Journal / Mexico

Mexico · Oaxaca

Eating Oaxaca: markets, mole and mezcal

Oaxaca is the city that turns curious travellers into lifelong devotees of Mexican food. Tucked into the southern highlands, it has guarded its culinary traditions more fiercely than almost anywhere else in the country, and the result is a cuisine of extraordinary depth — smoky, complex, ancient and alive. This is a place where chocolate is savoury, where grasshoppers are a beloved snack, and where a single sauce can contain thirty ingredients and take two days to make. Come hungry and come open-minded; Oaxaca rewards both.

This guide is your way in: the dishes that define the region, how to read its magnificent markets, and how to drink the mezcal that put the state on the world's map.

Oaxacans say their food carries the memory of the land. Spend a morning in the market and you'll understand exactly what they mean.

The seven moles

Oaxaca is called the land of the seven moles, and these complex sauces are the soul of its cooking. Mole is not one thing but a whole family — slow-cooked blends of chillies, spices, seeds, nuts, fruit and sometimes chocolate, each one balancing heat, sweetness, smoke and bitterness in its own way.

• Mole negro — the famous one: dark, glossy, faintly bitter and deeply savoury, built on charred chillies and a whisper of chocolate.
• Mole rojo and coloradito — redder, fruitier, a touch sweeter.
• Mole amarillo — brighter and more brothy, often with vegetables.
• Mole verde — fresh and herbal, built on green herbs and tomatillos.

Order mole over chicken or in an enmolada, and try more than one across your stay — they're as different from each other as a city's wines.

How to eat the markets

Oaxaca's markets are the best place to eat in the city, and learning to navigate them is the single most useful skill you can bring. Go hungry, go with cash, and follow your nose.

The smoke hall

The legendary pasillo de humo (hall of smoke) is exactly what it sounds like: a corridor of grills where you buy raw meat and cured tasajo from a butcher, then have it grilled in front of you and carry it to a communal table with tortillas, salsa, grilled spring onions and avocado. It is loud, smoky, chaotic and unforgettable.

The antojitos to seek out

• Tlayuda — a huge, crisp tortilla spread with bean paste, cheese and toppings; Oaxaca's signature street dish.
• Memelas and tetelas — masa snacks that make a perfect market breakfast.
• Chapulines — toasted grasshoppers seasoned with lime, chilli and salt. Crunchy, tangy, and genuinely delicious — be brave.
• Quesillo — the stringy Oaxacan cheese that turns up everywhere, and deservedly so.

Mezcal, properly

Mezcal is to Oaxaca what wine is to Burgundy — a product of place, made from agave roasted in earth pits that gives it its signature smoke. Forget the worm and the shots: good mezcal is meant to be sipped slowly, neat, often alongside orange slices dusted with sal de gusano (worm salt). Visit a mezcalería, ask the staff to guide you from a gentle espadín to something wilder and more rare, and take your time. It's a drink that wants conversation, not a race.

Practical notes

• Go in October if you can, around Día de los Muertos, when the city and its food are at their most extraordinary — but book well ahead.
• Carry cash for markets and street stalls.
• Eat where it's busy. High turnover means fresh food, and locals know exactly which stall makes the best tlayuda.
• Pace the mezcal. The altitude and the smoke both sneak up on you.

Mezcal, region by region

Once you have accepted that mezcal is meant to be sipped, not shot, a whole world opens up. Like wine, mezcal is profoundly shaped by where and how it is made — the species of agave, the soil, the altitude, the water, and the hand of the maestro mezcalero who roasts, crushes, ferments and distills it. The most common agave is espadín, which grows quickly and gives an approachable, balanced spirit; it is the perfect place to begin. From there you can venture into the wild agaves — tobalá, tepeztate, madrecuixe and others — that grow slowly on remote hillsides and yield mezcals of astonishing complexity, floral and mineral and smoky all at once. These rarer bottles cost more for good reason: a single tobalá plant may take fifteen years to mature.

The smoke that defines mezcal is not a flavouring added later; it comes from roasting the agave hearts in earthen pits lined with hot stones and wood, sealed under earth for days. That is why no two mezcals taste alike, and why the best mezcalerías in Oaxaca city will happily walk you through a flight, pouring small amounts and explaining what you are tasting. Go slowly, drink water alongside, nibble the orange slices with worm salt, and treat it as a conversation rather than a contest. You will learn more about Oaxaca in an hour at a good mezcal bar than in a day of museums.

Chocolate, the original Oaxacan luxury

Long before chocolate became a sweet, it was a drink, and in Oaxaca that ancient tradition is alive and well. Walk down the city's "chocolate street" and you will smell it before you see it: cacao ground with almonds, cinnamon and sugar on stone mills, then pressed into tablets. The classic way to drink it is chocolate de agua or chocolate de leche — the tablet whisked into hot water or milk with a wooden molinillo until it foams — often alongside a sweet, eggy bread called pan de yema for dipping. It is rich, faintly grainy, deeply comforting, and utterly different from the sugary hot chocolate most visitors know. Have it for breakfast at least once; it is one of the city's great everyday pleasures and a direct line to its pre-Hispanic past.

The markets, one by one

Oaxaca's eating life is organised around its markets, and each has its own personality. Learning which is which lets you plan your grazing.

• The central markets of the old town — the easiest to reach, packed with food stalls, the famous smoke hall for grilled meats, and stands selling chapulines, quesillo, chocolate and mezcal. Come hungry and plan to eat your way along.
• The big weekly market days in the surrounding villages — each town in the valleys has its own market day, and visiting one is a chance to see where the city's produce comes from and to eat the most local food of all, often cooked by the families who grew it.
• The artisan and produce stalls — beyond the prepared food, the markets are a feast for the eyes: mountains of dried chillies, fresh herbs, moles sold by the scoop, and stacks of the giant tlayuda tortillas.

The rule everywhere is the same one that serves you across Mexico: eat where the locals are crowding, where turnover is high and the comal never cools, and you will eat both safely and superbly.

Day of the Dead, the greatest time to come

If you can choose when to visit, aim for late October and early November, when Oaxaca celebrates Día de los Muertos with a depth and beauty found nowhere else. This is not the costume party the wider world sometimes imagines; it is a tender, joyful remembrance of the dead, and food sits at its very heart. Markets overflow with marigolds, sugar skulls and the special bread of the season, pan de muerto. Families build altars laden with the favourite dishes of those they have lost, and the whole city smells of copal incense and chocolate. It is moving, delicious and unforgettable — but it is also the busiest time of year, so book your flights and your bed months in advance.

A few practical notes for eating well

• Pace yourself with the chilli and the altitude. Oaxaca sits over 1,500 metres up, and both the spice and the mezcal hit a little harder than you expect.
• Carry small cash. Markets, street stalls and village vendors rarely take cards, and small change makes everything easier.
• Ask what is local and seasonal. Vendors are proud of their region and will happily steer you to the best thing they have that day.
• Try the thing that scares you. The chapulines, the unfamiliar mole, the wild-agave mezcal — Oaxaca rewards the brave, and you will be glad you did.

Few places reward a hungry, open-minded traveller as richly as Oaxaca. Eat in the markets, sip the mezcal slowly, try at least one thing that scares you a little, and you'll leave understanding why so many people call this the best food city in the Americas.