Quintonil, Mexico City

We discovered Quintonil on our third night in Mexico City, recommended by a food editor friend who told us to skip the famous names and go here instead. Jorge Vallejo's cooking in Polanco is the most exciting food I've eaten anywhere in the last two years — progressive Mexican cuisine built around wild herbs, ancestral grains, and produce from the restaurant's own roof garden. The tasting menu changes with the season; when we visited in November the standout course was an epazote and huitlacoche tostada with a mole negro that had been cooking for forty-eight hours. The complexity of it — more than a hundred ingredients in a single bite — was almost incomprehensible. The dining room is calm and airy in natural wood and warm terracotta, with windows looking into the kitchen garden. Service is impeccable without being stiff. The twelve-course menu is about MXN 2,800pp. I've eaten in sixty countries and this is one of the ten best meals of my life.