Mexico City is a melting pot of the country’s most beloved cuisines, from Oaxacan moles to cochinita pibil from Yucatán. Many visitors, however, may not know that the capital’s culinary scene is also heavily influenced by international flavors, particularly those from Asia. 

CDMX has one of Latin America’s largest populations of residents with Japanese and Korean heritage. East Asian immigrants first arrived in Mexico in the late 1800s as industrial workers; today, their culinary customs are being combined with Mexican ingredients by a new generation of chefs — some of whom were born in Mexico and some of whom moved there to make their mark. 

Edo Kobayashi, who grew up in the city of Ensenada, on Mexico’s Pacific coast, opened Hikoyo — an intimate izakaya-style counter in Mexico City’s Cuauhtémoc neighborhood not far from the Japanese embassy — nearly 10 years ago. “I saw the opportunity to bring yakitori, and later sushi and ramen,” Kobayashi says. Alongside traditional Japanese dishes, patrons can order more locally influenced items like grilled avocado, baby corn, and jalapeños.

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Kobayashi has since opened more than 20 restaurants around the country and continues to find inspiration in the culinary history of the first Japanese immigrants to Mexico, especially those who settled in the states of Chiapas and Sinaloa.

Korean restaurants are also finding a foothold. Dooriban was started by five Korean and Mexican women who sold their own kimchi. It opened in 2021 as a corner spot in the Roma Norte neighborhood, serving hearty dishes like bibimbap and kimchi fried rice seasoned with gochugaru, a Korean paste made from Mexican guajillo chiles. 

“Mexican and Korean cuisine may be different, but they also have many similarities that we celebrate, like the heavy use of heat, fermentation, and ancestral beverages,” says Sofia Acuña, one of the cofounders. Recently, Acuña and her team started producing a fermented milky rice drink, makgeolli, under the brand name Haru Haru. 

Also in Roma Norte is Kasína Café, where the menu was created by Minae Seo, who moved from South Korea to Mexico City to join her extended family, who had lived there for three decades. She makes dishes she used to cook at home with her mother: buchu jeon (chive pancakes with shrimp) and kkorijjim (braised oxtail with rice and kimchi). 

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Meanwhile, at the tapas bar Via Sol, in the Escandón neighborhood, Iris Yu, who was born and raised in South China, serves Szechuan-style dumplings spiced with four types of Mexican chiles and topped with a soy sauce that takes eight hours to reduce. In Colonia Centro, Maryann Yong and her husband, Mario Malvaez, celebrate street food at their Singaporean spot, Makan. Starters might include braised ayocote beans followed a spicy laksa noodle soup and Singaporean chili crab. 

“Our success is a reflection of the open nature of Mexican culture,” Yong says. “Our guests are always excited to try something new, to learn something new, be it about a culture, a cuisine, or both.”

A version of this story first appeared in the October 2024 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “Heating Up.“