My Favorite Bites in San Miguel de Allende
These are the things I eat and then find myself thinking about later. The dish I dream about.
Writing restaurant reviews in San Miguel de Allende is almost too difficult.
There are simply so many good restaurants. For the most part, you actually have to work at finding a bad meal here. Between the chefs, the extraordinary local ingredients, the beautiful old spaces and the sheer number of places to eat, San Miguel has great places to eat in spades.
So rather than attempt to review every restaurant I eat at, I’ve decided to keep a running list of my favorite bites in San Miguel.
Not necessarily my favorite restaurants. Not even necessarily the most sophisticated dishes. These are the things I eat and then find myself thinking about later. The dish I dream about. The tostada I suddenly need again. The salad I wish I could have for lunch today. The bite that makes me want to go back to a restaurant specifically for that one thing.
As I come across them, I’ll add them here.
Tostévere — Short Rib Tostada
Tostévere is a small, charming place with great tostadas and pizzettas, although I think the tostadas are the real stars. They also do some very good tacos, making it the sort of place where you could happily work your way through the menu.
But the dish I dream about is the short rib tostada.
There is a generous amount of wonderfully soft, tender meat piled onto the crisp tostada, with a lovely helping of greens alongside to cut through all that richness. It is hearty without feeling too heavy, and every bite has that combination of crisp, soft, savory and fresh that makes you immediately want another.
This is exactly the kind of dish I want to collect for this list: the ones I find myself thinking about long after the meal is over, and that make me want to return to a restaurant just to have them again.
A little tip: make a reservation if you can. Tostévere is small and does get booked up. It also has a very definite expat following, so expect to hear plenty of English. And best of all, they have a great cocktail menu.
https://restaurante.covermanager.com/tostevere/
Codo 4, Zona Centro, 37700 San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Áperi — Beet Salad
I love beet salad, so perhaps I’m an easy mark. But the beet salad at Áperi is something else entirely.
It arrives like a little work of art: beets in different colors and preparations, tiny pools of purée, jam and gel, dried beet, edible flowers and creamy horseradish-whipped goat cheese. And then there is the tiniest detail, the one I still think about: a nasturtium leaf dotted with little drops of white vinegar that look like dew.
It is one of those dishes that makes you appreciate just how far a humble beet can go. I loved it so much I wrote a whole article about it here.
Quebrada 101, Zona Centro, Centro, 37700 San Miguel de Allende, Gto.
Villa Santa Mónica — Squash Blossom Tacos
Villa Santa Mónica is one of those places I keep returning to. The beautiful old hacienda courtyard, the bougainvillea, the feeling that you’re having lunch at someone’s very elegant aunt’s house. I have written all about it here.
But the thing that earns it a place on this list is the squash blossom Tacos.
When they have it, I order it. It is the kind of dish I find myself hoping will be on the menu before I even sit down. It’s just so darn beautiful and delicious.
I could happily go to Villa Santa Mónica just for this.
BRUNCH: 9:00 TO 14:00 (Sunday only)
LUNCH: 13:00 TO 17:00
Atrio — The Brioche Bread
I know. A restaurant's complimentary bread probably isn't supposed to make anyone's list of favorite bites.
But then you haven't had the brioche at Atrio.
Atrio is one of San Miguel's lovely rooftop restaurants, perched above Cuna de Allende with that almost absurdly close view of the Parroquia. It's a wonderful place for a date: polished but relaxed, with good cocktails, a beautiful setting and food that doesn't disappoint. I've written about it before in my favorite San Miguel rooftop restaurants.
But back to the bread.
They bring out a little loaf of laminated brioche, all delicate, buttery layers that pull apart almost like a croissant. It arrives warm, with butter, and it is one of those things that makes you think, Oh, I'll just have a little.
You will not just have a little.
I've since discovered I'm not alone in this obsession. Diners mention the bread again and again, including one who described it as the best bread they'd ever eaten and said they were still thinking about it months later.
And now I have a question I desperately want answered:
How many of these things do they bake?
Because Atrio is a substantial restaurant, and the bread arrives complimentary at the beginning of the meal. I want to know how many little loaves disappear from that kitchen on a busy night. Fifty? A hundred? Two hundred?
I may have to ask.
Cuna de Allende 3
https://www.instagram.com/atriosma/?hl=en
Hortus — Baby Corn
There is something about Mexican baby corn.
At Hortus, whole baby ears are roasted until beautifully charred, then served with yogurt, brown butter and ponzu. The corn is sweet and smoky, the brown butter adds a lovely richness, the yogurt brings a little tang, and the ponzu cuts through it all with a bright hit of acidity.
It sounds simple, but it is one of those combinations where everything just works.
Hortus is one of the places I mention in my Where I Like to Lunch in San Miguel piece, and while there are plenty of things I like to eat there, the baby corn is the thing that has stayed with me.
Portal de Guadalupe 12
Quince- The Beef Aguachile
One of my all-time favorite dishes in San Miguel is the aguachile at Quince. And this isn't the shrimp version you might expect. Quince makes theirs with beautifully sliced beef, watermelon radish and a vivid aguachile, finished with an avocado-habanero mousse.
It is one of those dishes that stops you for a second when it arrives. The colors are extraordinary: ruby-red beef, those almost impossibly pretty rings of watermelon radish, bright green avocado and the punch of chile. But it isn't just a beautiful plate. The combination is fantastic. The richness of the beef against the sharp, spicy aguachile, the creamy avocado and the crisp peppery radish makes every bite feel completely alive.
I love it enough that it also made my list of rooftop favorites in San Miguel. Quince may be famous for the view, but dishes like their wonderful sushi/sashimi are why I keep going back for the food.
Cuna de Allende 15
Hierba Santa- Crema de Poblano
This is one of those dishes that makes me stop and look at it before I take the first bite. Hierba Santa’s crema de poblano arrives as a pool of brilliant green poblano soup with a golden, puffed corn shell sitting in the middle, filled with huitlacoche, with little bits of corn, chile and squash blossom scattered around it.
It is beautiful, but the beauty isn’t the point. Crack into that crisp corn shell and you get the earthy, almost mushroomy flavor of huitlacoche against the sweet corn and silky poblano soup, with epazote and serrano bringing everything into focus. There is something wonderfully clever about the dish: a soup, a corn snack and a huitlacoche filling all becoming one thing.
Everything at Hierba Santa is delicious and clearly made with great care. It’s one of my go-to places for lunch in San Miguel, and I’ve included it in my favorite San Miguel lunch spot list here.
Calz de La Aurora 48A, Guadalupe,
https://www.instagram.com/hierbasantacocinadelsur
San Mezcal- The Bandito
When your favorite bite is a cocktail
If you are looking for a good mezcal bar in San Miguel, San Mezcal is one to know. Tucked away on Calle Recreo, it is a small, characterful bar devoted to mezcal, with an impressive collection of bottles from across Mexico and bartenders who actually know their way around the stuff. The bar focuses on mezcal from nine Mexican states, and the current listings describe more than 100 bottles, along with a menu of mezcal cocktails and Mexican-inspired food.
You can come for a proper mezcal tasting, but you don't have to be a mezcal expert to enjoy it. The cocktails are inventive, the food is good enough to make a meal of, and it is the sort of place where you can easily sit down for one drink and end up staying much longer.
But our favorite thing to order is the Bandito.
There is something about this cocktail that completely gets us. It is smoky, spicy and bright, with mezcal, chile and lime, but the best part is the jalapeño that they torch before it goes into the drink. That little bit of char takes the whole thing somewhere else, adding a smoky, roasted edge to the fresh heat of the pepper.
It is the kind of cocktail where you keep going back for another sip because each one seems to hit a little differently: smoke, chile, citrus, mezcal and that charred jalapeño. And yes, technically it is a drink, but when your favorite bite is a cocktail, you know you've found a good one.
Recreo 88, Zona Centro, 37700 San Miguel de Allende, Gto.
