La Valise Hotel in Mexico City’s hip Roma Norte district is the perfect pied-a-terre for exploring the city’s best restaurants, bars and shopping. Each of the eight suites has its own celestial theme, and two of these—the Polaris Suite and the Cilene Suite—have beds on rails that can be rolled out onto private outdoor terraces so you can sleep under a canopy of trees. During a recent trip, I learned the value of having a walk-up apartment in Mexico City. I spent my first night in the city at an uber-luxe high-rise hotel. Sure, it was stunning, but I couldn’t feasibly get off the property without a driver, and it felt cut off from the experience I was there to have. As soon as we got to Roma to spend two nights at La Valise, I was exploring on foot and finished with cars for the rest of my trip.
Roma Norte (Roma, to locals) is easily and safely explored by foot, and it rewards you with pocket parks featuring lush greenery and fountains. There are little coffeeshops that look like nothing but a tiny doorway until you walk inside, and they expand into atriums filled with plants and local art. Or a little door in an otherwise shut-off-to-the-world historic building that you peek through to find a courtyard wine bar getting ready for the night. It’s an ambling bon vivant’s paradise. While there are many short-term rentals to be found in Roma, La Valise is the best of both worlds—just enough support from the front desk when you want it, but peaceful anonymity if you don’t. The staff are very helpful in pointing you in the right direction to explore the neighborhood, especially if you need to pop out to a pharmacy or do anything that you weren’t stalking on Instagram before getting there. Breakfast is served either at the adjoining café at street level, in your room, or not at all if you’d rather sleep in.
Unless you stay in Roma for a few months, you’ll be hard pressed to check out all the standout restaurants concentrated in the area, and there are a few spots that I found to be well worth a visit for a shorter stay. Michelin-starred Restaurante Rosetta lived up to the hype. You walk through a vine-covered archway and enter an atrium dining room with trees, plants and hanging vines against white walls painted in leafy frescoes. The food from chef Elena Reygadas is fantastic, but unexpectedly, it was the Hoja Santa (Mexican Pepper leaf) and white chocolate dessert that I still remember most, several months later. Across the street is the Panaderia Rosetta, the restaurant’s sister bakery that always has a line, but it’s worth waiting in. One tip that may help: The larger line is for people waiting for a table, so if you want your espresso, chocolate croissants and their famous guava bread to go, it’s much quicker. Marmota is a mix of Pacific Northwest and Mexico City cuisine, inspired by the time chefs Federico Patiño and Poppy Powell spent in the states. Sitting at the big concrete slab communal table, I sipped a mezcal cocktail with a cricket garnish, accompanied by charred oysters and a divine cheeseburger while watching the cooks working over an open fire.
Seafood is a big deal in Mexico City and worth a dedicated meal (or two). For the best seafood in Roma Norte, Mi Compa Chava has a lively energy and a tableside ceviche tower service that will knock your socks off. The energy in the dining room makes you want to stay here and sip ice-cold Pacifico and eat fresh tuna and charred garlic shrimp all afternoon. For a more classic Mexico City seafood experience, head to Contramar, where the Friday lunch scene will give you a fly-on-the-wall snapshot of the local bourgeoisie. Waiters are long-tenured here, and I felt like the only guest who didn’t have a favorite table, but the fish tacos were served at lightning speed, and I relished them at the same pace. For happy hour or after-dinner drinks, Loup Bar and Hugo el wine bar are both great spots for natural wine and hors d’oeuvres, where you’ll be surrounded by local cool kids, expats, and travelers in the know. For late night, Las Brujas (The Witches) is right around the corner from Marmota, a vibey and crowded bar with great cocktails and exactly the brash bartender attitude (and body art) you hope to find in a cool Mexico City watering hole.
For daytime diversions, the Salon De Agave offers private agave spirits tastings that will blow your mind. Canadian-born founder Megs Miller has a freakish degree of knowledge about the spirit segment, and she will school you in the ways each species can affect you differently. There are mellow versions, high-energy versions, happy versions—whatever your mood there’s an agave for that. It was an eye-opening afternoon in a neo-colonial building where you can sip neat mezcals and listen to Miller riff on her life’s passion. I visited with the team from Mijenta Tequila, an ultra-premium label with a female master distiller who’s legendary in the industry. Tasting it there alongside a flight of agaves from Miller, I acquired a new appreciation for the badass women of the Mexican spirits world. The neighboring Condesa neighborhood is just as lovely as Roma, if a bit quieter. It’s worth walking over to Avenida Amsterdam for a coffee at Qūentin Café, then strolling around the circular boulevard. If you’re up for a bit of a trek, Xochimilco is a series of canals on the southern edge of the city that offer a glimpse into the Aztec past. Building islands on water to grow food was an early form of hydroponics that fed the Aztec Empire. This network of small farms and canals still exists, and it’s where some of the produce is grown for the city’s best restaurants.
Arca Tierra is a biodynamic farm that supplies Michelin-starred restaurants with produce, and you can visit the farm by boat for a feast prepared by hand with ingredients grown a few steps away. Even without the stellar meal, the boat ride alone is fascinating—passing farmers with produce in overloaded canoes or the flat-boat cruises bedecked with arches made of fresh flowers bearing the name of whoever’s birthday or graduation is being celebrated. Then again, you may just want to stay in Roma the whole time and never get in a car between airport rides. Truth be told, that is the version of the trip I can’t wait to do again.
