24 Hours in Mexico City with Cristina Artigas (CDMX Guide)

“People come to Mexico and stay in Roma and Condesa thinking that’s all there is,” says Cristina Artigas. “But San Ángel, with its cobblestone streets, centuries-old homes and layers of architectural history, is a side of the city everyone should experience at least once.”

Artigas is the cofounder of Mexico City Modern, which offers curated architecture and design experiences across the city, and the granddaughter of architect Francisco Artigas. After spending 35 years in Southern California, she returned to Mexico City nearly a decade ago and settled in San Ángel, the neighborhood where her father grew up.

Below, Artigas shares her perfect Saturday in San Ángel.

BREAKFAST IN THE COURTYARD I would start at Maque. It’s a commercial brand because they were so successful as a bakery that they opened these coffee shops where you can have a really good breakfast. The Maque here in San Ángel is very quaint. I like to sit on the patio, which is covered by trees and very cute.

WALK THE OLD STREETS OF SAN ÁNGEL This is a historic neighborhood with cobblestone streets, and I think the best way to experience it is really to walk around. It’s not just coming to San Ángel casually to see what you can buy or what you can find; it’s more of an in-depth stroll around the neighborhood.

One of my favorite places is Plaza de los Arcángeles. It has the most beautiful homes and ambiance, and you feel like you’re not even in the 21st century. You feel like you went back 200 years and a horse-drawn carriage is going to show up. It’s a private residential area, so you have to be respectful, but it’s beautiful.

There are also two very old, very beautiful churches here. I always recommend the smaller one, San Jacinto. I plan a lot of visits for architecture enthusiasts, and I try to make everything really easy and walkable rather than sending people across huge avenues all day.

A HIDDEN BOOKSTORE On Santísimo Street, there’s a tiny cookbook shop called Gallina de Guinea that feels like a secret discovery. The owner, who used to work at Rosetta, opened it in her mother’s garage. It reminds me of the movie Chocolat, except instead of chocolate, it’s filled with cookbooks. The cobblestone street itself is beautiful, too, and was once home to the family of architect Juan O’Gorman.

A MUSEUM ALMOST EVERYONE MISSES Casa del Risco is a museum that nobody knows about. The first thing you see when you walk in is this amazing gigantic fountain made out of scraps of china from all over the world. It’s stunning. It reminds you of Gaudí and Barcelona architecture.

The rest of the museum is the house itself, with religious art and furnishings from another period in Mexico. You get a peek at how people lived in old Mexico in this area of the city, which wasn’t even really part of the city then. These were the weekend homes of wealthy people who lived in other parts of Mexico City. They would come here to rest and enjoy time with their families, and they had these gigantic gardens.

SATURDAY AT THE BAZAAR On Saturdays, there’s El Bazar Sábado, a massive two-story mansion with a central courtyard that opens up and is filled with little boutiques. It’s very cool stuff, not the usual trinkets you find at a market. There’s also the art walk in the park nearby, with many stalls selling less expensive things. 

One of the boutiques I like is Beatriz Attolini, which sells sets of spices and salts for cooking; it’s a beautiful little boutique.

LUNCH AT OXA Oxa is inside the market, and the chef, Ana Martorell, has this approach to Mexican classics that I really like. One dish is so simple: just a bowl of rice with a fried egg on top. That’s something we would probably have for dinner in a household in Mexico, and as kids we would love it.

Her salsas are great, and the tortillas are excellent and handmade. You can actually peek into the kitchen when you’re walking around the main floor and see everybody making tortillas. She’s also an expert with mole. The menu changes a lot, which is part of what makes it interesting.

DIEGO, FRIDA + JUAN O’GORMAN The Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo is actually a complex of three houses. The first was the house Juan O’Gorman designed for his father, Cecil O’Gorman, in 1929. Diego saw it and loved O’Gorman’s functionalist approach, and later commissioned him to build separate houses and studios for himself and Frida Kahlo next door. Diego’s and Frida’s houses are connected by a rooftop bridge. Cristina also offers guided tours of the complex

What’s interesting is that all of this was built on land that had once been the tennis courts of the San Ángel Inn. O’Gorman bought the land and built his father’s house there, and the project eventually became this little pocket of radical modern architecture in the middle of very traditional San Ángel.

If you understand Diego’s mentality, you understand why the architecture looks the way it does. He considered himself a worker; it just happened that art was his craft. O’Gorman called his architecture functionalist. There were no unnecessary embellishments, and the houses were built with the simplest materials. You see a lot of Bauhaus inspiration.

But even without embellishment, the houses are so beautiful and striking.

People in San Ángel did not understand what O’Gorman was doing at the time. This was a very traditional neighborhood, and suddenly there were these radical modern buildings that everybody could see. People thought they were horrible.

Diego was very happy with the studio and house O’Gorman built for him. He never really left it, and that’s where he painted a huge amount of his work. Frida’s house was more complicated. For someone who lived with the effects of polio and then her accident, it wasn’t exactly an accessible home, and she only lived there for a few years.

One of my favorite photo opportunities is coming up or down the stairs of Diego’s house.

LOOK FOR MANUEL PARRA Once you start paying attention to the architecture in San Ángel, you also start seeing Manuel Parra everywhere. The 20th-century Mexican architect and designer became known for homes that drew heavily on traditional Mexican architecture at a time when many of his contemporaries were embracing modernism. You can’t walk three blocks without seeing two or three houses built by him. He was working during the mid-century modern movement, but he was building some of the most colonial-looking homes you can imagine, often using salvaged materials.

His architecture is really striking. You’ll see limestone and red brick together, and then he might take a piece of carved limestone that he found in a salvage yard and put it in the weirdest possible place on the façade. It doesn’t seem like it should make sense — and that was the whole point. It became almost like his signature. Once you know what to look for, you start recognizing his houses.

SHOP FOR SOMETHING YOU WON’T FIND EVERYWHERE Tane is the really iconic Mexican silver jewelry brand, and its store is only steps away from Frida’s house. Some of their pieces are inspired by the artist, and the craftsmanship is luxurious.

A VERY OLD-SCHOOL SWEET STOP There’s also El Secreto, this candy shop in an old colonial shopping center. The owner has an amazing story. She started the business to support her family and still goes there today, even though she's almost 90!

The confections are wrapped in the most colorful tissue paper and look like bonbons. The way they package everything is beautiful. If you need a hostess gift or something to bring home, it’s a great stop.

MARGARITAS AT SAN ÁNGEL INN San Ángel Inn is like a place to be and be seen. It’s like the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Seriously. It’s very old school.

You want to sit in the courtyard because that’s where you see people, like famous writers and other people who have really made a name for themselves. But it’s also simply a classic. It doesn’t get better than that.

The margaritas are the hit. The classic one comes in this little ice bucket, which is iconic. Sometimes I even ask for a frozen margarita without the tequila and eat it like a sorbet because it’s beautiful.

The food has its pros and cons. Some people complain that it’s nothing special and that they haven’t changed the menu in ages, but that’s also part of it. You’ll see all these classics. They do the Caesar salad tableside. They have crêpes Suzette and floating islands—these really old-fashioned desserts that they’re still serving.

You get the Old World, in every sense possible.

Beyond San Ángel: Three Questions with Cristina

What’s your favorite vacation spot in Mexico? My favorite vacation in Mexico right now would be to drive up to San Miguel de Allende and go hotel hopping. I’d stay three nights at one beautiful boutique hotel, then move to another for three nights, and perhaps a third after that. There are so many extraordinary hotels that I’d love to experience the personality and design of each one. Some of my favorites are Rosewood, Casa Hoyos and Hotel Matilda.

What I love most about traveling is being surrounded by an unusual and beautiful environment, and because I appreciate design so much, San Miguel feels like the perfect escape. You can spend your days walking the streets, discovering wonderful restaurants and taking in the architecture and atmosphere.

I would definitely spend an afternoon at La Aurora, wandering through the galleries. What I love about San Miguel is that although its setting and architecture are deeply colonial, it has developed such a strong contemporary, design-forward character.

That combination of history, architecture, art, design, great food and beautiful hotels makes it the perfect getaway for me.

If you could only eat one more meal, what would it be? If I could only have one more meal, it would be something incredibly simple: my grandmother’s potato salad.

My grandmother learned to make it from her sister-in-law after marrying into a German family that had come to Mexico. My grandfather was the Braumeister for Grupo Modelo, and she wanted to make him feel close to home, so she learned to prepare this traditional German potato salad for him.

It’s incredibly simple: potatoes, some onion and a wonderful, almost magical dressing that she made herself. For me, it’s the taste of home and family.

Who is inspiring you right now, and why? Lately, the person who has inspired me most is the architect Pedro Ramírez Vázquez. Ever since I stepped into his archives, I have been completely blown away by his genius.

I walked through aisles filled with his world: books, photographs, awards, the torches from the 1968 Olympics, logos he designed, and models and maquettes of his architecture, including the Basilica of Guadalupe. Seeing the breadth of his work all together was extraordinary.

I came across a dedication from a friend on a gift that simply said, “Pedro, hombre universal.” I thought it was the perfect description of him. He was a master planner, a visionary and completely fearless. He would develop projects ahead of time, then wait for the right opportunity to present them and make them happen. That was the case with the Museo Nacional de Antropología.

Seeing that archive made me understand just how universal his vision really was.