Pasta, Vinilos y One Very Good Ravioli — Zimo, Mexico City
Sometimes, it just takes one dish to win someone over and make them want to return to your table.
Sometimes, it just takes one dish to win someone over and make them want to return to your table.
For me, the lemon ricotta ravioli at Zimo was it.
I'm not even a big pasta eater but it was pretty much love at first bite.
Hanging in their front window is a captivating display of fresh pasta drying. It's hard to walk past that and not be curious.
Inside, it's a sweet little place, intimate and minimalist, with candlelight, a record player spinning vinyl and a tiny bar. Their own description is "Pasta, Vinilos y Vino," and really, what more do you need?
We started with a beetroot salad with honey and truffle oil and a beef carpaccio with arugula. Both were solid, but neither particularly memorable. The focaccia, however, was very welcome, arriving warm in a basket for the table.
Then came the ravioli.
Before I'd even taken a bite, I was a goner. Totally seduced with my eyes.
The lemon ricotta ravioli was unctuous, with just enough lemon, bright but not cloying. Silky and indulgent. One bite and I was transported to the Amalfi Coast, with my glass of Prosecco in hand.
It was so good, we turned around and ordered another pasta.
The stracciatella ricotta ravioli with truffle arrived as one enormous ravioli. Then they made a show of shaving lots of fresh truffle over the top. It immediately transported me back to the 1990s, when truffle was everywhere and apparently the answer to every food dilemma, "Add more truffle." I miss those days. It was nice to revisit them.
Hidden inside the giant ravioli was a surprise: a perfectly cooked egg yolk that broke open into the cream sauce, mixing with the ricotta and truffle to create this gloriously rich, completely decadent mouthful.
And somehow, despite eating two pasta dishes, I didn't leave feeling like I had swallowed a bowling ball. I felt great, happy and very grateful to have landed such a good dinner.
Sadly, the night before, we had gone to a Korean restaurant and ordered their signature grilled meats: it was a symphony of gristle and despair.
Zimo's pasta made up for having lost a precious eating-out night in CDMX.
It's not trying to be a grand Italian restaurant. It's a small, somewhat reasonably priced, cozy Condesa spot where the pasta is the star, the vinyl is spinning, the candles are lit and the waiters are genuinely lovely. There were cannoli going past us that looked very tempting, but by that point, we had done enough damage.
Would I go back?
Absolutely. That lemon ravioli is calling me back and I stupidly missed the fried zucchini blossoms — my fav!
Zimo
Saltillo 42, Condesa CDMX
You can reserve on OpenTable.
On the weekends it gets quite full.