A Capital Idea: A Jetsetter’s Guide to Mexico City

Long eschewed by Yours Truly in favour of its coastal climes, we have found that the Mexican capital; known as CDMX in the vernacular, offers a world of entertainment for the errant jetsetter. It is a city filled with a seemingly endless supply of art museums, stellar restaurants, and history alongside a decidedly metropolitan hustle and bustle. Its relative close proximity to New York makes it an appealing city escape in just under 6-hours when other destinations just seem too far, and there is that delightful currency exchange to consider. We began our trip departing Kennedy on Aeromexico at a reasonable hour. My travel companion blessed with the ability to sleep through any circumstance knocked off almost instantaneously, while I picked my way through the mute version of It (incidentally still terrifying, even without the sound).

Our flight brought us into the city in time for a civilized 2pm luncheon at Contramar, a breezy open plan restaurant that would not look out of place in Greece. Contramar became our first encounter with the exciting CDMX food scene. We might have even ordered second and third helpings of the tuna tostadas (simply divine)… accompanied by tuna tacos al pastor, and fish carnitas. Frankly nothing succeeds like excess when it comes to fish tacos.

After lunch we happened across a charming weekly street fair that had a bewildering array of Kylie Jenner lip-kits and pom-pom trimmed tunics and dallied for a moment. Somehow failing to trace our steps backwards to our discrete hotel La Valise, we got lost in tree-lined art deco Condesa for about an hour which would have been less dire had it not been under a high afternoon sun. With three rooms La Valise is easily the smallest hotel I have ever been in. The seamless townhouse is so subtle that we walked past it many times on Tonola. La Valise is an absolute delight, melding all the attentiveness of a small luxury hotel with the feeling of being in your glamorous yet understated friend’s home. Our room comprised of an enfilade of sitting room, bedroom and a private checkered tile courtyard fully loaded with a chic black hammock and swing. This charming configuration was guarded by a porcelain walrus, naturally! I happily would have moved in forever, replenishing the vase of tall white lilies under the sitting room’s approving portrait.

We capped off our first night with the tasting menu at Pujol, considered among the best restaurants in the world. Given our lunchtime gorging, we had to power through, sampling the amuse bouche of baby corn with crushed ants, and some stellar courses like the perfection of softshell crab, the beautifully plated duck, and a stunning mango confection of sorbet, fresh mango, mousse, and ice cream. Having had a couple of mezcals before dinner we opted to pair dinner with a dry Mexican white from Baja. Aside from the food, I appreciated the elegant ephemerality of the dated and wax sealed hospital white menu cards.

An 8am breakfast of fresh fruit and patisserie from nearby Rosetta Bakery put us in the mood for tourism. We headed over to the Zócalo to gawk at the Metropolitan Cathedral. The main square of the city acts as a crash course in Mexican history. It began its life as the religious center of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. After changing to Spanish hands the cathedral was consecrated there in 1656. The sprawling building is an admixture of colonial interpretations of renaissance, baroque, and neoclassical architecture, making it an interesting building to read, and in true Spanish colonial fashion the main interior decorative feature is a lot of gold. The cathedral’s main building material; however, comes from the stones of the Templo Mayor. The ruins of this sacred Aztec precinct are visible adjacent to the church’s tabernacle. As we walked over there was some Aztec Flyers preparing for a street performance, a living reminder of the advanced civilization that predated Spanish conquest and continues to influence Mexico.

Switching from the archaeological to the art historical, to the north east of the Templo Mayor lays Antiguo Colegio de San Idelfonso. The beautiful courtyard building was home to a Jesuit school before becoming the birthplace of the Mexican muralist movement, featuring the nascent works of Leal, Orozco, Siqueiros and of course Rivera. The building now hosts contemporary art exhibitions, and at the time of writing was exhibiting some works on urban planning. Continuing our Rivera Safari, we circled around to the Palacio Nacional first mistakenly entering the National Museum of World Culture. This detour proved diverting with exhibitions by contemporary Mexican photographer Favian Vergara, both kitschy and full of dark humour, as well as a more sedate Alfonso Mena offering, Habitar-Pensar-Construir, exploring the relationship between buildings and human psyche. We regained Rivera ground when we were directed across the street and into the right building. After waving off a ‘professor tour guide’ and forking over our I.D.’s, we entered the government complex only to find that Rivera’s History of the Mexican People was rudely undergoing a facelift. The sweeping bridal staircase was somewhat diminished by the diamonds of steel beams carefully concealing Hazmat suited painters diligently prodding the frescoed surface, although a helpful schematic upstairs with the other murals helped provide contextual reference.

Exhausted after a quick enchilada stop at chic courtyard restaurant Azul and a churro pick-me-up from the original and much beloved Churros el Moro, we opted to leave the Franz Mayer collection for another time, and retreating back to leafy Condesa for a foray into the art gallery and boutique scene. Marching down Cordoba the first stop was Goodbye Folks, a vintage emporium cum custom cobbler. CDMX really goes in for the American rock star look so there was racks of moto jackets, varsity bombers, jeans, and plenty of band t-shirts, alongside a gorgeous white 40’s cocktail dress that barely fit over my thigh (le sigh). We also loved vintage mansion Void and spent some time drooling over the museum-worthy Courrèges pieces (which also didn’t fit but were amazing all the same). Through much consulting of Google maps I finally found the buzzer of Proyectos Monclova, a contemporary art gallery featuring From Metric to Imperial the work of Balkan artist Istvan Ist Huzjan, who works in that wonderfully soviet abstract sculptural tradition alongside some emotive silver gelatin prints covering a diversity of subjects. At Galeria OMR the current exhibition Ghost Nets explored of the role of bones by drawing on themes of structure. The cohort of artists responded to the prompt through a mixture of the personal psychology to the literal physiology. Among the artists featured were Pedro Neves Marques and Anri Sala. After a long day exploring, we cooled off with an aperitif at sleek Condesa DF’s rooftop bar, the perfect place to watch the sunset on a perfect day.

Photo Courtesy of: Proyectos Monclova

It is amazing how quickly time slipped by without barely made a dent on what I expected to do. We missed entire neighborhoods such as Coyoacan, wherein lies Frida Khalo’s house (and rather oddly Leon Trotsky’s house). The truth is that even armed with my ambitious touring schedule and a custom Google map, CDMX is simply too large to take in on a Weekend. In fact it does the city a disservice to try and understand it in such a short span of time. Of course that just means we are plotting our return trip.