Culinary Tour: Mexico City 2024

This weeklong immersion into the culinary traditions of Mexico City offered a one-of-a-kind introduction to a vibrant metropolis where pre- and post-colonial foods and culture collide and combine. Guides included Paco de Santiago, the head of Culinary Backstreet’s Mexico team, and Beto Estúa and Jorge Fritz, cooking teachers Milk Street has relied on repeatedly for their depth of knowledge about Mexican cooking (and excellent recipes).

The itinerary included neighborhood food stands most tourists don't know to visit, as well as busy central markets that everyone must experience. Cooking classes covered both culturally important dishes like birria and cochinita pibil and old family recipes, like the black beans that are the foundation of every meal in Beto’s family. An entire day of this tour was dedicated to corn in its many forms—particularly the tortilla. Finally, we took a journey outside the city to a family farm in Milpa Alta where we learned about pulque—a millennia-old alcoholic beverage made from fermented agave sap—and made mole from scratch.