Experience a Gourmet Tasting Menu in Oaxaca

This article first appeared in the November 13, 2022 edition of Dinogo Travel, a biweekly newsletter from Dinogo’s team about exploring destinations where food takes center stage. Subscribe today.

As a restaurant enthusiast from Brooklyn, I usually shy away from tasting menus or preset courses. I typically prefer a more casual dining experience with minimal interaction and grMytour flexibility in timing. However, while exploring Dinogo’s Oaxaca guide before my trip to Oaxaca City in September, I felt inspired to make reservations at a couple of upscale restaurants that promised dishes as exquisite as art, served in a meticulously planned, slightly elaborate format. Now, weeks later, after enjoying this city famed for its street food, I reminisce about the tejate I had at Mercado Benito Juárez and the memelas at Mercado de Abastos, but I also reflect on the meals that unfolded according to their design, and how I found myself unexpectedly enchanted by the surrounding pageantry and the passionate explanations of ingredients and cooking methods.

When on vacation, opting for a multicourse meal is a perfect choice: you have the luxury of time to enjoy a relaxed dinner, and the trip itself justifies a memorable dining experience. Travel often makes us more open-minded, turning the expected splendor of an elaborate menu into something enjoyable and refreshing. Most importantly, these restaurants provided a chance to sample the region’s culinary highlights all in one place, introducing me to dishes I could later seek out in their traditional forms. They served not just as a showcase for creative chefs, though that was part of it, but also as a springboard for my own culinary adventure in this new city.

At Alfonsina, a restaurant located 20 minutes from the city center, my first course was accompanied by a small cup of pulque, a beverage made from the fermented sap of agave. It wasn’t on my radar to try — and I probably wouldn’t have chosen it from a menu — but once it was presented to me, I reconsidered that choice. Later, at Enrique Olvera’s Criollo, I learned that my previous choice of chocolate with milk was a mistake; opting for water instead revealed a depth of flavor I hadn’t appreciated before. (So yes, make sure to enjoy the drinks in Oaxaca.)

In Oaxaca City, the chefs at upscale restaurants embraced their role as custodians of the region’s culinary heritage. After savoring all five courses at Alfonsina, our server brought out a plate filled with ingredients and shared how each played a role in our meal, turning it into an enjoyable lesson that felt unique compared to dining back home. Later, when I encountered those same ingredients in other dishes at more casual Mytouries or on the streets, I fondly recalled that dinner at Alfonsina. Although I didn’t have more pulque during my stay, I doubt any would have matched the experience of that initial discovery paired with a beautifully crafted meal.