Chef Eduardo Palazuelos’s Mexican Thai cooking is on display at Zibu, located inside the Live Aqua San Miguel hotel. Palazuelos became well known in his hometown of Acapulco for his ability to effortlessly combine the flavors of two seemingly disparate culinary traditions. House specialties include golden noodle shrimp served with a creamy turmeric sauce and beef marrow tacos with ajillo-marinated octopus. The cocktail menu is considered the most memorable in the city.

Since 1963, Gorditas Doña Consuelo has delighted locals with nixtamalized corn huaraches, gorditas, and atole (a thick, corn-based hot beverage). The secret behind the longevity and local preference is the cooking technique: Instead of a comal, the corn dough is carefully laid on charcoal embers. The result is quite delicious since each bite carries a charred character, and the gorditas arrive quite hot and tender at the center. The best-seller is the chicharron gordita topped with cactus, pot beans, fresh crumble cheese, and red habanero salsa. Don’t skip the cacao peel atole, prepared with cacao and sweetened with sugar cane.

In a minimalist space with a lush patio in the back, La Cabra Iluminada is one of the best places in town for specialty coffee and plant-based food, quietly and masterfully showcasing SMA’s organic local bounty. Don’t miss the nixtamalized corn basket with milpa veggies, vegan Oaxacan cheese, and poblano sauce or the green enchiladas stuffed with pea cheese, zucchini, and black beans.

Chef Daniel Durán is behind Mexican specialties like slow-cooked tongue tacos, shrimp tostadas, and black aguachile with habanero. Ocre’s drinks are dangerously tasty with options like a Mandarin Sour or Clover Club. The daytime vibe here is relaxed, but blossoms into a bona fide scene at night.

Internationally acclaimed Bekeb sits on the rooftop terrace of the boutique hotel Casa Hoyos. The bar offers a centrally located post to soak up San Miguel de Allende’s stunning sunsets while sipping craft cocktails inspired by Mexico’s unique traditional beverages and ingredients. Fabiola Padilla, a Jalisco-native mixologist and former bartender at Cosme, uses a unique floral and herbal flavor palette that only comes with the understanding of fresh and locally sourced pulque and other agave spirits like sotol, bacanora, raicilla, and mezcal. In addition to house classics like a Lavender Sour, visitors can currently sample concoctions from the “Mexico Ancestral” menu, where each drink revolves around a specific ingredient like corn, tuna (suckling pear), aguamiel (fermented maguey sap), or garambullo — an acidic berry native to Guanajuato. Try the aguamiel mixed with pulque, cacao, cacao liqueur, and coconut foam.

Trazo 1810 is part of Casa 1810, a boutique hotel, and specializes in modern cuisine with a Mediterranean touch. The terrace is an ideal place for a hearty Mexican breakfast of enmoladas made with black mole sauce, fried plantains, and sour cream. If you stay for dinner, the beer-braised short ribs with carrots and Brussels sprouts are your best bet.

This is the place to experience San Miguel’s local ingredients at their peak. Áperi’s internationally celebrated tasting menu is exclusively sourced from area farmers and utilizes seafood from the northern regions of Mexico, while the dishes themselves lean Mexican with a few French flourishes. The intimate chef’s table experience at Áperi is another level — just be sure to book far in advance.

You are here for one thing: to drink mezcal. Located just a few blocks from the main square, this charming bar offers a short but very sweet mezcal list sourced from across Mexico, with an emphasis on Oaxaca. The selection covers all of the most popular varieties, from Espadin to Tobala and even Tepeztate, so it is a great place to cover your ABCs on Mexico’s most beloved spirit. If sipping it straight is not your thing, there are mezcal margaritas in flavors like ginger and mint, hibiscus flower, chile, and tangerine. A small selection of Oaxacan-style dishes brings it all together.

The main draw of Hortus is its location — it sits right on the main square of Jardín Allende. The restaurant took over a corner space inside an 18th-century mansion where diners can now enjoy a Mexican Mediterranean blend of flavors while overlooking the buoyant pedestrian plaza just a few steps away from San Miguel de Allende’s central neo-Gothic parish. Hortus takes a casual approach to its Italian influences while sprinkling Mexican flair here and there, and the menu follows a seasonal compass with a foundation of local ingredients. Look out for options like fresh ricotta cheese dip with squash blossoms, shrimp tagliatelle with sea-urchin sauce, and red snapper with habanero. Choose the main salon for a sit-down lunch or dinner, the small bar for an afternoon cocktail or a glass of Mexican wine, or the pastry window for a morning cup of coffee and a sweet bite on the go.

Located in a historic ochre-and-blue storefront, Lavanda Café is a small specialty coffee shop known for its signature drinks infused with lavender flowers. For the purists, a multitude of drip and espresso methods (Chemex, V60, cold brew) are also available, made with single-origin beans that highlight the best of Mexico’s coffee-growing regions, like Oaxaca, Veracruz, and Nayarit. Try the latte lavanda or mareado lavanda, a double espresso shaken with ice, lavender, and sugar cane. Cushion your stomach before all the caffeine with a classic breakfast like eggs Benedict or a BLT sandwich.

Huitzil, located inside the El Recinto boutique hotel, fits the bill for an intimate yet casual dinner — the experience is approachable and the food filling. The restaurant uses local ingredients and blends international and Mexican flavors in dishes like crispy chicken with peanut sauce and roasted carrots or crab cakes with creamy garlic sauce, watercress, and Parmesan cheese. Cocktail-wise, opt for a local riff like the Mexican mule or the flavored mezcalitas.

Chef Pablo Gil’s quest to reconnect diners with nourishing and locally grown ingredients makes Bennu one of the best casual places to eat in San Miguel de Allende. The focus — pizza and veggies — might seem generic, but Gil’s culinary work shines through the minutiae of ingredient sourcing and execution. The sourdough, for example, blends organic Mexican flour with Italian-sourced grains and rests for over 24 hours of fermentation. Try the Bestia, prepared with tomato, sobrasada with dried chiles, and smoked provolone. Vegetables are elegantly plated to bring forth the best flavors, like pibil cauliflower with pickled red onion or corn with pumpkin seed butter.

Tunki is a collaboration between Belmold’s Casa de Sierra Nevada hotel in SMA and Mexico City’s lauded Handshake Speakeasy. The cocktail bar offers diligent, friendly service and a short but sweet list of original drinks that will carry you through San Miguel’s sunsets, like the Flowerbomb — tequila, St. Germain, and orange blossom — and the Cariño, a creamy concoction with rum, yellow Chartreuse, vanilla, lemon, and Greek yogurt. The tapas menu is fresh and heavy on Peruvian-inspired seafood options like the Amazonian ceviche (catch of the day, lychee, and leche de tigre) and the patarashca fish marinated with ají, grilled and served with cassava. Book in advance to choose between the lounge, bar, or main dining-room seating.

The century-old cantina El Manantial is one of San Miguel de Allende’s most historic treasures. The bar is on the small side but works just fine to kick off a night out in the city with classic cocktails or sippers of tequila and mezcal. El Manantial is a regular hang for the local artist community, so be prepared to mingle with creative spirits.

Mestiza is a cozy little Mexican restaurant located on Aldama Street, one of San Miguel de Allende’s most photographed cobblestone streets. To access the restaurant, you walk through a boutique store that leads to Mestiza’s patio. In a town saturated with overpriced lunch options, this place stands out with solid food and friendly hospitality. The menu focuses on comal-style Oaxacan cooking and all-time Mexican favorites like green pipian mole, huitlacoche quesadillas, and cochinita pibil gorditas.

The breathtaking skyline of San Miguel de Allende is a composition of the Bajío plateau and mountain landscape, the majestic Baroque towers of San Miguel’s cathedral, and the tile roofs of the city’s colorful, historic buildings. On a warm evening, drink in the view (along with some libations) at Luna Rooftop Bar. It’s located inside the Rosewood Hotel overlooking the city’s beautiful architecture, and though it’s a hotel bar at heart, it’s also a great place for visitors to spend the afternoon with tapas and a round (or several) of the bar’s famous margaritas.

Since its opening in 2021, Panina has earned its status as the best bakery in town. It sits on a quiet cobblestone street, blocks away from the tourist enclave of SMA’s Zona Centro, double-dipping as a baking workshop and cafe, where visitors can find sourdough pastries, foamy lattes, and a friendly outdoor place to sit down and dive into the local vibe. Chef and baker Pau Carreno, who is at the forefront of the women-led project, can often be found geeking out over baking with whoever wants to listen. Add Panina to your itinerary for breakfast and enjoy the avocado toast with bacon and poached egg or the ham and cheese focaccia sandwich.

Visit Raíces, a locals’ favorite, for an off-the-beaten-path Mexican-style breakfast. Chef Vanessa Romero offers a menu rooted in homey flavors and recipes like molotes (deep-fried corn quesadillas), tarasca soup (a velvety bean soup), Oaxaca-style amarillo mole, an array of omelet options, and chilaquiles. The portions at Raíces are generous, but if you’re feeling extra hungry, order the “pregnant” chilaquiles, a unique creation of corn dough stuffed with crispy chicharron, doused with a morita chile sauce, and topped with crema and chile ash.