The most repeated chants were “Fuera Gringos!” — Gringos out! — and “No se van a ir, los vamos a sacar”: “They aren’t going to leave, we’re going to kick them out.” These were joined by signs reading “Gringo culero, my people are first” and “We don’t hate you because you are gringos, we hate you because you’re culerxs.” The word “culero” has a variety of meanings, including coward, disloyal, freeloader and asshole.

The aftermath of the march included broken storefronts, looting, and graffiti that read “Learn Spanish” and “Gringos go back to your f*cking country” — making it all feel like it could have been right at home in MAGA country in the United States, with the obvious difference that there, the slogans would be anti-Mexican.

Mexico City, like all great cities, is essentially multicultural. Since its foundation, it has been home to immigrants and transplants. In the past several years, the city has seen an increase in the number of foreign residents — particularly from the United States — living in a handful of neighborhoods at the city’s center, specifically Roma, Condesa, Polanco and the Historic Center. Official statistics from Segob cite the city-wide population of U.S.-born residents at 19,122 in 2022, an increase of almost 70% from 2019 but still only 18% of the over 100,000 foreign-born residents in a city of more than 9 million people.

Despite those low percentages, social media videos abound about how the city’s salsa is no longer spicy and that everywhere one goes in the aforementioned neighborhoods mentioned, you will hear English spoken and be offered English-language menus. And the biggest complaint is gentrification, which residents like these protesters blame on the influx of digital nomads and other foreigners with greater buying power.

The anger about gentrification is real and valid. It’s a global phenomenon and we have seen similar demonstrations in cities across the world in the past several decades. Rising rents displace long-standing residents while big chains homogenize neighborhoods and push out local businesses while creating long commutes for minimum wage workers who can’t afford to live in the neighborhoods where they work. All of these realities are alarming symptoms of a free-market economy where the spoils — in this case, homes and a central location — go to those who can pay the highest price.

The gentrification in Mexico City is multifaceted and its roots include real estate speculation, the deluge of vacation rentals, an extreme lack of not only affordable housing but housing in general, and the centralization of economic and cultural activity in the city center, among many other factors.

Long-standing tensions stemming from U.S. policies towards Mexico and Mexican immigrants have only added fuel to the fire. But the idea that the gentrification of Mexico City is due to a handful of digital nomads from the pandemic onward is misleading at best. This process has been a long time coming and from a lot of different directions.

Cities, by their very nature, are in a constant process of evolving, shifting and changing, and Mexico City is no different. As a single example, in the early 20th century, Roma and Condesa were built as enclaves for the urban elites, old-moneyed Mexicans as well as industrialists who got rich during the government of Porfirio Díaz. In designing these neighborhoods, city planners were responding to an overflowing Historic Center that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries more than doubled in population.

In the 1920s, a community of Syrian Jews moved from the Historic Center into La Roma, making it very much their own, with Jewish bakeries and kosher butchers in the Mercado Medellín. In the 1940s and ‘50s, migrants from rural areas of Mexico migrated massively into the city in search of work, and European refugees from both World Wars were welcomed with open arms. Veterans from the United States came across the border and also found a home in Roma. The Mexico City College — today the Universidad de las Américas Puebla and the Universidad de las Américas, A.C. — opened, offering classes in English.

By the 1970s and ‘80s, a process of de-gentrification was happening in Roma and Condesa, as these neighborhoods had become solidly middle class, with many higher-earning residents moving to newly built and wealthier neighborhoods like Las Lomas and Polanco. The 1985 earthquake hit both neighborhoods hard, in particular Roma, which spiraled into decline for the 15 years from the earthquake to the dawn of the new millennium.

But both of these neighborhoods have been rapidly transforming for the last 25 years. In the beginning of the 2000s, the city’s 50-year rent freeze was lifted and many Mexican investors saw an opportunity, beginning to purchase property and renovate buildings. The more popular Roma and Condesa became, the higher the rents went. In other words, these neighborhoods have long been inaccessible to the majority of average city workers.

With a history like this, the question of who is a local becomes a tricky one. Are the original wealthy landowners the true residents of Roma? The Jewish families that moved here after? The migrants from other Mexican states who came later? Am I local? I’ve lived in Roma for 14 years and was myself forced out of my apartment of 12 years along with my neighbors, some of whom had been living in the building for over 30 years, under the guise of “renovations.” I am also now a part of this neighborhood and its history.

The majority of the country’s economic and cultural activity takes place in the center of Mexico City, making this area a favorite and convenient place to live. Residents here, both Mexican and foreign, know that it implies paying a premium for the opportunity. In a recent TikTok, social commentator Vero Teigerio talks about the difficulties in decentralizing the economic activity of the city, which relies on a certain level of density in order to function. She points out that while the city’s population is 9.2 million, the surrounding municipalities add nearly 12 million more, and there’s no way all 20 million plus can live in the city center.

One of the solutions that Teigerio presents is improving the quality of services such as water and electricity and urban infrastructure — such as public parks and cultural spaces — outside of the city center. If peripheral areas could be made workable and pleasant to live in, and if mass transit were improved so that workers could have a comfortable 45-minute ride into the center rather than a hellacious two-hour commute, demand for housing in the city’s core might go down as people living in other neighborhoods enjoyed the quality of life of those living downtown. But, Teigerio points out, inequality of services runs deep, and local politicians don’t have much enthusiasm for changing the status quo.

Mexico City is also in desperate need of more housing, affordable housing, and caps on rent that will keep landlords and real estate companies from charging whatever they think that people will be willing to pay.

The city’s latest reforms seem an attempt to address these concerns. For some, they are worthless, token gestures; for others, they represent a first small step in the right direction. The reforms cap rent increases based on yearly inflation, require rental contracts to be publicly registered and limit both the quantity of Airbnbs that individuals can own and the number of days out of the year they can be rented out. While the Airbnb occupancy caps seem like an odd addition (if you have an Airbnb, you likely won’t be able to rent it for six months as a vacation rental and the other six months to a local resident), that may be the idea: to dissuade property owners from operating an Airbnb to begin with. The mayor’s office also committed to getting 20,000 affordable homes on the market by 2030, but previous administrations have made and broken similar promises.

Will these policies be enough to curb rising rents? Will the current administration be able to deliver affordable housing at a rate that meets the needs of residents? Will the organizers of the anti-gentrification march be able to move beyond their hostility towards immigrants to build a coalition to fight the root causes of gentrification?

“Gringos love Mexico but they hate Mexicans,” another sign seen at the march, is quite an accusation. While there are certainly immigrants to Mexico City who are culturally oblivious, the vast majority of those who live here full time do so because they love it. “Mexico for Mexicans” smacks of another slogan we’re hearing a lot of recently, one whose parallels I would think would make anyone who cares about progressive values think twice.

The truth is that there are thousands of immigrants, not only from the U.S. but from Korea, China, Japan, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela and all over Europe who have chosen to make Mexico City their home. And for most, it’s not about cheap rents or bland salsa but because they are passionate about the chaos, beauty, food and life of this metropolis. Many of them are likewise concerned about the rising cost of living and could likely be persuaded to join the cause.

I know that anything I write, by the mere fact that I am a foreigner, will be seen as being an apologist for foreigners and for the gentrification of central Mexico City. I don’t defend my countrymen; we can be annoying and disrespectful guests. I understand the history that has made relations between the United States and all of Latin America filled with resentment and anger. But the socially corrosive and xenophobic rhetoric heard at the march misses the point. Not every foreigner is a gentrifier and not all locals are suffering. Gentrification is about systems and class, not nationalities. It’s about a right to the city and a right to housing. We must learn to separate our economic systems (and our governments) from the people who function within those structures.

Over the years, I have written about a lot of immigrant communities in Mexico. What I have taken from listening to their stories is the overwhelming sense that they have deeply enriched the city’s food, art and culture. Throughout the 20th century, Lebanese, Armenians, Chinese, Japanese, Colombians, Argentinians, Koreans and many, many other immigrant groups have each added their own touch to the city’s life.

While “the other” is an easy target in times of crisis, it’s important to remember that Mexico City’s multiculturalism is one of the things that makes it vibrant, and why it is beloved by so many. As human beings, we all have the right to move freely across borders. Migration is not the problem, neither in Mexico or the United States, the system is.

Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City. She has been published widely both online and in print, writing about Mexico for over a decade. She lives a double life as a local tour guide and is the author of “Mexico City Streets: La Roma.” Follow her urban adventures on Instagram and see more of her work at mexicocitystreets.com.

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But mental snapshots fade with time, and many desire the ability to peruse those images now and again, even if absent from San Miguel. The new large-format photography book, “San Miguel de Allende: The Soul of Mexico,” offers San Miguel fans just such an opportunity.

Published by U.S.-based Schiffer Publishing, the book is a love letter to the Bajío city from Cathi and Steven House, two architects whose 35-year love affair with San Miguel is demonstrated in the warm and heartrending images they have photographed over the decades, unaware that one day they would combine their photographic archives into this homage to their part-time home.

When the Houses first came to San Miguel in 1990, they were pulled in by the city’s beauty and color. They had plans to move elsewhere but were shown a crumbling ruin of a house on Calzada de la Presa that they simply could not walk away from.

“When we stepped inside, we had that kind of overwhelming sensation that the angels had brought us to that spot,” says Cathi House. “Even after all the times we’ve tried to talk about it, [it’s hard to describe] what we felt, we just knew that we were home in a way that we really had not experienced yet in our life.”

The Houses built their home on that very spot, a quiet retreat from what they call their chaotic life in San Francisco. As time went on, they found themselves more and more interwoven into the local community and pulled to make San Miguel their part-time residence. When their home won a major architectural award, people started to reach out with requests to build other homes and Cathi put together “a construction team of some of the best people I have ever met.” As they sank deeper into their life in San Miguel, they started to capture its visual landscape through the lens of their cameras.

The new book, divided into eight sections of color photos and ink drawings, presents the architecture, gardens, homes, crafts and artisans of a town that has grown into a thriving artist community since the founding of the Escuela Universitaria de Bellas Artes and the Instituto Allende art schools in the early part of the 20th century.

Portraits of everyday residents — the time-etched faces of old women wrapped in rebozos, a young girl in her turquoise quiceañera dress, the giggling smiles of children — are almost exclusively taken by Steven, who Cathi says has a particular talent for making his subjects feel comfortable:

“Steven is tall, so he will come up to whoever [he wants to photograph] and immediately get not just down on his knees, but crouch even further. So he’s not this huge looming figure and he’ll just start talking to them in whatever language can be mustered. He’ll ask about everything — their children and the work they used to do or whatever, whatever topics seem appropriate as he engages with them.”

“And he always knows how to tell any little old lady, no matter how toothless or haggard or scraggly she might be, that she is the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen and make her believe it.”

“And this, this engagement that I watch with him, this dance that he does as a prelude to taking the photograph, is really beautiful. And it makes everyone relax and [makes them] happy and conversant and feeling like they know him now in a way. And so then, when he asks if it’s possible to take a photograph, they are so excited. And it’s been beautiful to watch over the years.”

Anyone who knows these two architects will recognize their other photography books, “Villages of West Africa: An Intimate Journey Across Time” and “Mediterranean Villages: An Architectural Journey,” but this is possibly the most intimate project they have ever worked on, an ode to a town that has become integral to the fabric of their lives.

Each year the Houses host young architecture students in San Miguel in a summer program, the Center for Architecture, Sustainability and Art (CASA), to “teach them how to design from their soul,” says Cathi. Throughout the book, readers will find these students’ stunning line drawings of San Miguel scenes, from the iconic central cathedral to the facades of homes down hidden neighborhood streets.

“They are drawing by hand, talking, touching, feeling, learning, understanding. [We want them to ask themselves], ‘How do you actually let in what you’re seeing into your heart in a way that it can transform, not only who you are, but transform what comes out into your next project or some other project 50 years down the line?’”

With text by Cathi and photos by both Cathi and Steven, the two artists hope their book will invoke in longtime visitors a warm remembrance of a favorite place, and encourage anyone who has never been — or who has only ever experienced Mexico through the lens of the U.S. media — to come and see the country’s incredible beauty for themselves.

“We wanted some kind of vehicle that we could say to the people of Mexico — and to the people of San Miguel especially — how much we love them and how grateful we are that the twists and turns of life brought us there in the first place,” says Cathi, “and what an honor and a pleasure it has been for us to live there and work with them all these years.”

Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City. She has been published widely both online and in print, writing about Mexico for over a decade. She lives a double life as a local tour guide and is the author of “Mexico City Streets: La Roma.” Follow her urban adventures on Instagram and see more of her work at mexicocitystreets.com.

The post ‘The angels brought us’: Couple’s book documents 3 decades of living in San Miguel de Allende appeared first on Mexico News Daily

These lists can be fun, a kind of passport that allows you to check off places one by one and decide whether you think the person making the list even knows what they’re talking about. But they can also be a headache, making places impossible to get into, filled with influencers and selfie-takers, guarded by secret handshakes and passwords and just plain boring when you suddenly realize you went to all the same places on vacation as your friends did.

I happen to be on the ground in one of the best food and drink cities in the world and while the lists are fine, I know plenty of places that aren’t on them but are just as wonderful. I recently covered the Mexican establishments that made this year’s list of North America’s 50 Best Bars, and while there are some excellent Mexico City locales that won spots, it got me thinking about all the great cocktail places that didn’t make the list.

It takes money, influence and desire to be noticed by the listers. So many places remain off the beaten path and yet special to those of us who know where to look. As a cocktail fanatic, here’s another list: eight cocktail bars I love in Mexico City that aren’t on the 50 Best.

Santo Hand Roll

I was amazed to find such good cocktails at a sushi restaurant the first time I went to Santo Hand Roll, even a hip one like this. I found myself enjoying the drinks even more than the food — which is very good on its own — and wondering why so few people seemed to know about it. Santo opened about five years ago and its owners now have several other projects in Mexico and the U.S. 

 

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 Santo’s cocktail menu has been crafted to pair with the food menu, and you’ll find flavors of Japan interwoven in the mixology: shiso leaves, yuzu, Japanese gin and lychee. My personal favorite is Tokyo to Roma — Japanese whiskey, rosemary, angostura and orange and grapefruit bitters — but their cocktail of the month is usually dope as well. 

Calle Colima 161, Roma Norte, Cuauhtemoc

Lina

Lina is Chef Mariana Villegas’s long-awaited debut after working for big names like Enrique Olvera’s Cosme in New York and Contramar in Mexico City. The Michelin-featured menu is a mix of dishes inspired by the freshest ingredients of the season and has excellent, vegetable-forward options: the charred bok choy with macadamia nuts and green curry is a personal favorite. 

 

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While the food delivers, the cocktails are also delish and if you can’t get a table just saunter up to the bar and try a few. Get yourself a Lulo with mezcal, lulo fruit, tangerine and cacao flower or the Hicox Elixir with Dolin vermouth, fig leaf, St. Germain and prosecco. 

Yucatán 147, Roma Norte, Cuauhtémoc

Salón Palomilla

The oval-shaped ceiling, open to the night sky, alongside dark green walls with exposed metal support beams, make drinking at Salón Palomilla feel a bit like cocktails in a spaceship. Industrial designer Martina D’Acosta Turrent has given the place an silky and otherworldly vibe with low lamplight and the twinkle of the stars above.

 

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That might sound like a place that takes itself too seriously, but not so. The crowd is lively, loud and fun and the waiters’ attention feels genuine. The drink menu is almost straight classic cocktails — lemon drops, vesper martinis, Last Words — with some riffs, like a mezcal Naked and Famous or a Fernet Mule. Straightforwardness is a virtue in this case — a classic cocktail done well is just as important as the newest crazy concoction — and the presentation is classy to boot.

Yucatán 84C, Roma Norte, Cuauhtémoc

Caviar Bar Alexander

Sometimes it’s hard for those of us who live in the Roma-Condesa-Polanco bubble to think about venturing out beyond our borders, but trust me when I tell you that some of the best cocktails I’ve had this year are in the tiny neighborhood of Molino del Rey, part of the larger Lomas de Chapultepec area. On the edge of this exclusive neighborhood, inside Torre Virreyes — the building affectionately referred to as El Dorito because of its resemblance to the snack chip — is the Alexander Hotel’s Caviar bar.

 

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Torre Virreyes houses the offices of Blackrock and luxury real estate, so expect business types, but it’s also a hotel, so the scene is mellow. This bar should probably be on 50 Best but its location in the city and inside a hotel make it unlikely. I was blown away by the Sabina — Abasolo Whiskey, cacao-and coffee-infused vermouth, Nixta, avocado bitters and truffle oil — which had a tiny cricket floating on a leaf as a garnish, and the refreshing Bellini Vargas, made using 7 Leguas tequila, white wine with macerated peach and cocoa bitters.

Pedregal 24, Molino del Rey, Miguel Hidalgo

Cicatriz

Cicatriz was one of the first places I had a really good cocktail in the city. Opened by brother-and-sister team Jake and Scarlett Lindeman way back in 2014, Cicatriz was ahead of the curve but also never made the cocktail menu the sole focus of the place. 

 

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Located in La Juárez, Cicatriz serves great comfort food like big green salads and their famous fried chicken. Cicatriz also has an excellent wine selection: they jumped on the natural wine trend early, and Scarlett is now a partner of local wine shop Escorpio. Their cocktail list is small but delightful, nothing too complex or outrageous, but everything interesting. Personal favorites include the Yoko, a mezcal aperol spritz, and Tiburón, a Mexico-inspired gin and tonic with thyme and avocado leaf.

Dinamarca 44, Juárez, Cuauhtémoc

Parker & Lenox

This is another place that has an excellent drinks program but whose focus is something else; in this case, music. This speakeasy hosts intimate shows Tuesdays to Sundays and you must reserve your seat in advance. They host everything from jazz flamenco to old-timey trios and always serve a well-made drink to accompany it.

 

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The Cherry Fuzz — tequila, maraschino cherry, egg white and lime juice — and the classic old fashioned are two of my favorites at Parker & Lennox. Everything is served in a moody atmosphere that, of all the speakeasies in the city,feels the most loyal to the actual concept, especially with strains of jazz in the background.

General Prim 100, Juárez, Cuauhtémoc

Rayo

This bar was actually listed on the 50 Best two years in a row but was suddenly removed for reasons unclear to me. The scene is set as you ride up the elevator and are served a premixed cocktail to start your evening. Once seated your server brings out 10 glass stopper bottles and a spoon for you to sample a taste of the in-house cocktails before you make a commitment.

The service can be a bit slow depending on what night of the week you there, but the drinks are worth the wait, each a combination of Mexican ingredients like hoja santa and cilantro combined with tropical fruit like guava and kumquat. For lesser-known Mexican spirits like pox, sotol, raicilla or charanda, this is a good place to start your education.

Salamanca 85, Roma, Cuauhtémoc

Maison Artemisia

Maison has a deliciously dark and romantic vibe that’s sometimes augmented with a live band in the front room. They were one of the early specialty cocktail bars, opened in 2012, a collaboration among several Europeans transplanted to Colonia Roma.

Maison has a solid list of classic cocktails as well as a rotating signature cocktail menu, usually with a theme, such as the current one: an ode to “La Roma and Mexican Terroir.” From that menu I am particularly fond of Don Gastón, an homage to a French herbalist who used to live in the house where the bar now sits. A delicious blend of armagnac, vermouth, strega liqueur, honey, chamomile and fennel, it tastes a bit like an old-fashioned spice gumdrop.

Tonalá 23, Roma Norte, Cuauhtémoc

Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City. She has been published widely both online and in print, writing about Mexico for over a decade. She lives a double life as a local tour guide and is the author of “Mexico City Streets: La Roma.” Follow her urban adventures on Instagram and see more of her work at mexicocitystreets.com.

The post Amazing Mexico City cocktails that aren’t on the 50 Best list appeared first on Mexico News Daily

While the idea of a 100% Mexican beer has been dreamt of before, it’s taken a long time for it to become a reality.

“Since we started [brewing] 12 years ago, it has always been our goal to have beer not only made in Mexico, but made of Mexico,” says Matias Veracruz, co-owner and brewer at Monstruo de Agua brewery in Mexico City. “When we started, everyone imported everything, and there were no national vendors of malt or hops or anything. So it was always our goal to find Mexican hops.”

Monstruo de Agua, like most craft brewers in Mexico, historically got their hops from the northwest United States: specifically in Washington state’s Yakima Valley, in Oregon and in Idaho. Along the same latitude are the hops grown in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and China. On the far end of the globe, you will find production in Australia, Argentina, Chile and New Zealand.

There’s a correlation between these places and the requirements of hops: short but intense, light-filled summers (about 16 hours of sunlight a day) and a winter period that’s not too chilly. Mexico, with its almost-even hours of light and dark year-round, is not ideal, but growers here have been trying to make it work for the last 15 years.

Miguel Loza started what was likely the first hops project in the country, planting in 2011 in Valle de Guadalupe, Mexico’s famed wine region. Originally from Ensenada, Loza started making his own beer when he was living in San Diego and decided to move back to Ensenada to try his hand at growing hops.

“I was totally on my own,” he says. “The only people I could ask questions to were in Oregon or Washington. I didn’t have a mentor or anything. I remember one person told me I should just grow avocados or something else because hops would never grow in Mexico.”

But they did grow. At the height of his project, Loza was able to obtain about a kilo and a half of hops from each of his 1,200 plants. Even that, he admits, was difficult; growing directly in the ground caused accidental cross-pollination of varieties, changes in flavor profiles due to the specific terroir where the hops were being grown and reduced control over the plants’ health.

Hops, much like grapes, are the type of plant that’s particularly sensitive to the ecosystem it inhabits. Water, soil, nutrients — even human touch — can affect the way the flowers taste, smell and act during growth. It’s part of what makes this plant interesting, but also what makes it complicated.

Loza eventually had to give up the farm in Ensenada when his daughter got sick and his family moved to Texas, but he still grows a small amount of hops for his own personal use.

“It was always more of a labor of love,” he says, “I knew I would never make any money. It was more for the satisfaction of being able to say we have 100% Mexican hops.”

Nine years later in 2020, Daniele Gamba started Lupex in Jalisco. A much smaller and more experimental project, Gamba worked in conjunction with the local university, growing less than 100 plants of five different varieties. These hops were planted directly in the ground with the addition of grow lights to control the plants’ flowering phase and to give them their required 16 hours of summer sunlight.

According to Gamba, they were able to achieve two yearly harvests of about 3.5 kilograms of hops per plant — an astounding amount since the average yield per plant hovers around 2 kilograms.

In the end, Gamba didn’t have enough land (he judged he would need 5 hectares to make the project economically feasible), nor could he find any local farmers willing to take on hops production, even with his technical support.

Also in 2020, Claudia Viloria and her partner Pepe Iracheta began Lúpulos Igor in Zacatlán de las Manzanas, Puebla. They currently have the oldest plants of any project — the hops that they are growing hydroponically in a greenhouse are three years old.

“The craft beer industry is growing a lot and quickly, and now with the issue of the tariffs, it’s going to be even more difficult to import supplies,” says Claudia. “We’re an alternative, especially for many brewers looking to create a product that’s 100% Mexican. There aren’t that many hops producers, and to be able to [provide for the demand], we will have to work together.”

Lúpulos Igor’s 400 plants produced between 40–50 kilograms in each of their first two growth cycles, and this year, as the plants reach full maturity, Claudia hopes each will produce 1 kilogram. They’ve been working with Monstruo de Agua, Pecados de la Malta and other craft brewers, but don’t yet have the production to commit to big contracts. Their future goal is 10,000 plants, which will require a substantial investment.

“It’s a good thing that we have other jobs,” she says, chuckling. Claudia works in public policy and Pepe is an urban planner. “Our work allows us to support this project, but setting it up and keeping it running is a big investment.”

 

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Some of the latest crop growing at Lúpulos Igor.

“When I first met the people from Lúpulos Igor, I basically purchased all the hops they had on them,” says Orlando Lara of Pecados de la Malta. “The beer we made with it won awards in Mexico, Colombia and Peru. We were thrilled. If you buy at supply stores, much of [the hops] is repackaged, previously opened, old, with lots of quality issues. So, instead, I started to buy directly from Yakima Valley in Washington or New Zealand, but the delivery takes time, and that also degrades the quality. The resin flavors of Lúpulos Igor’s experimental varieties, you are never going to find in prepackaged hops.”

In 2022, the most recent hops project, GroAltos, was formalized after Oscar Martínez and his partner made a first unsuccessful attempt to grow hops in Chiapas. In 2022, they planted on land outside of Guadalajara but struggled with the first round of plants. They now have 1,500 one-year-old plants on less than a hectare of land, but they hope to expand to 50 times that size one day.

How viable is the budding Mexican hops industry? In my conversations with growers and beer makers, I felt a tentative optimism saddled with a touch of frustration at the barriers.

What is obvious is that there is little communication and information shared among growers themselves, despite their seemingly strong relationships with local brewers.

“I had people tell me don’t talk about the lamps you are using, don’t give away your information,” says GroAltos’ Martínez. “But at the end of the day, in order for the industry to grow, there has to be some level of transparency. By hiding the information, you make yourself feel important, but the truth is you’re just like everyone else; what’s really valuable is your [personal] experience.”

Another concern I heard repeated was the cost of building the necessary infrastructure (in all cases, trestles; in others, lamps, greenhouses and hydroponic systems).

Gamba floated the idea that brewers could come together to support growers, as investors who could be paid back in harvest. But Martínez points out that local hops are an unnecessary luxury to many brewers who have access to high-quality hops imported from the U.S. at a decent price. He instead believes that the push should be for greater government support.

“Not that there’s [no government support], but there needs to be more awareness developed that hops are strategic for the beer industry — one of Mexico’s biggest exports, and that this has to do with commercial sovereignty.”

From a sustainability perspective, there’s an assumption that the cost to set up and run a hops farm is much less than the energy costs to import them from 2,600 miles away. But more study is needed to come up with the hard data on what makes the most sense environmentally — a question that can no longer be left out of any cost-benefit analysis in our era of climate change.

Other barriers seem easier to overcome. With time and professionalization, the idea of Mexican hops will seem less risky and wild. In the same way that the vineyards of the Bajío region, for example, took several years to start producing top-quality wine, these nascent hops growers are likely to produce a better product year over year as their expertise grows, as the plants adapt and mature and as growers better understand the requirements of growing hops on Mexican soil.

And the benefits of local hops are many: interesting flavor profiles, increased freshness, less dependence on international sources, easier and faster delivery and the reinvestment of money into local business owners and farmers. Brands like Monstruo de Agua, Pecados de la Malta and others for whom making 100% Mexican beer is a priority, look poised to continue supporting this burgeoning industry, and I, for one, am excited about the future of hops in Mexico.

Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City. She has been published widely both online and in print, writing about Mexico for over a decade. She lives a double life as a local tour guide and is the author of “Mexico City Streets: La Roma.” Follow her urban adventures on Instagram and see more of her work at mexicocitystreets.com.

The post Small but mighty: Mexican hops on the horizon appeared first on Mexico News Daily

That in itself is something amazing. Known a few decades ago as a nation that drank little else but beer and tequila, Mexico has in recent decades embraced mixology in a big way. In this article, we delve into the stories behind the seven other bars that were included on this year’s list.

Arca, Tulum – No. 27

Deep on the jungle side of the main road through Tulum’s hotel zone is the sexy and sultry Arca, one of my absolute favorites on this list. If there’s a reason to pop down the coast, it’s Arca. 

The bar program is created by Carlos Mora, Edson Sánchez and head chef José Luis Hinostroza, drawing inspiration from the jungles of Yucatán with local flavors like achiote, mamey and melipona honey. These stunning cocktails are paired with delicate dishes from the kitchen of Hinostroza, who, after a string of positions at Michelin-star restaurants, is utilizing the best that his home country has to offer in terms of ingredients and flavors.

 

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Selva, Oaxaca City – No. 29

Swanky and sophisticated, Selva has won a spot on 50 Best Bars of North America’s list since its inception in 2022. The chic ambiance gives the feeling of being in a much larger city, but the menu’s focus on seasonality and local ingredients — one, of course, being mezcal — brings you right back down to the earth you’re standing on.

Selva is working towards sustainability, trying to maximize the use of leftovers from their bar and the restaurant downstairs, Los Danzantes — to whose hospitality group they belong — by reimagining the leftovers with infusions, fermentation and other tricks.

 

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Bijou Drinkery Room, Mexico City – No. 34

 

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 A newcomer to the list this year, Bijou is more of an expression than a bar, drawn from the mind of communications engineer turned bar owner Dani Ortega. A math geek, Ortega has made the ordering process at Bijou one of the most complicated and fun in the city. It involves using a Rubik’s Cube to create an infinite number of combinations.

You can choose a liquor along with a flavor profile — bitter, fruity, dry — and a texture — bubbles, frothy, clarified — a specific fruit juice, and so on, and the ace bartenders will create your concoction on the spot.

While a plethora of options might not be everyone’s cup of tea, Ortega says that this speakeasy has won the hearts of regulars who like to come in and stump the team with requests.

Hanky Panky, Mexico City – No. 35

Hanky Panky was created as an homage to the speakeasies of the 1920s and was the first of its kind in Mexico City when it opened in 2015. Through a hallway and behind an unassuming Oaxacan restaurant, visitors enter a world of red leather and dark wood, dotted with the many wall mirrors that make this tiny space feel bigger than it is. 

Hanky Panky continues to focus on classics with a twist, creating new cocktails by the team’s bartenders and through collaborations with mixologists around the world.

“We want our customers to be able to experience the recipes of Eric Lorincz or Charly Aguinsky even if they couldn’t fly to London or Argentina to taste them in person,” says Gina Barbachano, one of the bar’s partners.

Kaito del Valle, Mexico City – No. 40

“I think the list acts as this first stop for people, and then they are like, ‘okay, where should I go next?’ and we have a good network of bartenders sending people to bars across the city,” says Claudia Cabrera, Kaito’s co-owner and bar director. “A lot of new people are coming from abroad who were not used to coming to Mexico, and 50 Best has helped to get people thinking that it’s a cool place, and that it’s not dangerous. It’s been switching the mood about the city.” 

Located in Mexico City’s residential Del Valle neighborhood, Kaito del Valle is definitely the furthest bar off the tourist track on this list, but it is moving on up to a space in Colonia Juárez this July and taking their Asian-inspired cocktail menu — featuring garnishes of nori, a fortune cookie, shiso and sake — with them.

Don’t worry, the karaoke rooms at the new place will be even bigger and better.

Café de Nadie, Mexico City  – No. 47

Café de Nadie is an accidental cocktail star, according to co-founder Billy Castro.

“For 10 years, we were dreaming about a place to hang out and listen to good music, not trendy stuff but with good DJ-ing — a place that would be like going over to friends’ to listen to vinyl. We never even had the idea of cocktails on our mind.”

But when they opened the bar in 2021, brand manager and mixologist Mapo Molano knew that a solid cocktail menu would be a requirement in the burgeoning bar scene they were entering. 

The selection of alcohol-forward concoctions at Café de Nadie prioritizes seasonality, a thread woven throughout the business at large due to the influence of Pablo Usobiaga, who cofounded the organic CSA Arca Tierra with his brother Lucio. Arca Tierra just opened Baldío, which bills itself as Mexico City’s first zero-waste restaurant, and Café de Nadie’s cocktail and food menus incorporate the zero-waste philosophy.

“We love what 50 Best has meant for us and other bars,” says Billy Castro. “But even more than that, the award and the notoriety allow us to have the kind of bar we want — one that’s focused on creating incredible musical experiences.” 

Bekeb, San Miguel de Allende – No. 49 

Located inside San Miguel’s Aqua Live Hotel, Bekeb has a desert chicness that folds nicely into the overall feel of this Guanajuato city.

Fabiola Padilla has created a menu of libations that overlays local flavors — copal, prickly pear and garambullo — with agave and other spirits to showcase the bounty of central Mexico.

She works closely with Casa Dragones, an award-winning local tequila brand with its own strong following in the San Miguel bar scene. 

Even more Mexican bars make the extended list

This year also saw the inaugural 51–100 list of North America’s Best Bars, allowing space for an even greater selection of Mexican bars to be included:

• Sabina Sabe, in Oaxaca city, came in at No. 54
• Brujas, owned by the Hanky Panky group, was No. 65
• Zapote, in Playa del Carmen, was No. 74
• Ticuchi, Enrique Olvera’s bar in Mexico City, came in at No. 82
• Casa Prunes, an Art Nouveau beauty in Mexico City’s Roma Norte, was No. 94

The post The rest of the best: More Mexican bars that made 2025’s 50 Best list appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Want to know more about these impressive bars in Mexico that made the list? Here is a peek into the histories that have made these bars the exquisite experiences that they are today.

Handshake Speakeasy, Mexico City – No. 1

“We needed to find our DNA,” says Rodrigo Urraca, co-owner of Handshake, “and Erik helped us find it.”

Urraca is referring to Erik Van Beek, one of Handshake’s four partners and the master behind its mixology. Urraca and a friend originally opened Handshake in 2019, but after a short closure during the pandemic, they brought on Van Beek, and it’s been glorious ever since. 

There is little wonder Handshake has been named both No.1 in North America and No.1 in the world, as winning a spot on the list has been a top priority from the bar’s inception. In fact, the original plan for Handshake — named for the handshake deal that started it — was cooked up between Urraca and partner Marcos di Battista during a 50 Best ceremony. They were dreaming about how cool it would be to win a spot on the list. 

They are thrilled to be ranked in first place, but being the best bar in the world also comes with pressure.

“We’re doing our very best to continue spoiling our clients just as we have from the beginning,” Urraca says. “The best bar in the world can’t have an off night, you know?” 

Their menu includes steadfast versions of classics, like the butter mushroom old-fashioned, and newly minted cocktails from the masterminds behind the bar. The bar’s exclusivity — it’s almost impossible to get a reservation — combined with its notoriety — this is its fourth year in the top two spots on the North America’s 50 Best list — as well as a sexy Art Deco speakeasy ambience have skyrocketed Handshake Speakeasy to success during its short life.

Tlecān, Mexico City – No. 3

Newly opened in 2024, Tlecān has been making waves in the Mexico City scene as a high-end mezcalería with excellent craft cocktails. Its focus on agave spirits and its incorporation of local herbs and plants into its menu makes Tlecān one of the few places in the capital where you can get craft cocktails made with sotol, raicilla, bacanora and other regional specialties. 

Owner Eli Martínez won this year’s Altos Bartender’s Bartender Award, the only peer-voted award on the 50 Best Bars list. Tlecān is the first mezcaleria to make it on the list, a meaningful milestone for Mexican spirits’ international recognition.

El Gallo Altanero, Guadalajara – No. 8

From the beginning, El Gallo Altanero has been a locals’ bar, says co-owner Freddy Andreasson. That, he says, can mean pushing back against adopting a certain aesthetic or a feel common among bars that win spots on these kinds of international lists.

There are no reservations at El Gallo Altanero, no exclusivity or secret handshake, and staff pride themselves on knowing the names and faces of the regulars who have made the bar what it is. This ethos can be felt in the loose and easy vibe you’ll find at this Guadalajara bar, whose menu highlights small-batch tequila and other Mexican distillates. The bartenders are just as geeked out on spirits as other spots, but the crowd is lively and fun and it feels like stepping into an unfussy fiesta that you never want to leave.

Licorería Limantour, Mexico City – No. 9

Licorería Limantour is part of Mexico City’s old guard: When the bar opened in 2011, no one was making their own bitters or participating in special ice programs. The minds behind the bar were pioneers, and according to owner José Luis Limantour, they haven’t sat on their laurels over the past 14 years.

“I think Limantour is defined by evolution,” he says. “We have changed constantly, and I think that’s what keeps us current. There’s obviously a global cocktail movement happening right now, and the fact that we continue to be included in these lists means something.” 

This hospitality group, now with two Limantours and four other spaces, has provided a training ground for many of the city’s bartenders and bar managers. Ask around, and you’ll find that many of Mexico City’s young talent worked at least briefly with Limantour.

Bar Mauro, Mexico City – No. 14

Brand new and already making waves, I knew when I visited last fall that this bar would end up on the list— it just has that vibe. Brothers Ricardo and Eduardo Nava have completely revamped the ground floor of a turn-of-the century house on a block in La Roma with so few establishments that you might miss it if you’re not paying attention. 

The bar is named after the brothers’ uncle Mauro, who was a consummate host and cocktail lover, and they try to provide an atmosphere that would make him proud. Low-lit corner tables, a lively back bar and some excellently crafted cocktails are what you can expect in this mid-century hang-out, though right now, post-win, it’s  impossible to get into.

Baltra, Mexico City – No. 20

“When we opened, there were people that knew about negronis or martinis or old fashioneds as part of their bar vocabulary, but no one knew anyplace where you could drink them. I think now more people know more about cocktails, and they also know places to find them,” says José Luis Limantour. 

One of those places is Mexico City’s Baltra, part of the Limantour group, whose kitschy nautical décor reflects its namesake — one of the islands visited by Charles Darwin on the HMS Beagle.

Their current menu includes “Eight Pieces of Advice You Didn’t Ask For,” featuring drinks with names like “How to Survive a Party Where You Know No One” and other such gems.

Aruba day drink, Tijuana – No. 22

Along with Tijuana’s skyrocketing popularity as a foodie paradise in the last decade, it’s also home to one of the 50 Best Bars of North America — Aruba Day Drink.

With a menu full of electric-colored cocktails and small plates that reflect the local cuisine — seafood tacos, Japanese sandos, tuna tostadas, Asian fried chicken — the party atmosphere is complete thanks to DJs spinning and a lively crowd.

Opened in 2021 by Kevin Gómez, Aruba has been listed on the 50 Best list since 2023 and prides itself on its “vacation vibes.”

Believe it or not, that’s only about half the list of Mexico’s bars that made it onto the 2025 list of the 50 Best Bars of North America. To learn about the other bars that made it onto this list, stay tuned for the second part of this article, coming soon!

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But there were few other wild surprises for anyone who’s been paying attention to Mexico’s bar scene in recent years, as a total of 18 bars made the top 100. 

The long-established Limantour, Baltra and Hanky Panky all maintained positions on the list, with Baltra and Hanky Panky moving up and Limantour holding steady at #9. Other past winners — Aruba Day Drink in Tijuana, Café de Nadie in Mexico City, and Selva in Oaxaca also continued their streak as members of the winners’ club.

There are a handful of first-timers from Mexico City this year, but none of the additions will shock cocktail aficionados in the capital. Bar Mauro in Roma Norte has been lauded since it opened a few months ago and deservedly won a spot at #14. Bijou, a speakeasy hidden at the top of the Escuela de Gastronomia in Condesa entered the list at #34.

“I think 50 Best has been amazing for the Mexico City bar scene but I also think that the bars that have been opening up, that have been pushing the scene forward, they have really been the biggest change,” said Erik Van Beek, co-owner of Mexico’s Handshake Speakeasy, which after two years in the number one spot on the list once again took the coverted top spot. 

“When I arrived in 2019, there were Fifty Mils, Limantour, Hanky Panky and Baltra, that was it. And now people are really pushing their cocktail program, their service, and their standards. Of course, 50 Best has helped tremendously with that because people receive the recognition, but at the end of the day, it’s the bars that do it.”

“There’s a good network of bartenders sending people to different bars across the city,” explains Claudia Cabrera, co-owner and bar director at Mexico City’s Kaito del Valle, another list winner coming in at #40 this year. “Even my friends who aren’t really into cocktails will suddenly tell me about a trendy new cocktail bar they went to and ask me if I know it.”

“We saw a big change,” Cabrera says. “We are in a family neighborhood and suddenly when the list came out people started coming to [Del Valle].” Kaito del Valle has been operating for the past eight and half years in Colonia del Valle, a neighborhood just south of Condesa and slightly off of the tourist path in Mexico City. “There’s nothing else really around us, so we know it has to do with that. Our vibe is has been a little divey, more like a neighborhood place, but we have seen now people specifically seeking us out and we didn’t have that before.”

“I think the list reflects the plurality of the scene,” says Eli Martínez, owner of Tlecān, which won the #3 spot this year after entering at #10 in 2024. “It’s nice to see bars inside of hotels that have endless resources at their fingertips and on the same list places who have made an enormous effort to raise their own money and promote themselves. The common denominator for me is hospitality.”

Martínez won this year’s Bartenders’ Bartender award. The award is voted on by the other bartenders from the 50 Best list and recognizes someone who has made a significant impact on the craft of bartending and on their peers in the industry and is one of the most prestigious awards handed out on the night.

Cocktail bars and mixology in Mexico have been on the rise for longer than the last three years of the 50 Best Bars in North America list, but there’s no doubt among participants that the list has encouraged the professionalization and expansion of the industry. 

“The level of mixology has clearly improved,” says Martínez, “and it’s now common to find a drinks menu with a real story to tell.”

“You see fine dining restaurants with a good drinks program and hotels and chefs and other people are paying attention,” says Cabrera. “I think in the last six or seven years we have all become really proud of our products. We’re using more agave, more local products, more local brands, and there are more collaborations among everyone. Drinks are going minimalist, which you would have never seen in Mexico before. There are no complex garnishes, people are working with really good ice programs. We are all following trends but trying to make them local, ‘tropicalizing’ them, if you will.  It’s really moving fast.”

Martinez agrees. “I think the tendency is more and more in the direction of showing off all the culinary and cultural richness of Mexico,” she finished.

The winners in full:

1. Handshake Speakeasy (Mexico City)

3. Tlecān (Mexico City)

8. El Gallo Altanero (Guadalajara)

9. Licorería Limantour (Mexico City)

14. Bar Mauro (Mexico City)

20. Baltra (Mexico City)

22. Aruba Day Drink (Tijuana)

27. Arca (Tulum)

29. Selva (Oaxaca)

34. Bijou Drinkery Room (Mexico City)

35. Hanky Panky (Mexico City)

40. Kaito del Valle (Mexico City)

47. Café de Nadie (Mexico City)

49. Bekeb (San Miguel de Allende) 

Longlisted

54. Sabina Sabe (Oaxaca)

65. Brujas (Mexico City)

82. Ticuchi (Mexico City)

94. Casa Prunes (Mexico City)

Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City. She has been published widely both online and in print, writing about Mexico for over a decade. She lives a double life as a local tour guide and is the author of Mexico City Streets: La Roma. Follow her urban adventures on Instagram and see more of her work at www.mexicocitystreets.com.

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Following on from our previous instalment, here are some more revolutionary female winemakers forging their own success in Mexico’s premier wine country.

Lulu Martinez Ojeda: Inheriting tradition

Why exactly are there so many female winemakers in Baja California and what does it say about Mexico? A couple of the women I interviewed commented that many of the region’s founding fathers had daughters instead of sons, but that argument didn’t click for me: were women simply the default because there were no men around to take over? Adding to my skepticism was the fact that, in most cases, the daughters of these famous winemakers are not the ones currently running the wineries or the vineyards.

It wasn’t until I spoke with Lulu Martinez Ojeda, enologist at Bruma Winery, that another theory popped up.  She explained that even though the Jesuits came to the peninsula in the 1600s, at the beginning of the 20th century, Baja was still a kind of Wild West. 

Men would leave for days on end to work in other parts of Mexico and across the border in the U.S., and the women who were left behind had to farm and keep their families alive. These women, besides having to learn to fend for themselves, were often European immigrants fleeing tough political situations. Their distance from home and from the traditional expectations of their societies may have allowed them to shed old gender roles and create a new version of what it meant to be a woman in Baja.

Lulu compares her experiences in Mexico and France, where she worked for several years. “In Bordeaux it’s very traditional and very sexist. If a woman is in a chateau, then she’s probably human resources, or sales or marketing or the daughter of the owner, but she’s certainly not in production.” Coming back to Mexico, she expected more of the same. 

“I remember the first time that a truck came with tempranillo grapes and the driver got out and was like, ’Where’s the boss!?’ I nervously say ‘I’m the boss’ and he’s like, ‘okay great, sign here.’ He couldn’t have cared less.”

Silvana Pijoan: A fresh new voice 

“I think it’s still a pretty macho industry,” says Silvana Pijoan. “Maybe I just don’t care anymore, but I mean I don’t notice it anymore. And in my community, it’s not a thing I come across because we’re pretty supportive of each other.”

When Silvana started working with her father at Vinos Pijoan in 2016, it was mostly in the promotion side of the business, as she was still a professional dancer based in Mexico City. But she decided that her heart was in wine and came back to Baja to work full time at the vineyard. She started her own minimal intervention line in 2019, inspired by other women winemakers making natural wine, like Martha Stoumen in Mendocino. Her father, who had been making big, jammy, oaky wines for over two decades, pushed back.

But Silvana’s participation was vital to the vineyard which by that time had grown much larger than the capacity of a single person to run it. She and her father eventually settled into a strong working relationship, along with her two sisters who are also involved in the family business.

Fernanda Parra: The wily entrepreneur

Not every experience for these women has been rosy. Fernanda Parra from Pouya wines, the last of the Mexico’s female winemakers profiled here, remembers how it took two years for the male staff at Magoni vineyard, where she started her career, to get used to taking orders from her. But the very fact that she got her first job in the industry at one of the most well-respected wineries in Valle de Guadalupe says something about how women are viewed there. Now de la Parra is working on her own with her partner to make small-batch young, natural wines. Instead of the traditional big winery with lots of land, they buy from select local growers whose agricultural philosophies they respect. 

Veronica Santiago: Continuing a feminist tradition

“Coming from a matriarchal family I learned so much from my mom, my grandmother, my aunts,” says Veronica Santiago of Viñedos Mina Penélope, “They taught me to work with assuredness and confidence in myself, and I think [right now Valle] is in an era of the new generation, the children of the pioneers of Valle. They have a different kind of education, a different way of interacting, it’s more inclusive and we are working really well together as a community. If you have a high level of professionalism you can gain the respect of your colleagues in the industry.”

Viñedos Mina Penélope is a small family project that Santiago’s mother started in 2006, when Santiago was in Australia getting her Oenology degree from the University of Adelaide. When she returned to Mexico she began to work alongside her mother in the vineyard. Modeling themselves after the small, family-focused projects of Old World countries like Spain and France, they only produce what they can with the grapes on their land (about 2,000 cases a year) and are doing it in a slow, sustainable way that includes measures to save water and regenerate their land. Santiago works alongside her U.S.-born husband Nathan Malagon who runs the agricultural side of things and they are raising their two sons on the vineyard. 

“I’m the third of three sisters and when I had two boys I thought, ‘the universe is clearly trying to teach me something’. As a professional woman I have the opportunity to teach them how to be decent, how to interact with women, and be respectful. It’s our job to teach equity to the next generation.”

In the course of my work, I’ve spoken with many women over the years in male-dominated industries in Mexico. The overall sentiment I heard throughout these interviews in Valle de Guadalupe — that the women of the region have felt somewhat insulated from the sexism in the larger world of wine — is quite remarkable. It’s not that these women haven’t struggled, but they feel respected for their work and the creative freedom to make great wine in their own way.  Whether it’s their pioneer heritage, their close-knit community or their unique perspective as women in business, a revolution led by women is happening in Valle de Guadalupe. Judging from the taste of it, it’s changing the face of Mexican wine for the better.

Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City. She has been published widely both online and in print, writing about Mexico for over a decade. She lives a double life as a local tour guide and is the author of “Mexico City Streets: La Roma.” Follow her urban adventures on Instagram and see more of her work at mexicocitystreets.com.

The post The women winemakers of Baja California: Part 2 appeared first on Mexico News Daily

More than a recent trend, this reality is slowly becoming tradition. But who are the women of Valle de Guadalupe and how did they become masters of their craft? 

Laura Zamora: Matriarch of winemaking

If there is a matriarch to be found in Mexico’s premiere wine country, it’s Laura Zamora, who has been working in the industry for the past 48 years. Now head of her own project, Casa Zamora, she started at Santo Tomás winery as a lab tech when she was only 17 and worked her way up to head winemaker. She was the first woman in the entire country to manage a winery of that size. Zamora has a record number of liters of wine under her belt, a status rivaled only by two other winemakers in Baja, both men.

“I spent a lot of years doing grunt work under other winemakers, doing the work without getting the credit because I was a woman,” Zamora says, “A Uruguayan friend in the industry told me once, ‘Laura, you have everything against you: you don’t have a degree, you’re Mexican and you’re a woman.’ So, I thought, the only thing I can change is studying to get my degree; the other two things are permanent.”

So she studied while working, earning a degree as a lab tech in 1977, a bachelor’s in Gastronomy in 2019 and finally a master’s in Oenology in 2022. She thrived because she was curious, because she had the good fortune to be trained by several world-class winemakers, and because she shut out the rest of the world.

Cristina Pino: Doctor of the vine

Today, there’s a veritable sisterhood of winemakers in Baja. This group includes Cristina Pino, who took over for Zamora when she retired from Santo Tomas in 2019. Pino came from Spain 14 years ago and has one of the most impressive resumes of any winemaker in the region: bachelor’s degrees in Oenology and agricultural engineering, a Ph.D. in Oenology and a master’s degree in Viticulture. As laboratory head at Mexico’s second-largest vineyard, Pino is ensuring that many women will follow in her footsteps.

“My teams generally have always had lots of women in them,” Pino says. “I think we work really well together. We’re more practical, more direct, clearer, we don’t have our heads in the clouds. I always have women on my teams, from processing all the way up to operations. To see them really integrated into the team makes me really happy.”

Eileen Gregory: Champion of sustainability

Outside of mega-vineyards, many of the area’s small but important boutique wineries are also run by women. While Eileen Gregory’s husband Phil is the official winemaker of their vineyard Vena Cava, the place couldn’t run without her. They have an 8-room bed-and-breakfast, a massive organic garden,  and, as of a few years back, a full-fledged restaurant on the property as well.

Eileen has been fundamental in shaping the way winemakers in Valle de Guadalupe think about sustainability since she moved here 20 years ago. Not only was the couple’s entire property built sustainably from the very beginning, Eileen has been organizing eight years of sustainability workshops for local winemakers and others interested in taking better care of Valle. She has also been one of the driving forces behind the Very Good Food Foundation, which helps local schools create school gardens to teach children about sustainable agriculture. 

“When we first arrived, none of the men I spoke with would even acknowledge what I said without checking with my husband to ensure he was in agreement with my comments,” Gregory says, “Fast forward to now and it is very common to see women running businesses and being treated with the respect they deserve.”

“Women are much more likely to experiment and create products and spaces that are attractive, innovative and welcoming,” Gregory tells me, adding that women in Baja have reshaped the way wine is made here too, “Twenty years ago, it was largely only men in Mexico who drank wine and they tended to only drink full-bodied reds made from well known grapes.  When women started drinking wine, whites, rosés and sparkling wines became tremendously popular.  Women in the business of winemaking were the first to see, encourage and act on the new opportunity.”

Maria Cantarero: Philosopher of the grape

María Benítez Cantarero, who also started a second life with her husband when they moved here 10 years ago from Mexico City, is the powerhouse behind Clos de los Tres Cantos, the couple’s winery. She has meticulously chosen the varietals that they grow based on deep research of their land, in addition to incorporating regenerative agricultural practices like building a wetland at the base of their grape fields and planting trees and native species alongside their vines.

María says that since moving to Mexico from Madrid she’s been lucky to work for companies where gender equality was important and has faced few barriers as a woman in business here. But, she laughs, waiters still bring the wine to her husband to taste, even though of the two she has infinitely more wine knowledge. She agrees things are changing in the region, “if nothing else because there are lots of women in Valle, young women, now making wine.”

Kris Magnussen: Developing Valle from a woman’s perspective

One of those younger women is Kris Magnussen, whose family has been running Lechuza winery for the last 23 years.  A single mom in her 40s originally from San Diego, California, Magnussen took over complete management of the winery when her father passed away in 2017. She says she could have never survived those first several years on her own without the community that embraced her.

“I don’t know what it is about Valle de Guadalupe, but it attracts another caliber of human being. I remember after my father passed, having the level of outreach from people saying what do you need, how can I help, how can I make sure that this isn’t your end. Nobody had to do that for me. I’m an immigrant, you know? I could have easily faded away and have been just a blip on the radar.”

Magnussen believes that the leading women of the valley are looking at development — their own and the region’s — in a unique way.

“There is such a huge lead of women right now,” she says, “and I think women have this beautiful, maternal aspect in which we are trying to incorporate sustainable business practices, not just farming practices. We’re looking out for future generations, encouraging higher education, we’re trying to build the community around us to support us so we’re not alone, and in return there’s a lot of grace. [We’re asking:] how can we make sure that our footprint is bigger in regards to the success as a region rather than just our own personal gain?”

Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City. She has been published widely both online and in print, writing about Mexico for over a decade. She lives a double life as a local tour guide and is the author of “Mexico City Streets: La Roma.” Follow her urban adventures on Instagram and see more of her work at mexicocitystreets.com.

The post Baja California’s women winemakers are redefining the craft: Here’s how appeared first on Mexico News Daily

There are also several mysterious soups bubbling away in chafing dishes and the bare ends of what look like meat skewers sticking out of a velvety dark brown sauce. A cacophony of voices come from the Chinese families serving tea from the metal kettles at each table as they deftly grasp slippery dumplings with chopsticks and pop them in their mouths.

My guide to the Chinese restaurants of Mexico City

I would have known nothing about Le Fu or dim sum in general without Nicholas Gilman. A friend and food writer in Mexico City, Nicholas has been writing about the city long before it was considered a world-class culinary destination. As a born and bred New Yorker, he had to go looking for Chinese food when he arrived 25 years ago, and he says the latest slew of restaurants far exceeds anything that he found once upon a time.

“There was zero for years,” Nicholas told me. “Out of desperation we would go to this place in the Zona Rosa — Golden something, maybe Dragon — that was just kind of okay. Coming from New York, we were just so used to good Asian food. Then [writer] David Lida discovered a place in Viaducto Piedad from a taxi driver who had a Chinese sister-in-law or something, and that was where the Chinese went to eat.”

Colonia Viaducto Piedad is where Le Fu is located, within a collection of blocks where you will find not only some of the city’s most authentic Chinese food, but also Chinese groceries, barbers and tea shops.

I sought Nicholas’ help because I am a Chinese food novice. Unlike him, I grew up in a tiny Midwestern U.S. town where the one Chinese restaurant no doubt catered to bland local tastes. When I decided to write about Mexico City’s Chinese options, it felt only right to seek his expert counsel.

New delights in Anzures

The first area Nicholas took me was Colonia Anzures, where a crop of new places has opened to serve the executives and tech workers who’ve come to Mexico City with Chinese companies like Hauwei and Xiaomi. We start at Lion Noodles, where we had the carne picada ramen with baby bok choy, carrots and hand-pulled noodles in a rich, cinnamony broth, washed down with a can of Chinese soda from the fridge. At Yiwei Ramen a few storefronts down we tried a collection of cold salads — tree ear mushrooms, pickled cabbage and onion — and some delicious fried dumplings with garlic and sesame salsa macha.

Our waitress at Xi Yang Yang was as excited to serve us as we were to eat, showing us every dish that came out of the kitchen, whether it was headed to our table or not. We tried a smoky eggplant dish with hints of lemongrass and garlic and a plate full of beef tripe, tiny in-bone pork ribs and lotus root that numbed our tongues with Sichuan peppers. One thing Nicholas has noticed in his years here is a growing regional diversity in the city’s Chinese cuisine

“Sichuan, Yunnan, Cantonese… you see a lot more diversity than you did, and people know a little more than they did before. And this new wave of immigrants… where are they coming from? Will there be more of a focus on their [regional] food? We hope so, because that’s what makes it interesting.”

An old community in Mexico

According to a 2024 Associated Press article, last year Mexico’s government issued 5,070 temporary residency visas to Chinese immigrants, twice as many as the previous year, making China third, behind the United States and Colombia, as the source of migrants granted permits. This is a spike from previous years, but Chinese immigration to Mexico City is not new. The first Chinese arrivals came during the colonial period on the Manila Galeon or Nao de China, the trans-Pacific trade route that connected Spain’s colonies in the Philippines with New Spain.

Historian José Luis Chong’s book “Hijo de un pais poderoso” explains that the California gold rush in the mid-19th century, as well as the building of the railroads on the west coast of the United States, brought thousands of Chinese to the Americas. Most were Cantonese, and both their passage and life after arrival in the United States was difficult: poverty, racism and extreme working conditions tested their will to survive. 

While most Chinese immigrants of the time had in their mind an eventual return to China, the impossibility of paying for the return passage and the abusive terms of the “contracts” they were forced to sign before departing China meant that many had no choice but to stay in their new adoptive countries. Facing anti-Chinese laws passed in the United States, immigrants made their way south to Mexico, many to work on railroads, in mining and on farms along the northern border and Pacific coast. Some Chinese immigrants also came through the port of Veracruz from Cuba, where they had been brought in droves as indentured servants in the 1840s. They also faced racism in Mexico, including grim episodes like a 1911 massacre in Torreón and expulsion from Sonora and Sinaloa in the 1930s during so-called “anti-Chinese” campaigns.

Chinese restaurants, yesterday and today

In the first part of the 20th century those newly arrived Chinese immigrants slowly made their way to larger Mexican cities, setting up restaurants, laundries and shops. The “cafés chinos” of Mexico City — diners where inexpensive Mexican and Chinese food was served — became famous for their pan chino, pastries made by immigrants trained by French and English bakers in their country of origin. Many of those cafes have become little more than a trace in history, but two or three still remain, albeit, most without Chinese dishes on their menus.

Today, the restaurants of Colonia Viaducto Piedad are what those cafés chinos were to previous generations: gathering places offering a taste of home. Ka Won Seng even has a diner-like ambiance, with vertical venetian blinds that cast long shadows across the red and gold decorations of the dining room. You are likely to find very few non-Chinese customers there. On a quiet Saturday afternoon, we lingered over their delicately caramelized duck breast as we watched servers stack box after box of to-go food ready to be delivered.

The top stop for me on the entire tour was by far Le Fu, where I learned that dim sum, that vast collection of dumplings, buns and other little treats, is a morning tradition, something you have to arrive before noon to enjoy. At Le Fu there are no descriptions in English or Spanish, but the server was able to tell me in Spanish which were pork, shrimp or beef and she recommended the soy milk, a specialty there. I passed on the chicken feet and was too shy to order the lotus root soup, but we did try half a dozen dumplings and buns, marveling at each unique flavor. While I still feel like a beginner, my couple of outings with Nicholas have started me on my way to learning about Chinese food in Mexico City. Following his expert suggestions, I’m ready to continue my education on my own. 

Lydia Carey is a freelance writer and translator based out of Mexico City. She has been published widely both online and in print, writing about Mexico for over a decade. She lives a double life as a local tour guide and is the author of Mexico City Streets: La Roma. Follow her urban adventures on Instagram and see more of her work at mexicocitystreets.com.

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