The best tacos, cantinas, pulque and classic restaurants in Mexico City

The first day I visited Mexico City, my host picked me up at the airport with a paper sign and took me directly to the enormous wholesale market Central de Abastos, which is about the size of 600 football fields. There, I tried my first barbacoa taco, tender and aromatic, and a bowl of barbacoa broth, from a tarped stall in the middle of everything. The goat was cooked in banana leaves right there in a ditch in the ground before us. That initial experience was utter sensory overload and a complete refutation to everything I thought I knew about Mexican food, and the art of eating itself. I knew there would be no turning back.

Everyone has a city they consider a second home, and “D.F.,” as I still call it, is that city for me. I wrote a book about the experience called “Down & Delirious in Mexico City” and hosted food videos from Mexico for Vice Media that I still get messages about nearly a decade later. These incursions in the culture gradually led to more and more friends and perfect strangers asking me for tips on what to eat and do when they decide to visit.

My answer is always the same: The secret to having a healthy and satisfying relationship to a place as infinite as Mexico City is to find your own favorite things and hold onto them dearly.

That said, everyone has a “list.” That’s your running, messy sheet of restaurants and sightseeing options for your favorite city that you only share with relatives or friends. After years of casually sharing my doc or snippets from it with close friends and family, I’m giving it sunshine and sharing an updated version with all of you — first, with my favorite dining options, and later, with a list of things I love to see and do.

This list is not comprehensive and eschews many of the “hot spots” that might appear in guides elsewhere. Its strength is not its breadth but its specificity: I concentrated most of my life in the Mexican capital in the orbit of its historic core, specifically in Colonia Centro and the barrio around Calle López, where I lived for many years. For eating, I’m not above a lavish white-tablecloth moment or an “elevated” cocktail, yet the truth is I still tend to focus on hardy mainstays, the classics that are beloved by the hard-working locals.

Everyone should have their own favorite taquero, coffee shop, fonda, neighborhood cantina and one or two globally ranked restaurants for that special occasion. The city, again, is unknowable. No two lists of favorites will ever be the same. Here is mine.

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