36 Hours in Mexico City: Things to Do and See

When Mexico City was still the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, the La Merced district on the southeastern edge of the historic center served as a dock for goods from the mainland. There’s no water there anymore, but with thousands of informal vendors and 11 or so covered markets, La Merced still feels like a port: raucous, heady and overwhelming. To avoid getting lost, the best way to visit is to grab a breakfast walking tour with Eat Like a Local, a small tour operator that directs a portion of its proceeds toward educational programming for young women in the neighborhood. The company’s flagship, four-hour walking tour ($120 per person) covers both La Merced and the Mercado Jamaica flower market, but it can organize shorter, custom tours focused on this Mexico City landmark.

Walking from La Merced to the magnificent ceremonial plaza known as the Zócalo, stop at the Cerreria de Jesús for handmade wax candles (24 pesos) and the Ex-Teresa Arte Actual (free), a museum set in a steeply sloping former convent. From there, cross the sunken ruins of the Aztec Templo Mayor (100 pesos) to the new flagship shop of FONART, the National Fund for the Development of Crafts, and around the corner, past the moving works of José Clemente Orozco at the Colegio de San Ildefonso (50 pesos), widely considered the birthplace of Mexican graffiti. Finally, see Diego Rivera’s dynamic suite of paintings – ranging from romantic depictions of Mexican folklore to cheeky jabs at capitalist excess – in the former Secretariat of Public Education, open from 2024 as the Museo Vivo del Muralismo (free).

Opened in April 2025, Restaurant Charco, on the rooftop of the new, child-friendly Museo del Cacao and Chocolate, overlooks the domes and buttresses of the Metropolitan Cathedral. Charco’s kitchen, helmed by Chilean chef Ricardo Verdejo, produces an inventive, seafood-heavy menu with a strong program of cocktails, mezcals and natural wines (cocktails from 190 pesos, about 1,500 pesos for two people, without drinks). On a clear day – admittedly few and far between – the twin volcanic peaks of Popocatépetl and Iztaçihuatl may be visible on the horizon, but the sunsets are spectacular in any season. For a low-key drink with a bit of history, try one of the neighborhood’s classic cantinas like El Gallo de Oro (beers from 65 pesos), open since 1874 with decor that’s practically unchanged since the 1970s.

In 2022, after nearly six years of collecting rare agave distillates throughout Mexico, food writer Natalia de la Rosa and photographer Jason Thomas Fritz opened Ahuhuete, one of the city’s best tasting rooms, in the historic center. Receiving six visitors at a time, the owners pour a diverse range of high-quality spirits purchased from producers in remote villages ranging from the highlands of Sonora to the tropical hills of Guerrero and the volcanic valleys of Michoacán. The two-hour tasting, $90, includes at least six bars of mezcal that offers an incomparable picture of Mexico’s cultural and ecological diversity. For a more self-guided experience, Bosphoro, also in the Centro neighborhood, remains the city’s standard-bearer for agave spirit and experimental music—still sexy and surprising (an ounce pour from 80 pesos) more than 15 years after opening.

In Mexico City, where lunch lasts until evening, late-night provisions, often served under a halo of fluorescent lights and smoke, form a common replacement for dinner. Options abound. Café La Pagoda, one of the historic center’s iconic cafés de chinos – coffee shops opened by Chinese immigrants in the early 1930s – serves enchiladas (149 pesos) and chilaquiles (94 pesos) 24 hours a day. The same pungent schedule is laid out at Caldos de Galina Luis in La Roma, known for its hot bowls of chicken soup (from 65 pesos). Is. In the Narvarte neighborhood, Tacos Tony sells fragrant tacos de suadero (32 pesos), a block away from El Villacito, a mechanic shop by day and taqueria by night, serving Pastor’s Marble Petals (27 pesos) until 5 a.m.