"People don't realize how much of a melting pot Mexico City is"

Writer and CDMX tour guide Lydia Carey talks about the evolving food scene, urban farming and belonging in her adopted city

Welcome to The Mexpatriate.

In today’s edition, I share a freewheeling conversation that begins with street tacos in Mexico City and ends with vineyards in Baja—with detours on immigrant influences, gentrification and sustainability along the way.

Lydia Carey is a food and travel writer who also runs her own food tours of Mexico City, where she’s lived for 13 years. I caught up with her a few weeks ago at a wine bar in Roma Norte to talk about how the food and drinks scene has evolved, what’s happening with urban agriculture and how she feels as a U.S. transplant.

Lydia just covered the 50 Best Bars in North America event in Vancouver, and Mexico once again took the top prize (Handshake Speakeasy in CDMX). As you’ll learn below, Lydia has mixed feelings about the impact of these lists and guides like Michelin—bringing both deserved recognition to the country’s chefs and mixologists, and the inevitable fixation on a handful of restaurants and bars.

What’s clear is that the global fascination with Mexican culinary heritage and biodiversity is only going to grow. Cómo México (y su comida), no hay dos.

What do you think most surprises your tour participants about food in Mexico City?

LC: There are a lot of things, from small assumptions to bigger misconceptions.

One that makes me laugh is people assume that any salsa with avocado is guacamole, and that it’s not spicy. They think you can tell how spicy a salsa is just by its color. “Oh, the green ones aren’t spicy.” I kind of love it—how confidently wrong we can be sometimes! Another detail people comment on a lot is the size of the tacos—especially the nighttime street tacos, which are served on these tiny tortillas.

Another surprise for people is how diverse the food scene is in Mexico City. My tours mostly focus on street food and markets, but we always end up talking about what’s going on more broadly in the culinary world here.

I think they imagine something more like Oaxaca City, but it’s actually a lot more like London or Paris in terms of how multicultural it is. The food here has so many different international influences.

A dish at the city’s first zero-waste restaurant, Baldío. (Photo: Lydia Carey)

When I talk to people about the immigrant communities here—Armenians, Lebanese, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, French, Argentinians, Spanish—they’re always surprised by how much those communities have shaped the food.

I think people don’t realize how much of a melting pot Mexico City is.

Which immigrant communities have had the most influence on food in the city?

LC: The Lebanese and broader Middle Eastern communities have been hugely influential. Tacos al pastor likely evolved from tacos árabes originally brought by Iraqi immigrants to Puebla. Roma also had a large Syrian Jewish community in the 1920s— they brought black olives, Turkish coffee, and other flavors.

In the early 20th century, Chinese immigrants arrived—some directly from China, others from the U.S. after exclusion laws were passed. That’s when the cafés chinos popped up—basically diners that served cheap meals for workers and students, blending Chinese and Mexican food. Some even had “secret” menus in the back for the paisanos, with more traditional Chinese dishes.

Japan has also had a long-standing relationship with Mexico and Japanese immigrants have been coming here since the 18th century. Some went to Chiapas to be coffee farmers, and many settled along the coast as fishermen. During WWII, they were relocated to the center of the country, so now you see more Japanese influence in places like Mexico City and Guadalajara.

This blending of Asian and Mexican cuisines isn’t really new, but it’s definitely trending—with restaurants like Masala y Maíz and Fideo Gordo (the owner’s grandfather was Japanese, and invented the cacahuates japoneses). It’s not just “fusion” food; it’s cross-pollination that reflects generations of presence.

Of course, there’s also been a strong presence of other Latin Americans—from Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela—and their cuisines are really popular. I’d also say one of the important influences has been from the U.S.—and not just people from the U.S. coming here to open restaurants, like this place that was making soul food (it was amazing, but sadly closed). It’s also Mexicans who’ve lived in the U.S. and come back—there’s this constant flow and cross-border exchange, and that’s shaped the food scene.

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the Mexico City food scene over the last 13 years?

LC: One of the biggest changes has been this rise of fusion, the blending of cuisines. And the number of high-end places offering tasting menus, fine-dining-level presentations, etc.

When I first got here, it was also much easier to keep track of what was going on—what people were buzzing about. My friends are always sending me info about new places, because they know I’m on the lookout for good spots. And now I’m surprised how often I think: “Wait, I’ve never even heard of this place!”

The options have just exploded. It’s kind of overwhelming.

I think you used to have two extremes: really amazing, expensive fine dining restaurants on the one end, and really amazing, cheap street food on the other. And then almost everything in between was just... meh. But now, there are a lot more excellent mid-range options.

Lydia has seen dramatic changes in cocktails in CDMX over the last decade. (Photo: Lydia Carey)

And as far as the bar scene goes, when I first moved here, it seemed like your choices were: Go to a dive bar and get a shitty cocktail or a beer, or go to a fancy bar—and still get a shitty cocktail or a beer.

That’s completely changed. I know cocktails in general have become a global trend over the past decade, but here in Mexico City, it’s been a huge shift. The rise of mixology, and things like the 50 Best Bars list calling attention to great spots here, have really helped. It’s made people take cocktails more seriously—not just here, but across Mexico.

Bars started focusing more on Mexican spirits, like mezcal, tequila, sotol, pox and they began incorporating local ingredients—herbs, flowers, fruits. There’s this real attention to endemic, regional ingredients now.

Another change is that every bistro or restaurant has its own cocktail list. Even places that aren’t cocktail bars at all have five or six signature drinks.

Craft beer has been on the rise for awhile now across the country, and there’s this more recent vermouth trend as well. I think it’s kind of about nostalgia, but also is tied into this “use everything” philosophy—young winemakers in Baja are trying to use every last drop of the grapes. So they’re making vermouth, gin, grappa.

Aside from the city’s first zero-waste restaurant that you’ve written about, how do you see the broader outlook for food and sustainability in CDMX right now?

LC: Baldío is definitely the most extreme example. And I don’t think most restaurants can or will go that far. What they’re doing is more of a political statement. It’s about showing what’s possible—not just running a restaurant.

The groundwork was laid over a decade ago with Arca Tierra and working with chinamperos. Lucio, who started it (and also co-owns Baldío) was connected to some of the city’s most prominent chefs and offered them the chance to buy local, organic produce and specialty items. That was a game-changer, buying directly from these farmers—Lucio worked with them to start growing organically, cleaning the water, filtering it, fixing the soil.

Urban gardens are also part of this movement. When I first moved to Mexico City, I met a woman who was clearing rubble from property that was damaged in the 1985 earthquake to turn it into an urban garden. Now, she supplies all kinds of restaurants across the city. There are many more now all over the city and they’ve had a big impact. They may not produce in large quantities, but they offer specialty items that restaurants want—edible flowers, microgreens, rainbow radishes.

Small farms in Xochimilco—chinampas—now supply many of the city’s top restaurants directly. (Photo: PJ Roundtree)

All of this has helped reintroduce people to local, seasonal, and endemic foods. It's similar to what’s happened around the world, this appreciation for and preservation of native seeds and protecting biodiversity.

Elena Reygadas once told me that working in restaurants in London made her realize the truly extraordinary level of biodiversity we have here in Mexico. She just couldn’t find many of the ingredients she was used to at home.

Do you think this shift is moving beyond high-end restaurants and elite clientele to the broader population?

LC: I work with a family that partners with Arca Tierra, and they have an organic farm out in the chinampas. They sell organic eggs and they told me that at first, people balked at the higher prices. But once they tried them, they were hooked.

This family, along with four or five other small farmers, created a sort of co-op and opened an organic store at UNAM. So, that’s a broader demographic than just fine dining. There are farmer’s markets in neighborhoods outside of Roma (where you don’t see so many foreigners shopping).

One thing I find hopeful is that in Mexico, so many people still grow their own food—out of necessity, yes, but also out of knowledge. It's not some Instagram trend. It’s real life.

In the U.S., we’ve become so detached from food. You feel closer to it here. People here understand—when you eat chicken, it’s because someone killed that chicken. I had clients on a tour recently, and while on a hot air balloon ride, they saw a farmer below wringing chickens’ necks and dipping them in boiling water. They were shocked. But that’s reality. We’ve just sanitized it in the U.S.—factory farms, mass production, everything hidden from view.

We’ve lost that connection to the life and death cycles.

What are the challenges you encounter as a tour guide and foreigner living here?

LC: It’s complicated and it can be exhausting. I love sharing Mexico City with people. But outside of tours, I often keep to myself. I don’t want to give restaurant recommendations while I’m buying cigarettes at the shop.

Lydia’s tours focus on street food and markets. (Photo: Lydia Carey)

Sometimes I feel like I have a weird level of responsibility I didn’t ask for—people on my tours will ask “what do Mexicans think about Trump?” Or Claudia Sheinbaum, immigration, gentrification—you name it.

And I have to say, “I’m not the person to answer that.”

I can share conversations I’ve had, but of course I can’t speak for Mexicans generally. That’s what I think people forget when traveling. And it’s not just Americans—people from everywhere do this. We easily understand that the U.S. is a complex, multifaceted country—California is not the same as South Carolina, or Appalachia. But we don’t always extend that same understanding to other countries.

And if tourists take my opinions too seriously, I remind them: I’m just a middle-class white lady from the U.S.

I think about this a lot—I’m an insider to outsiders in Mexico but also, still an outsider myself.

LC: Exactly. It’s a tricky in-between role, but ultimately I believe you belong where you’ve invested yourself. I’ve invested so much of my time, money, energy, and love into Mexico City. I love living here—maybe more than many chilangos do.

There are deeper patterns at work—long-standing processes which have been happening in waves across the city for a long time, and not all driven by foreigners.

That doesn’t give me any special privileges. But I do think it gives me the same rights as everyone else. I get to complain about the traffic, the pollution, the government, and yes, even the tourists.

To me, the spirit of the Mexican Revolution—la tierra es de quien la trabaja—applies here in a way too. The city belongs to the people who live it. And I live it. I’m doing my best to be a good citizen.

What are your thoughts on the gentrification debate in CDMX?

LC: While I don’t exactly want to defend foreigners in conversations about gentrification with Mexicans, I do want to push back against xenophobia and broad generalizations—this idea that “this group is causing all the problems.”

My friend María was talking to me about the resentment toward the number of foreigners here now. And by “here,” I mean in Roma, Condesa, Polanco, just a part of this huge city.

Gentrification didn’t first come to Roma with the pandemic-era influx of foreigners. (Photo: Kate Bohné)

“Lydia, five years ago, we were all like, ‘Come to our city! It’s amazing! The food’s great, it’s cheap, it’s safe!’” And now: “Actually, we’re good. We’ve hit our quota. Please don’t come anymore.”

I don’t want to disregard the very real issue of digital nomads who have more economic power, or the impact of Airbnb rentals which should be regulated. But it’s also this tendency to place all the blame on the other.

There are deeper patterns at work—long-standing processes which have been happening in waves across the city for a long time, and not all of it driven by foreigners.

When the renaissance of Roma began in the early 2000s, it wasn’t foreigners who kicked that off—it was Mexicans. And I’m not saying that critically. I think it’s great. They saw a neighborhood that was run-down and economically accessible, so they invested in it. For me, doing research for my book on Roma helped me understand this history. This neighborhood has gone through cycles—it’s never really been a working-class area, except maybe briefly after the 1985 earthquake.

That context helped me make peace with what’s happening now. It’s just part of Roma’s evolution.

What are the upsides and downsides of the Michelin Guide coming to Mexico?

LC: The upside is it affirms how world-class Mexican cuisine is.

The downsides? Lines. The impossibility of getting a reservation at places. But also it putting the spotlight on this tiny handful of restaurants—some of which I think are amazing, others less so—and leaving out so many great places that also deserve recognition.

That happens with all these lists: Michelin, 50 Best, Eater. They narrow your options and feed into this checklist mentality of modern travel. People don’t want to waste their “stomach space” on something not on the list, so we lose spontaneity. We’re no longer open to discovering something unexpected.

I understand people want to feel secure in their choices. They don’t want to do too much research. Honestly, if I’m planning a trip to a place I’ve never been, I’ll definitely check the Eater guides. I’m not anti-list—I just don’t want them to define the experience.

You’ve covered food and wine in Baja a lot as well. Aside from the obvious, what stands out to you as different about the Mexico City vs the Baja food scene?

LC: Of course, the focus is on the seafood and wine. They have amazing ingredients. But also, Baja is this in-between space—close to the U.S., but still very Mexican. It has a more open, experimental vibe. Less of a fixed culinary identity than Oaxaca or Yucatán.

Most of the really exciting places are expensive, though. In Mexico City, there’s more room for excellent mid-range spots. Baja is so much smaller and its tourism is different—more high-end, more about luxury.

Sustainability is another key difference. Baja has serious water issues, so the push toward sustainable practices is urgent—and I think more advanced than in Mexico City. Vineyards in Valle de Guadalupe are switching to drought-resistant grapes, using drip irrigation, composting grape skins, and planting native species among the vines.

And they have space—that makes a huge difference. In Mexico City, a place like Pujol can’t just build a garden in Polanco. There’s no room. That’s why projects like the chinampas stand out—they’e rare and innovative in such a dense city.

In Baja, vineyards often have their own organic gardens. Some are starting community programs for kids to learn to grow food. I think that's fantastic, but it’s just not as feasible in a big city. Urban farming has its limits.

Both Baja and Mexico City feel really dynamic right now. There’s this energy—young people starting new projects, pushing boundaries. Guadalajara is exciting too. When I first moved to Mexico, it felt like everything revolved around Mexico City. But now other cities—like Mérida, Ensenada, Valle de Guadalupe, Guadalajara, Tijuana, even Los Cabos and Tulum—are really stepping into the spotlight.

Thank you for reading and feel free to send me your comments and questions at hola@themexpatriate.com. If you enjoyed this interview, take a moment to check out Lydia’s account on Instagram (Mexico City Streets) and please consider upgrading to a paid subscription below for full access to The Mexpatriate.