The next day I decide to level up on the gorging and meet Diego at Em, a Roma Norte farm-to-table where we are ushered upstairs to a small air-conditioned bar. The electricity has failed (which happens often, even in the best neighbourhoods) and the main dining room is out of service. Eating a £100 tasting menu in a small upstairs bar is very Mexico City. The food – Mexican, non-Mexican, Mexican-inspired – is revelatory. First comes a Japanese broth to relax the stomach, then a cavalcade of chilled corn tofu (heavenly), butter-soaked oysters, baby corn with yuzu, ant larvae in cilantro oil (melts on the tongue) and an aged duck breast with smoked bone dashi. Nine other dishes arrive, many celebrating the Mexican staple of corn, making creative use of butter and displaying a variety of Japanese influences. “Mexico City is living through its golden age,” says Diego over the roasted mamey tart covered with pine nuts and pixtle (the seed of the mamey fruit) ice cream.
Edible insects on display for purchase at Mercado de San JuanMaya Visnyei
On one of my last nights in town, Francisco takes me and David to his favourite old cantina, El Centenario in Condesa, which Ana calls latina, or “the bathtub,” because of its many ceramic tiles. This is true writers’ territory. “The Keith Richards of Mexican literature used to drink here,” says Francisco over mezcals and beer chasers. “And the Bret Easton Ellis too.” As often happens in a cantina, hunger strikes, so we head to San Rafael because Francisco’s friend, a local prosecutor who is “muy barrio” and hence knows the best food in town, recommends a brightly lit hole in the wall called Tacos El Güero. Its speciality is one of my favourite types of taco: the slow-cooked beef brisket known as tacos de suadero. Half the neighbourhood seems to be in line for one of these juicy beasts – perhaps the best taco I’ve ever eaten – cut over a large wooden sundial and garnished with salsa that a sign warns is “muy picosa”. “Bad suadero is greasy,” says Francisco. “But this…”
Then we take the moveable feast back to the bathtub to catch a boxing match. We cram into a cab and are soon weaving our way through the overpasses and past the Reforma skyline on the way to more drinks. “It’s 30 years later and I feel like I picked the right place,” says David, watching his city pass before us as it falls softly into night. As the other passengers murmur in assent, I rub my stomach contentedly, ready for whatever comes next.
