Colima 71

I’d spent two days in a tropical paradise in the Yucatán, so Mexico City felt raw, hectic and disorientating when I flew in. Luckily, awaiting me was Colima 71, a little oasis amid the urban backdrop of Roma Norte. It’s a creative community hub, encouraging kindred spirits to commune over good coffee, courtyard cocktails and artwork admiration, before hitting the best restaurants in town, many of which are within a swift stumble home. These include Panadería Rosetta, the hottest bakery in town, which helpfully has partnered with the hotel – its oversize pastries arrive at your door each morning or you can order any of its more substantial Mexican-Italian plates to enjoy in your kitchenette. Mezcal and Mexican chocolate are served when you arrive, as a sort of herald to the epicurean escape that’s about to commence.

Artworks on show at the boutique hotel include a grid of black-and-white framed photographs from the owner’s collection meticulously arranged on a wall, and a towering string of tyres descending the length of the stairwell, which looks like a chic fire escape. 

Roma Norte is a relaxed neighborhood with a boho pace about it. The streets, mostly made up of colonial-era façades, but peppered by the odd bit of brutalism as well as more hyper-contemporary constructions, are lined with vintage clothing stores, coffee shops and art galleries, all sitting beneath draping trees, which feel like they’re somehow nurturing the artisanal spirit of the streets below them.

I ventured out and soon stumbled past a woman sitting on a low stool making hand-pressed blue-corn tortillas and filling them with nopal (cactus pads) and Oaxacan cheese, before cooking them on the plancha and adding a liberal topping of salsa rojo. Her stall was part of a small artisanal food market that runs here at weekends. 

After a busy day of taco consumption, flânerie and a visit to the city’s phenomenal anthropology museum, I appreciated the comforts of the room and its general mood of soft brutalism: grey-washed walls meet organic wood. There were more beautiful black-and-white photographs featuring indigenous objects on the walls, dried flowers in a vase, clay cups, wooden bowls and woven hand towels with frayed edges. 

A shower with Mayan honey soap made me feel replenished and the bed was phenomenal, frankly, so after a restful night’s sleep, I felt ready to consume again, if not quite to face the city — and so breakfast in bed was much appreciated. I ordered it the night before, as was requested, and had a very good tamales — a Mexican dish of cornmeal steamed in plantain leaves with green salsa. Alongside it was a guava roll from Rosetta. The bakery is only down the road, but this saved me from having to endure an inevitably enormous queue. 

On the food and drink recommendations, there’s also a wonderful female-run cocktail bar nearby called Las Brujas, with a comic-book menu. I had a La Matlazihua, named after a female monster from a Oaxacan legend, which was a blend of mezcal, grasshopper brine and camomile liqueur. There’s also a wine bar called Loup where I got my natural-wine fix — it has a menu cooked up by a chef who used to work at Pujol on hand if you’re hungry. The best tacos I ate were at Maizajo, a taquería on the edge of Roma; and the marisquería (or ‘seafood restaurant’) Mi Compa Chava has a queue for a reason — it is a must-visit. 

A short taxi ride away in Polanco is Quintonil, an acclaimed restaurant where Jorge Vallejo’s precise, elegant cookery took me on a journey across the regional cuisines of the country. You won’t find a meal at a twice-Michelin-starred restaurant for that cheap this side of the Atlantic. But the main thing is that it’s a restaurant that has a profound respect for where it is. The same can be said for Colima 71.