 years ago, and to one of my close friends, Eduardo García, for the recent repeated visits.

Fonda Margarita, Adolfo Prieto 1364, Tlacoquemecatl del Valle, Ciudad de México

By Eduardo | @cazadordelomejor

Now-a-days, pan francés (French toast) is commonly said in Mexico City’s culinary neighborhoods thanks to Chef Eduardo García, one of Mexico’s most creative and admired chefs, highly known for his product-focused philosophy.

Lalo (Eduardo’s nickname in Spanish) grew up as a migrant worker in the US, he gained valuable kitchen experience from Chef Eric Ripert in New York and was deported back to Mexico on several occasions. Upon his last deportation, Eduardo came across an opportunity to work with Enrique Olvera as Chef de Cuisine at Pujol restaurant in Mexico City. Today, Lalo and his wife Gabriela own and operate three of the best restaurants in Mexico: Maximo Bistrot Local, Havre 77 and LALO!

Three years ago, Garcia’s iconic pan francés was introduced at LALO! – the more casual concept of the group. The first glance, walking into the restaurant, is of bright and colorful walls covered with graffiti by Belgian artist Bue The Warrior and a long communal wooden table filled with locals and foreigners alike. You’ll be able to spot lots of orders of pan francés on the table.

A lot of Mexicans, including myself, will line up for up to an hour on weekends just to have a bite and satisfy the craving. In fact, a lot of the restaurant’s hype and success is due to the large and thick slice of homemade brioche soaked in a vanilla-milk-egg-sugar mixture, fried in butter until crispy on the outside and topped with fresh whipped cream, mixed berries and blueberry compote. The most important component, what makes it so addictive, is the house-made brioche. Buttery, soft and moist, it took the team at LALO! time to perfect it.

Despite all the mouth-watering breakfast options there are in Mexico, I make room for pan francés at least once a week. Usually on Sunday mornings, with a side of bacon and two fried eggs to accompany.

LALO!, Zacatecas 173, Roma Norte, Ciudad de México

By Eduardo | @cazadordelomejor

In Mexico, there are infinite possibilities between two slices of bread. Mexicans are very creative. We’ve come up with all sorts of combinations. From a simple telera filled with mayo, beans, ham, quesillo and rajas to a more complex torta, which involves grabbing a whole different dish, such as tamales or chilaquiles, and incorporating them into the torta.

The torta is part of Mexican culture. It’s difficult for a Mexican to go through a day without saying, thinking about or eating one. On the way to work, I will probably pass by ten different torta shops. My office is four blocks from home. Whenever I walk by construction sites in the city during lunch hours, it’s hard for me not to notice the construction workers making tortas with soft teleras, freshly sliced ham and canned rajas and beans. My mouth immediately starts to water.

Most vendors that sell tortas in Mexico stick to one type, and they work hard to perfect it. Each torta maker has their own trick to making them better than the rest. Whether it’s getting rid of the migajón, brushing butter on each slice of bread, using a certain brand of mayonnaise or sourcing ingredients from their hometown. They’re convinced it makes the difference, and they’re right. For many it may seem simple to make a torta, but it’s the care and dedication of each ingredient that makes the difference.

My most recent torta experience was at Tortas Atlixco. The small, yet revamped, hole in the wall torta shop opened up in December 2016 and is owned by Arturo Ibarra, a Mexican torta aficionado, Sofía Aguilar, the owner of a creative branding firm in Mexico City and New York, and Juan Ángel Cordova, a Mexican entrepreneur. Arturo lived off tortas in Spain for years and has tried and experimented with all sorts of tortas. He’s managed to sophisticate the traditional Mexican torta at his tiny six seat shop.

To start off, the team at Tortas Atlixco has gone as far as to reach out to one of Mexico’s most recognized chefs, Elena Reygadas, to create a special, rustic and thick-crust sourdough bread exclusively for their use, as opposed to a traditional soft and airy bolillo or telera. If you’re familiar with the food scene in Mexico City, you’ll know that Elena is one of the most esteemed bread makers there is in the country and dedicates a lot of her time to perfecting the fermentation process of her creations. She was awarded Latin America’s Best Female Chef in 2014 by San Pellegrino and her main restaurant, Rosetta, is on the San Pellegrino list of Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants year after year.

The menu at Tortas Atlixco ranges from milanesa to chilaquiles tortas. Each is unique and the ingredients sourced will not travel more than ten blocks to arrive at Arturo’s kitchen. I quickly chose the chilaquiles torta off the menu. Each bite was memorable. The green tomatillo sauce was spicy and perfectly seasoned, the fried tortilla strips were crunchy, the breaded chicken was moist and the fresh cream, quesillo and thinly sliced red onion gave the torta a lot of flavor. Indeed, Elena’s sourdough is what brings everything together and is what makes Tortas Atlixco unique. Arturo has succeeded at maintaining the torta tradition, while improving only certain components he considers necessary to create a revolutionary torta.

Tortas Atlixco, Calle Atlixco 155, Condesa, Mexico City