| Oaxaca City: Where to Drink, Eat, and Crash in the Mezcal Capital of the World
It might sound cheesy to the uninitiated, but the more you talk to people in Oaxaca City, the more the word magical comes up. There's a palpable quality about the Mexican city that courses through the air and into your veins. Maybe it's quiet energy reverberating off of the valley's surrounding purple ...
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Travel & Eats
Oaxaca City: Where to Drink, Eat, and Crash in the Mezcal Capital of the World
Here, a typical weeknight can easily become the party of the year.
It might sound cheesy to the uninitiated, but the more you talk to people in Oaxaca City, the more the word magical comes up. There’s a palpable quality about the Mexican city that courses through the air and into your veins. Maybe it’s quiet energy reverberating off of the valley’s surrounding purple mountains. Maybe it’s just all the mezcal you’ve been drinking (sipping, not shooting—you're an adult and it's delicious). It's probably a combination of the two.
Whatever is responsible for the electric tingle of the place, it’s just one of the many reasons that keep visitors returning to Oaxaca—and why you should expand your Mexican vacation search radar past Tulum and Mexico City. “There’s a deep sense of history everywhere you go, and also a feeling that just about anything could happen. The food, of course, is arguably the best in Mexico,” says Clayton Szczech, a Mexican spirits specialist and founder of Experience Mezcal. “While the current mezcal boom has pros and cons, it has inarguably improved the nightlife in Oaxaca city. There is now real cocktail culture [here], thanks to places like Sabina Sabe and Mezcalogia. What makes Oaxacan nights truly special though, is drinking, chatting, and dancing into the night with a mix of locals, international tourists, hotshot foreign bartenders, and indigenous maestros mezcaleros in from the countryside to sell their mezcal. A typical weeknight in Oaxaca City can easily become the party of the year.” Here's how to spend that perfect night.
Before you get to drinking, you should eat something. For dinner recs, we asked Sabina Sabe bartender Aleks Medina : “I have two places in Oaxaca that I think are the best. The first is Criollo. Seriously this guy is a genius in my opinion. It’s amazing. They don’t have a permanent menu, they change things day by day. This is something new for Oaxaca,” Medina says of the new tasting menu spot backed by super-famous chef Enrique Olvera, chef Luis Arellano, and architect Javier Sánchez. His second pick is Origen: “It’s very simple and unpretentious—less is more.”
Ultimately, you’ll want to wind up at the Quinta Real, a centrally-located treasure of a hotel that was once a convent. Today you won’t find any nuns milling about the pink-painted oasis, just supremely comfortable guests enjoying the historic property. In the morning, make your way down to the sunny courtyard for the hotel’s famed breakfast spread, melodiously complemented by a live quartet.
And now for the drinking. You’re going to want to be sampling mezcal while you’re in mezcal Mecca. Man about town Vicente Reyes Cervantes is the guy to see about Oaxaca drink destinations. As a Oaxaca native and the head of operations for Gem & Bolt mezcal, Cervantes knows the city’s drink scene in and out. Here are his picks for mezcal drinking and more.
Here, a typical weeknight can easily become the party of the year.
It might sound cheesy to the uninitiated, but the more you talk to people in Oaxaca City, the more the word magical comes up. There’s a palpable quality about the Mexican city that courses through the air and into your veins. Maybe it’s quiet energy reverberating off of the valley’s surrounding purple mountains. Maybe it’s just all the mezcal you’ve been drinking (sipping, not shooting—you're an adult and it's delicious). It's probably a combination of the two.
Whatever is responsible for the electric tingle of the place, it’s just one of the many reasons that keep visitors returning to Oaxaca—and why you should expand your Mexican vacation search radar past Tulum and Mexico City. “There’s a deep sense of history everywhere you go, and also a feeling that just about anything could happen. The food, of course, is arguably the best in Mexico,” says Clayton Szczech, a Mexican spirits specialist and founder of Experience Mezcal. “While the current mezcal boom has pros and cons, it has inarguably improved the nightlife in Oaxaca city. There is now real cocktail culture [here], thanks to places like Sabina Sabe and Mezcalogia. What makes Oaxacan nights truly special though, is drinking, chatting, and dancing into the night with a mix of locals, international tourists, hotshot foreign bartenders, and indigenous maestros mezcaleros in from the countryside to sell their mezcal. A typical weeknight in Oaxaca City can easily become the party of the year.” Here's how to spend that perfect night.
Before you get to drinking, you should eat something. For dinner recs, we asked Sabina Sabe bartender Aleks Medina : “I have two places in Oaxaca that I think are the best. The first is Criollo. Seriously this guy is a genius in my opinion. It’s amazing. They don’t have a permanent menu, they change things day by day. This is something new for Oaxaca,” Medina says of the new tasting menu spot backed by super-famous chef Enrique Olvera, chef Luis Arellano, and architect Javier Sánchez. His second pick is Origen: “It’s very simple and unpretentious—less is more.”
Ultimately, you’ll want to wind up at the Quinta Real, a centrally-located treasure of a hotel that was once a convent. Today you won’t find any nuns milling about the pink-painted oasis, just supremely comfortable guests enjoying the historic property. In the morning, make your way down to the sunny courtyard for the hotel’s famed breakfast spread, melodiously complemented by a live quartet.
And now for the drinking. You’re going to want to be sampling mezcal while you’re in mezcal Mecca. Man about town Vicente Reyes Cervantes is the guy to see about Oaxaca drink destinations. As a Oaxaca native and the head of operations for Gem & Bolt mezcal, Cervantes knows the city’s drink scene in and out. Here are his picks for mezcal drinking and more.
Casa Oaxaca
“Even though the cocktails [here] are not super sophisticated, they’re very well made with natural ingredients and local ingredients. Obviously the terrace is excellent to eat [on], but I actually go to the downstairs bar only. I don’t go anywhere else. There are only four tables—maybe three—it’s beautiful. It’s kind of the only place you don’t need to make a reservation. They have a little menu for the bar and they can also bring you food from the restaurant in a lighter way. I would recommend the Xoconoxtle Mezcalini cocktail which is made with a very specific local fruit. It’s this red fruit we call tuna (prickly pear), but it’s a little bit sour. I think it It captures the whole Oaxacan gastronomy with mezcal.”
“Even though the cocktails [here] are not super sophisticated, they’re very well made with natural ingredients and local ingredients. Obviously the terrace is excellent to eat [on], but I actually go to the downstairs bar only. I don’t go anywhere else. There are only four tables—maybe three—it’s beautiful. It’s kind of the only place you don’t need to make a reservation. They have a little menu for the bar and they can also bring you food from the restaurant in a lighter way. I would recommend the Xoconoxtle Mezcalini cocktail which is made with a very specific local fruit. It’s this red fruit we call tuna (prickly pear), but it’s a little bit sour. I think it It captures the whole Oaxacan gastronomy with mezcal.”
Mezcaloteca
“A place I really love that’s more of a purist place is Mezcaloteca. I really recommend it for people who are really into mezcal and really want to learn. It’s always amazing to go there and discover a rare mezcal, amazing producers, a different technique combined with a different variety of agave in a bottle that is super limited—maybe sometimes 100 liters production. It’s kind of a library for mezcal and more of a learning place. You have to make a reservation and they take you on a personal mezcal and agave journey. It’s a proper mezcal tasting room. It’s really nice and the aesthetics are really beautiful as well.”
“A place I really love that’s more of a purist place is Mezcaloteca. I really recommend it for people who are really into mezcal and really want to learn. It’s always amazing to go there and discover a rare mezcal, amazing producers, a different technique combined with a different variety of agave in a bottle that is super limited—maybe sometimes 100 liters production. It’s kind of a library for mezcal and more of a learning place. You have to make a reservation and they take you on a personal mezcal and agave journey. It’s a proper mezcal tasting room. It’s really nice and the aesthetics are really beautiful as well.”
Los Danzantes
“This is personal, but I love the Los Danzantes lounge. That’s where I go on Sundays. Not the restaurant, but the lounge off to the side. They do have cocktails but I think it’s a better place to drink straight mezcal. They have a good selection of mezcal including the Danzantes mezcal Alipús but they do carry most of the good mezcals. Sometimes I drink wine there. They have a really good Mexican wine selection, not expensive which I really enjoy when I’m not drinking mezcal. They have a really good selection of wines from Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California. The place is awesome and they have very comfortable seats. I love it.”
“This is personal, but I love the Los Danzantes lounge. That’s where I go on Sundays. Not the restaurant, but the lounge off to the side. They do have cocktails but I think it’s a better place to drink straight mezcal. They have a good selection of mezcal including the Danzantes mezcal Alipús but they do carry most of the good mezcals. Sometimes I drink wine there. They have a really good Mexican wine selection, not expensive which I really enjoy when I’m not drinking mezcal. They have a really good selection of wines from Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California. The place is awesome and they have very comfortable seats. I love it.”
Salón de la Fama
“There is a little place, I don’t know if you even want to publish it but it’s really cool, Salón de la Fama, the hall of fame. It’s a little cantina and I like to go there sometimes to have a beer or mezcal. Many years ago the founder, his nickname is El Chato, worked there. He’s a celebrity. It’s kind of the typical cantina that we have, but it’s really well located and anyone can go. It’s been taken over by new generations and shifted a little bit, but they kept the essence of the cantina that El Chato founded. For me, it’s a place to drink and cure a hangover. I have anything with beer—they have an excellent michelada and clamato.”
“There is a little place, I don’t know if you even want to publish it but it’s really cool, Salón de la Fama, the hall of fame. It’s a little cantina and I like to go there sometimes to have a beer or mezcal. Many years ago the founder, his nickname is El Chato, worked there. He’s a celebrity. It’s kind of the typical cantina that we have, but it’s really well located and anyone can go. It’s been taken over by new generations and shifted a little bit, but they kept the essence of the cantina that El Chato founded. For me, it’s a place to drink and cure a hangover. I have anything with beer—they have an excellent michelada and clamato.”
Sabina Sabe
“The bar has an extremely good selection of mezcal, I would say the most complete selection of mezcals. Cocktails go from negronis to experimentations, but they’re very well done. They know what they’re doing and they’re very focused on mixology. The owner is an amazing young guy. he treats everyone with such a personal touch. He makes you feel like you’re home. It’s a really good local bar. It’s open late, you can stay there until 2, 3:30. I think legally they’re open until 3 but you can stay later.”
“The bar has an extremely good selection of mezcal, I would say the most complete selection of mezcals. Cocktails go from negronis to experimentations, but they’re very well done. They know what they’re doing and they’re very focused on mixology. The owner is an amazing young guy. he treats everyone with such a personal touch. He makes you feel like you’re home. It’s a really good local bar. It’s open late, you can stay there until 2, 3:30. I think legally they’re open until 3 but you can stay later.”
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