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).