The 20 best Mexican restaurants in America

This is the stateside debut of Enrique Olvera, the megawatt Mexico City talent behind Pujol, regularly ranked one of the 20 best restaurants. Here you’ll find elegant high-gear small plates—pristine, pricey and market-fresh. Olvera’s single-corn tortillas pop up frequently, from a complimentary starter of crackly blue-corn tortillas with chile-kicked pumpkin-seed butter to dense, crispy tostadas dabbed with bone-marrow salsa and creamy tongues of uni. Don’t miss the face-melting, savory-sweet, Instagrammed-to-death husk meringue ($14), with its fine, ash-dusted hull giving way to a velvety, supercharged corn mousse.

Some chefs are like gastronomic Margaret Meads, quick studies in replicating the food of cultures far from their own. Alex Stupak, a notorious tinkerer, is much more original. Everything here is designed for sharing, and a table cluttered with his most impressionistic fare feels Mexican only in the most cosmopolitan sense. Miniature roasted carrots, in one boisterous small plate, arrive sprouting from an earthenware bowl that’s been artfully streaked with cool yogurt and sweet-spicy mole. Another beautiful abstraction features black mole splattered like a Rorschach blot around seared calamari curls, an explosion of super-savory elements with fried potato nuggets and drips of chorizo mayo. Plus the bar has one of the most comprehensive selections of mescal in New York.

Thanks to chefs Jaime Martin del Campo and Ramiro Arvizu, South LA neighborhood Bell has become a dining destination. The Jalisco natives opened their upscale La Casita Mexicana in 1999 and have since become TV personalities, famously defeating Bobby Flay in a chile relleno Throwdown. Try the duo’s meat-filled version, chile en nogada—roasted Poblano packed with ground beef, dried fruits, walnuts and candied cactus, topped with pecan cream sauce and pomegranate seeds. It looks like an homage to the Mexican flag. House-made corn tortillas are similarly patriotic with red (guajillo chile), green (cactus paddle) and white (corn), the perfect accompaniment to a plate of Tres Moles that features three types of mole: traditional poblano and two types of pipián, a creamy pumpkin-seed based sauce. Start the meal with chia seed-laced lemonade and end with a stop at the adjacent tiendita to pick up South of the Border pantry items.

Almost everything in New Mexico cooking is blessed by the addition of roasted chilies, and the question is always “red or green?” At Mary and Tito’s, red is usually the answer: the restaurant’s slow-burning chile sauce features on signature dishes like carne adovada (at its best stuffed into a crispy-fried sopapilla), chiles rellenos or enchiladas, and has earned quite the cult following. This humble Near North Valley restaurant celebrated half a century of pleasing chile fiends in 2013, and was honored with a James Beard Foundation America’s Classics award in 2010.

At this humble little spot in the heart of mural-bedecked Calle 16, chef Silvana Salcido Esparza (a four-time James Beard Award nominee) serves Southern Mexican specialties to legions of adoring Phoenicians. The food of states like Oaxaca, Yucatan and Puebla makes a strong showing at Barrio Cafe, in house favorites like Yucatan’s cochinita pibil (marinated in crushed achiote seed and sour orange and cooked in a banana leaf), and chiles en nogada, a colorful dish from Puebla featuring stuffed chilies in a cream sauce.

An offshoot of the acclaimed NoPa restaurant, Nopalito offers authentic from-scratch Mexican cooking made with local, sustainable and organic ingredients. This is the antithesis of slapped-together street food. Carnitas is slow-cooked and braised in orange, bay leaf, milk, cinnamon and beer; Mole Coloradito con Pollo is made with toasted chiles, almonds, Ibarra chocolate, dried plums and a huge array of spices. Don't miss any version of tangy, tender nopales (cactus leaves), frequently on the menu in the form of tamales or in dishes such as Queso Flameado con Chorizo y Nopales (flamed Oaxacan and jack cheese with grilled cactus and chorizo).

Chicago’s best all-around taqueria specializes in tacos de fritangas, or fried meaty things cooked on a wide metal stovetop called a charola. You seriously can’t go wrong with anything on the menu, from the extra beefy suadero to the intricately spiced longaniza sausage. But the showstopper—and perhaps the best taco in Chicago—is the tripa. Order it crispy, and these little hunks from the cow’s intestine (not, as you would assume, the stomach) arrive as golden-hued and glistening crunchy nuggets.

The Mission burrito, as iconic to San Francisco as fog and cable cars, is the star at La Taqueria, a stalwart of the Mission District for more than 40 years. While some quibble over the exclusion of rice, no one argues over the tastiness of their behemoth foil-wrapped burrito bombs, filled with beans, cheese, salsa and meats ranging from carne and pollo asada to carnitas, chorizo and lengua. Located in the heart of the Mission District, the tidy no-frills spot also features tacos, quesadillas and a full selection of aguas frescas. Whatever your preference, start off with a basket of chips and the super-fresh guacamole.

The owners of Bar Henry branched out to Queens with this 40-seat Mexican eatery, specializing in the regional cuisine of Cintalapa, Chiapas. Brothers Cosme and Luis Aguilar, the chef and GM respectively, pay homage to their late mother with traditional plates, including some based on her recipes, such as chicken mole and cochinito chiapaneco (guajillo-marinated baby pork ribs). The white-painted spot features a garden and works from Queens artists.

This casual roadside spot near San Luis Obispo specializes in tortas, supersized Mexican submarine sandwiches that frequently inspire lines at lunchtime. Two hungry people may be hard-pressed to finish the Cubana, a pile-up that includes breaded chicken and beef, pork cooked four different ways, two kinds of cheese, and more. Less gut-busting, but equally popular, are Frutiland’s fish tacos, served on blue corn tortillas with shredded cabbage and the welcome addition of fruit salsa. An extensive menu of aguas frescas (fruit juices mixed with sugar and water) puts the “fruit” in Frutiland.

For classic, stick-to-your-ribs Tex-Mex in a hole-in-the-wall setting that hasn’t changed much since it opened in 1927, El Pasoans know to head to L&J. The menu is borderlands comfort food: hearty soups (including everyone’s favorite hangover cure, menudo, or tripe soup, on weekends), burritos, fajitas and more—as well as Mexican breakfast. A saloon-style bar covered in historic photographs takes up most of the space, with a smaller dining room holding a dozen or so tables.

El Charro opened in 1922 and now has three locations around Tucson, all open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. Beloved dishes include steak tampiqueña, served with an arsenal of accouterments; anything with carne seca, a flavorful semi-dried meat; plus burros, chimichangas and other dishes from Sonora state in Northern Mexico and the Arizona-Mex cannon. Portions are hulking, margaritas are strong and the surroundings always unpretentious and homey.

Despite all the French cooking, Julia Child was at heart a down-home kind of girl—so her taco preferences seem like something to be trusted. The legendary cook’s favorites came from this cheery little turquoise-and-white shack on Milpas Street, and she’s not its only well-known fan: word of the place’s most famous regulars (Katy Perry can be spotted here) is partly what inspires lines around the block at lunch and dinnertime. That and the cooking: Corn tortillas are freshly griddled in-house and roasted green chilies top many of the best dishes. The menu is sprawling, but highlights include the Super-Rica especial taco, made with marinated pork, roasted pasilla chilies and melted cheese, and the tamales, whose fillings change regularly.