Earlier in February, my wife Jun and I took a short trip to Mexico City. It was our first trip to Mexico together (and first time for me), and not surprisingly our focus on the trip was on food. Thankfully, we ate very, very well during our stay in CDMX (although I had to fight a cold that I had caught right before our flight from DC). It was a really balanced journey mixing up fine dining, casual taquerias (I highly recommend El Huequito and Orinoco) and a food tour navigating street food and markets (we really enjoyed the tour from Eat Like a Local). Among the fine dining restaurants, I was particularly excited to check out Quintonil, a pioneer in modern Mexican cuisine from chef Jorge Vallejo and his wife Alejandra Flores. While Jun and I love Mexican food, we haven’t visited a ton of fine dining style restaurants in the States so I was very intrigued to see how this restaurant that had won acclaims everywhere would showcase its culinary vision using bountiful ingredients from the country. Overall, we liked the experience at Quintonil but wouldn’t say our minds were blown.

Shortly after we were seated, we were greeted with an aromatic bowl of chileatole soup made of huitlacoche (think corn fungus) and herbs sprinkled around. An impactful snack followed, a small tostada with grilled pickled mussels and mole del mar (yes, mole sauce prepared with seafood ingredients). I was puzzled when our server brought a glass of sherry (as part of our wine pairing, more on below) to pair with the tostada, and it turned out to be quite a good match. I was also fond of the simple looking yet lovely butternut squash and tomato salad with pumpkin seeds. One dish that Jun and I couldn’t quite agree on was the blue fin tuna with aguachile of grassicas (a type of cabbage) and wasabi ice cream. I thought the tuna’s texture was spot-on and the unexpected combination of flavor between the fish and wasabi was a pleasant surprise; Jun, on the other hand, thought the wasabi flavor was a little too overpowering.

The savory courses that followed were somewhat mixed. I guess we were expecting something more outside the confines of a typical fine dining restaurant, and Quintonil wasn’t always successful in offering that extra spark. The red lobster with chilhuacle rojo and cauliflower cream was certainly very well prepared, as was the rib eye with chichilo negro mole sauce, but I wouldn’t say they were the most original dishes after encountering lobsters and rib eye steaks countless times at other restaurants. The pibil duck tamal buried underneath white young corn cream looked intriguing but it was just OK. Toward the end of the meal came an “entomophagy festival” (entomophagy means the practice of eating insects which are widely used as food ingredients in Mexico) where the server brought out a number of spreads and side dishes with insects used as ingredients to add to corn tortillas, such as chorizo with cocapaches (beetles) and charred avocado tartare with escamoles (edible ant larvae). For Jun who has an extreme phobia of bugs and insects, it was a big relief not to see actual insects visible in these dishes. We both agreed that, despite these stunning presentations, the dish itself was somewhat pedestrian (perhaps our trepidation with eating insects clouded our minds?). The main dessert was a delightful coconut sorbet with caviar on top, but again this was not the first time we encountered caviars in desserts.

Quintonil is still one of the most popular restaurants in Mexico City, with visitors from all over the world. Getting a reservation in advance through Tock is essential. The tasting menu at Quintonil is certainly not cheap by the Mexican standard, at 4,950 pesos (approximately $250) per person, and there is wine pairing options (you can choose either Mexican wine pairing or Wines of the World pairing, each at 2,400 pesos, and there is also a more pricey 6,000 peso pairing option). We chose the Wines of the World pairing option, and while there were some interesting wines from countries like Spain, Italy, U.S. and Georgia, we felt the pairing didn’t always work as intended with the companion food dishes. I also didn’t realize until later that a glass of champagne we had ordered to kick off the meal was a rather expensive one with almost the same price as the wine pairing (!), and it would’ve helped that the server would give us a heads up. The sleek, modern dining space is comparable in ambiance to other fine dining restaurants we have been to. The service was overall friendly and seamless with fluent English-speaking service staffs; I was somewhat amused when we received a menu at the end of the meal with the time stamps for each dish that came to our table. Is Quintonil the most amazing dining experience Jun and I have had in our culinary journey? On the one hand, there is no question that some of the dishes were quite delicious and well-executed. On the other, I felt the restaurant was closer to “fine dining” than “Mexican” and thought it could’ve pushed more boundaries to showcase the essence of Mexican cuisine that’s beloved by people all over the world. As we went to sleep that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about the al pastor tacos we’ve had earlier that day.

Address: Av. Isaac Newton 55, Polanco, 11560 Mexico City, Mexico

KenScale: 8.25/10 (Jun’s Score: 8.25/10)

Website: https://quintonil.com/en/home-3/

Reservation via Tock