Criollo

"Criollo’s dinner tasting menu and taco bar, featuring a modern approach to seasonal, high-quality ingredients, draw most of the attention, but the move is to come here and feast at breakfast or brunch. You can sit on the patio—with its large picnic-style tables and chickens roaming freely—and take in the big-portioned à la carte meal that’s more focused on Oaxacan classics and spotlight-stealing baked goods. Your breakfast-and-brunch-of-champions can start with chocolate de agua or a café de olla, accompanied by a fluffy concha that’s particularly irresistible. For your main course, go chilaquiles with tasajo, available with red or green sauce, or enmoladas de coloradito starring one of their many moles made with chile pasilla and chile ancho. Well-balanced drinks, like the hangover remedy michelada or carajillo, are a bonus to the experience." - Mariana Camacho

"At Criollo, you’ll probably see a rooster named Claudio wandering around the large backyard and orchard where the restaurant has an open grill, a comal, and several clay pots. Come here for brunch on weekends for conchas de maíz, taquitos campechanos, pizzas from the wood-fired oven, and enfrijoladas. This spot is also a great dinner move: you’ll find a contemporary Oaxacan tasting menu that always changes and highlights seasonal produce. There’s a main dining room, but try to grab a seat on the pleasant patio where you can watch the staff man the large comal and make fresh tortillas." - liliana lopez, kylie han

"Chefs Enrique Olvera and Luis Arellano are the culinary forces behind this magical oasis that is also part of a guest house listed as a UNESCO heritage. Entirely outdoors, the dining room is a straight-edged work of smooth concrete and a canopy of trees and Edison bulbs stretched over handsome wood tables set with flickering candles. Chirping birds and burning incense add to the romance. Serving only a tasting menu, the kitchen leans on traditional Oaxacan recipes and local ingredients. A warm cheese croquette starts the meal with total fireworks, followed by a smooth tamal set in a bold shrimp-infused mole coloradito and, later, excellent tempura fish tacos. Desserts are refreshing, as in the pineapple nicuatole with passionfruit and mango sorbet." - Michelin Inspector

"Stop by Criollo—from Pujol chef Enrique Olvera—for brunch seated around a tree-lined patio, with dishes served from an open-air kitchen where slabs of meat and ropes of chorizo smoke."

"Later, at Enrique Olvera’s Criollo, the cup of chocolate that arrived at the end of the meal showed me that I had been making the wrong choice ordering it with milk — the water, you see, really allows the more nuanced flavors to shine." - Monica Burton