Dining in San Miguel de Allende

As I'd experienced on previous trips, eating out in Mexico is so much fun. Along with French gastronomy, it's one of two national cuisines on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list. While you can still get cheap, traditional food for next to nothing, there's also a more upscale culture of farm-to-table food, and plenty of internationally ranked chefs that have fun playing with the intersection between traditional Mexican dishes and haute cuisine. Being an expat hotspot, San Miguel de Allende has loads of beautiful restaurants that also serve great food, typically at similar or slightly lower prices than what you'd pay in the United States. 

Café Buen Dia

A great place for brunch, Café Buen Dia served good cappuccinos and yummy, healthy breakfast fare. Set in a pretty courtyard, a guitarist played traditional music as we ate. The bathrooms were also adorable, complete with the type of tile-edged mirrors that Mom had her eye on, and eventually bought to bring home. This place seemed to be a favorite of older expats and local families.

Café Lavanda

Super hipstery and instagrammable, Café Lavanda is known for its lavender-infused coffee. It's a tiny little space, which leads to patrons lining up before opening in order to snag a table. We showed up about twenty minutes early and snagged one of the first set of tables. Aside from the coffee, the breakfast food is great as well. I had fruity french toast, while Mom tried the huevos en cazuela, a little breakfast casserole of potatoes and salsa topped with an egg, tomatoes, and bacon. Delish!

San Agustin Churros

Owned by a telenovela star, this eatery feels like a traditional European café. Both the churros and the chocolate were great. To complete the experience, we had a nice chat with a cute gay ex-pat couple who seemed to be fans of the amount of food pictures we were taking, lol. This place is cash only, but won't set you back more than $5 USD or so.

Salon Oaxaca

Moving on to the lunch hour, this was our first meal in SMA. This Oaxacan-inspired restaurant is known for its mezcal and tlayudas. We had the latter, filled with chapulines, along with margaritas. We were the first patrons for lunch and chose to sit on the roof deck. A few young American couples had a seat about ten minutes later. We tensed up at the sight of an awful red ball cap, but it ended up reading MAKE AMERICA MEXICO AGAIN. Munching on our tlayudas, it was a sentiment we could get behind.

Nicasio Comedor Mexicano

I was exceptionally bummed to learn that this restaurant has closed in the six months it's taken me to start writing about SMA. It may have been my favorite meal of the trip. A perfectly hipstery little farm-to-table restaurant run by a bunch of young friends, this place was simply too cool to last. Hats off for the best enchilada I will probably ever eat.

Quince

Quince was our first dinner experience, after walking to Jacinto 1930, and finding it inexplicably not open. Everything turned out for the best - for the equivalent of about $30 USD per person, we had an amazing meal and drinks on a rooftop directly across from the Parroquia. The sun went down, church bells rang, and the cross on the cathedral spire lit up as we sat enjoying our meal.

Casa del Diezmo

Casa del Diezmo is a Yucatan-inspired restaurant in a beautiful, leafy courtyard. The evening we were there, the clientele was entirely expat and mostly elderly, but the food was pretty darn good - more traditionally presented than hipstery. The drinks were also cheap and strong - a couple of half-price margaritas sent us happily wandering home to our Airbnb at the end of the night.

Andy's Tacos

If you've never eaten from a food cart featured in the Wall Street Journal, here's your chance! Andy's Tacos is a mainstay in SMA, and luckily, was located just a few blocks from our Airbnb. The tacos al pastor were worth a trip to Mexico on their own. We also tried some gringas, filled with white cheese - pretty good as well. Both times, we took our food back to our casita and enjoyed eating on the sofa while watching a soccer match.