One of the many attractions that San Miguel de Allende holds for travelers is its reputation as an outstanding food city and we wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity to dine in some of the better restaurants in the city. While (as a general observation) we found restaurants there a bit more expensive than in most Mexican cities, we were consistently impressed with the quality of the food and found the prices to be reasonable when compared to what the same dollars would buy in a typical U.S. city.
It was not the defining factor in our choices of places to eat but in addition to the quality of the food & service, we also researched the proximity of restaurant options to our hotel and were thrilled to find so many really outstanding places that required less than a 10-minute walk.
After a full morning of exploring the city center on a historical walk with Patronato Pro Niños, our tour ended at a corner of El Jardin. After stopping to take a look at two Mojigangas (giant puppets) twirling in the street and then some people watching while taking a water break followed by a little crafts shopping; we walked about half a block to The Dôce-18 Concept House (Relox 18, Zona Centro, 37700 San Miguel de Allende); an upscale assembly of restaurants, bars and a wide range of trendy retail stores in search of Taco Lab. We found it located in the food court area of the large open space with tables shared by customers of several vendors.
Taco Lab is one of several forward thinking San Miguel restaurants owned by expat chefs Joe Hargrave and Donnie Masterson. Our orders of 3 (large) tacos on delicious handmade corn tortillas and a beverage were less than $10 USD per person; certainly not the cheapest tacos we’ve ever eaten but most definitely among the BEST tacos we’ve ever eaten.
Between our 2 orders we sampled cochinita pibil (slow roasted pork), grilled chicken, fried fish and my personal favorite: charred octopus with avocado. Several freshly made salsas in squeeze bottles on the table enhanced the flavors. This wasn’t the most authentic late night hot and sweaty taco experience in out of the way locations that we love but everything we ate at this meal was excellent.
Not only does La Posadita get excellent reviews it was also virtually across the street from the Hotel Casa Rosada lobby door so it was a relief to know that our walk through the light rain at the time of our reservation that night would be very short. We climbed the stairway to the rooftop patio and were seated at a table in a covered portion of the space.
We enjoyed a most excellent mezcal margarita and a dinner of traditional Mexican specialties prepared with a modern hand (like the Pasole shown in the above picture.)
Eventually the rain stopped and we could walk around the open areas of the terrace to take in the great views of the mountains in one direction and the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel in another.
The next morning we took a cab into the hills on the edge of the city and walk around El Charco del Ingenio, San Miguel’s desert botanical garden. On our return to the city center, our cab driver dropped us a block from El Jardin to avoid some traffic and as we walked towards the park, we realized we were on Calle Relox and would be passing by The Dôce-18 Concept House. In addition to not minding a 2nd meal at Taco Lab, we also had already had the thought to try Birdie’s Burgers, another Chef Masterson food counter located right next to Taco Lab in the food court area.
Birdie’s Burger is an offshoot of (Thursday) Burger Night at Chef Masterson’s very well regarded “The Restaurant”. The burgers are made from locally sourced grass fed organic beef (and other proteins) and the one we had was perfectly prepared and came with an order of very good fries.
Even before our good experiences with Taco Lab and Birdie’s we had decided to try “The Restaurant”, the crown jewel of Chef Masterson’s San Miguel establishments.
After the 2-block walk from our hotel, we entered a beautifully decorated (former) colonial home. There is some indoor seating and a lively bar area but we were seated under a lovely colonnade on the edge of the center courtyard.
We started our meal with a selection from the hand crafted specialty cocktail menu. Given our predilection towards traveling in South East Asia, we were intrigued by the BANG! KOK MARGARITA (Reposado Tequila, pineapple & ginger juice and lime), but with our appreciation of mezcal, we were drawn to the OAXACALACA (Reposado mezcal, homemade pineapple chipotle syrup, orange juice and a dash of lime.) Since we’ve returned home we’ve been experimenting with similar recipes using artisanal mezcals we bought later in this same trip while in Oaxaca.
We shared a plate of Shaved Brussels sprout and Kale salad (above) & Heirloom tomatoes with Burrata cheese (below) as starters with an order of Grilled Duck Breast with duck confit spring rolls and a plate of Seared Blue fin Tuna as our entrées. For desert we shared an order of Citrus Flan with Pepita brittle.
The space was beautiful, the food was excellent and the service was outstanding. This was the most expensive meal we enjoyed on the entire trip to Mexico but walked away feeling like we received our money’s worth. The Restaurant / Sollano 16, Colonia Centro / San Miguel de Allende / Tel: 4151547877
On our last evening in San Miguel, we walked a few blocks down cobble stone streets and after passing it by once, eventually found our way to the door of Nomada – Cocina de Interpretaction.
For the uninitiated, Chef Marko Antoine Cruz Sanchez and Chef Sofia Antillon are offering a tempting introduction into nouvelle Mexican cuisine in their small restaurant on Calle del Dr Ignacio Hernandez Macias.
We had read great things about their Wednesday night tasting menu but our reservation was on a Thursday so we were especially happy when offered a tasting menu that night. The menus change depending on what can be locally sourced by season so the dishes we had may or may not be available when you visit but I suspect many of these dishes regularly appear on the menu.
On the night we dined there, the meal started with Roasted Beets with lemon aioli, which was followed by a Cherry Tomato salad. Next was Rib eye steak with beef broth, chickpea, vegetables & cilantro and then a beautiful plate of creamy Mushroom Risotto. The final entrée was Plantain Molote with mole, guava and shaved radish. Dessert was the perfect ending to a wonderful meal: Guava sorbet with a blueberry and coconut panna cotta and mole crumble.
Every dish was presented as a little jewel on the plate and tasted as good as it looked. We had read some reviews that suggested the service was slow but that was not our experience at all and not only was it well timed, the servers were all very friendly. We enjoyed a nice Argentinian Malbec from a thoughtful wine list. If we lived in San Miguel Allende, we would be eating at Nomada on a regular basis.