OMG!! San Miguel is foodie central for Mexico!! San Miguel has such a great choice of restaurants and styles of cuisine that we never get bored. We have enjoyed pizza at La Grotto and Bacco and Centani (in the Doce 18 Concept House), Italian food at Antigua Trattoria Romana, pastries and coffee at Petit Four, Panio and La Sacristia, great breakfasts at Lavanda Cafe, Maria Xoconostle, Cafe Monet, Oso Azul and others. The grilled meats at Ten Ten Pie al Carbon (right around the corner from us) are excellent even though the service is less than stellar. They also have some nice crepes suzettes done table side. Cafe Rama has some good lunch options, especially sandwiches and cakes in a funky interior. And across the street is Taco Rama with their “Make Tacos Not War” sign. For a great American burger (regular and veggie) we hit Big John’s Munch Box on Refugio Sur. It is like the “Cheers” of the neighborhood. El Correo is so good for typical Mexican fare and really reasonable. La Casa del Diezmo has a gorgeous courtyard. And friends told us about Grille Torres a nice little place for seafood, especially shrimp. Rustica has recently opened and has amazing food and a great back patio. For a splurge The Restaurant is really nice. Absolutely amazing Peruvian food can be found at La Parada or Lima 502. We think the best churros and hot chocolate can be found at San Augustin, getting in may be a problem as the line is always long.
For a special pizza night a couple times a month check out Casa Papaya on Sunday night. Reservations needed. And a newcomer to the Pizza/Italian scene is Pizzeria Fiamma on Salida Celaya where Dila’s used to be!! Amazing ensalada of arugula and burrata and fabulous individual pizzas with soothing music!!! Everything is homemade and truly wonderful. It goes on and on. There are a lot of comida corridas where for a fixed price you get a ton of food buffet style. But those are sort of lost on me since I don’t really eat enough. But at sometimes 60 pesos or about $3 for a meal I shouldn’t worry about it. Everyone seems to make it to Hecho en Mexico on Ancha San Antonio at one time or another. It is a great place to hang out and relax on the shaded patio. Reasonably priced with a variety of foods on the menu it is an easy place to go on our way home from Centro. Even the bibliotheca has a nice quiet little Cafe Santa Ana. There are so many options for outdoor dining, which we love as they are very relaxing and great to go to year round.
Occasionally we will go to Bistro Mi Casa in the Instituto Allende, the food is expensive for what you get, but the music is Fantastic!!! It is a fabulous venue to see Gil Guitierez and David Mendoza, who are well known in San Miguel, play. Glenn is going to be writing his own post on all the great music happening in town. So watch for that. As a matter of fact, there are many restaurants that have live music and we are starting to seek them out.
Another place for great food is Gil’s Zandunga, which we wrote about in previous post. The food, drinks and music make it a really great experience and we love taking newcomers and our visitors here. Amazing margaritas, no skimping here!! Fabulous for getting into your groove!!
A few days ago we went to Nectar, a favorite vegetarian restaurant we visited the last time we were here in June 2015. It was not planned at all but once there we realized that Glenn was wearing the exact same outfit he wore almost to the same day and time as back then. Weird!!
We have also imbibed in some very nice drinks. I am sucking up the Sangria Naturales like crazy. If you don’t ask for natural you will get them with vodka added in. So refreshing after our wanders every day, and pretty cheap. (We are striving to do our 10,000 steps again when we go out. That isn’t every day though as we love to just hang out at the house practicing our Spanish, writing the blog, etc.) Glenn is loving the Lemonades Naturales and gets those every chance he gets, sometimes 2-3 at a sitting. There is a nice taqueria with an upstairs terrace in centro that has really good Pina Coladas. Yummy. We have gotten the occasional Maggies but they haven’t been our first choice. Agua Minerales: wow, we keep those coming since it is hot here and they do a good job in helping us cool down. I am getting cappuccinos for breakfast all the time too since they are so reasonable. And there are some delicious smoothies around town. So we have the drinks covered. We especially enjoy heading off to the rooftop restaurants and bars. Some of our favorites are Luna, on top of the Rosewood Hotel, for great Gin and Tonics (Rosewood Tonic), El Pegaso and La Azotea (they have great Jicama tacos here).
We are going a bit over budget on food since it is easy to just pop in to eat and drink when we are out of the house. But prices are pretty reasonable and we do make the money stretch as we are coming out under budget on some other categories. I think people looking at our Instagram believe all we do is eat. We certainly do a lot of it! We have dropped a few pounds since we have been here (Glenn 6 and me 10), and hope that trend will last.
When we want to stay at home and cook we head off to some of the great little tiendas surrounding us where we can buy just about everything we need, or go to La Comer the big everything store just about a 7 minute ride away from us by bus. That has some specialty items like great cheeses and imported food, bakery, liquor area etc. There is also another grocery store, Soriana, that we went to for items for our first little get together (and our first guests) on Tuesday. We should have gone to La Comer though and won’t make that mistake again. Sano is a artisan market just down the street from us and we get a fabulous quiche there. A bit expensive at 250 pesos ($12) but we get 3 meals out of it. For meat we hit a butcher on the same street as our Spanish class (Mesones) so that makes it convenient. Of course there is also the main Mercado which is a colorful vision every time we enter. We are still learning our way around but I think we have done pretty well so far. And we are certainly not going hungry!!
The fruits here are also so nice! We have papaya, watermelon and cantaloupe just about everyday. We would eat tons of the mangoes too but they are such a pain to cut. There is a really nice veggie/fruit tienda just down the street and over on Stirling Dickenson that we hit practically every day on the way home from Centro. It’s prices are cheap and the quality pretty good.
There are over 370 restaurants listed on Yelp and TripAdvisor alone for San Miguel, with new ones opening all the time. In the meantime, friends keep sharing their favorites with us so we really have our work cut out for us. We can’t wait to explore and taste more of what this wonderful town has to offer!!!
2 Comments
Over 370 restaurants! Our kind of town. Great pics and fab food posy. Mmm lots to look forward to.
Peta
You should visit if you haven’t already. San Miguel de Allende is a stunning town with welcoming people. Our choice after visiting 100 countries for my husband and 53 for me. If you stop by, let us know. We will have a drink on one of those rooftops.