Amazing Animal

Despite its landlocked location, Mexico City has always offered plenty of casual seafood spots, the most well-known of them being Gabriela Cámara's Contramar, which cemented the jewel-toned tuna tostada as one of the city's must-eat items more than two decades ago. "Most formal restaurants that sold fish were more 'European,' and local places were very wash-and-wear and marketplace stalls," recalls Cámara from when she first opened in 1998. Her focus on domestic fisheries and cooperatives broke ground at the time, when the city's top chefs still mostly trained in Europe and returned to open fancy French or Spanish restaurants. It would take another decade before chefs started opening high-end Mexican restaurants.

Today, Mexico City's most ambitious chefs are focusing their talents on more personal, regional restaurants, and since last year, that's meant the city's hottest new spots sport beach vibes and pristine seafood flown in directly from the Pacific Coast. When the pandemic hit, everyone gravitated toward comfort food, says food tour guide Anaís Martínez, especially deep-fried stuff like chicken sandwiches. But when people started going out again, that changed. "They wanted hangover food — that is what seafood is for us," she explains. That's why micheladas get an upgrade at Mi Compa Chava in the Roma neighborhood, where they make them with Clamato, the classic cure for a cruda. Servers weave through the chaotic line of people waiting for a table carrying trays of cheve chola: beer flipped upside down into a cup of Clamato and lime juice, filled with octopus, shrimp, and serrano chiles.