16 Best Restaurants in Yucatán and Campeche States, Mexico

This contemporary restaurant at the Wayam Mundo Imperial hotel in the García Ginerés neighborhood has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a plant-filled terrace. Chef Maycoll Calderón allows fresh ingredients to take center stage, avoiding anything too fussy in such flavorful Italian and Latin American dishes as ceviche, arroz con pollo, pizza, and pasta. Extensive cocktail and mocktail menus make the most of the area's tropical fruits. 

This casual spot north of Parque Santa Ana has a French flair, with vintage posters and antique signs, and its French owner, Eric Sureau, is on the premises most days, assuring that the quiches, crêpes, and salads all leave the kitchen comme il faut. There are tables in the lovely and shady yard in the back. In addition Sureau has a small but excellently curated selection of wines and some of the best cheeses in the city if you want to buy the essentials for a little gathering around the pool at your rental or hotel.

Though it serves good basic pastas, salads, and burgers, as well as some Mexican bar-food favorites, this restaurant's popularity is primarily due to its delicious cocktails, aguas frescas, and lively atmosphere. You can dine outside, enjoying the activity on Paseo Montejo, or inside, where the people-watching is just as interesting.

The creative menu developed by the Sicilian chef, Giuseppe Genovese (commonly known as "Beppe"), offers a mix of Italian, Mediterranean, and Caribbean cuisine. Locals gather for seafood pasta, grilled lobster, octopus salad, and fresh ceviche, all bathed in garlic and olive oil, and breads, sausages, and pizzas are made from scratch in the small kitchen where Beppe works his magic. The pizza topped with smoked ham, mozzarella, and arugula makes a perfect starter for two. This is the only spot on the island where you'll find authentic espresso, sorbet, and tiramisu.

This elegant colonial house on the south side of the main square specializes in hearty Yucatecan cuisine, with such menu highlights as pollo X'catik (chicken baked in butter cream) and lomitos de Valladolid (cubed pork loin in a tomato-chile sauce). If you're not feeling quite so adventurous, you can choose from mar y tierra (meaning, basically, surf and turf) options. The small front dining room is stylish, but we recommend snagging a table in the leafy back courtyard—it's perfect for lunch on a hot afternoon. El Atrio keeps long hours, opening at 7 am and going strong until 11:30 pm.

This bright, sunny café on Mérida's restaurant row is an appealing spot for a cappuccino, latte, or tea, paired with an avocado toast, yogurt and fruit, or a pastry.

Inside a colonial-era building, this small (just five tables) family-run restaurant is decorated with Mexican crafts and has an enormous menu of familiar favorites like burritos and fajitas. Grilled fish and steak are served with rice and shredded lettuce, as are the rolled tacos and enchiladas topped with red or green chile sauce. If you’re an early riser, stop by for French toast or a breakfast crêpe.

Chef Jorge Melul, a master baker, has become known on the island for his breads, cakes, and pastas, made from organic, local grown ingredients. For a memorable meal, start with shrimp tempura dipped in chipotle cream or homemade pesto and then order the fish cooked in white wine and topped with spinach and pears. The daily catch is purchased directly from the fishermen who dock on the shores. If it's just ambience you're after, head to the rooftop Luuma bar for a reasonably priced basil mojito or ginger margarita.

Traditional Yucatecan dishes—like panuchos (fried masa cakes stuffed with beans and piled high with shredded meat, lettuce, sour onions, and other toppings) or chile mestizo (poblano pepper stuffed with shredded meat)—are the specialties here. Although waitresses dressed in colorful regional-style skirts will explain the dishes, if you're unsure what to order ask to see the album containing photos of top dishes with multilingual captions. Lunches and dinners are finished off with a complimentary tamarind margarita, and a guitar trio performs some evenings. This is also a great place for breakfast. You can try plain agua de chaya here—in other restaurants, it's often sweetened with pineapple.

The menu here is as an encyclopedic take on Yucatecan cuisine, with everything from salbutes to start to manjar blanco (a milk-based delicacy) for dessert. Before sitting down to eat in the courtyard or one of the rooms that open onto it, explore the modest displays on regional food in the colonial-style building and Maya-style houses in the garden. There are also cooking demonstrations, including those using the traditional method for cooking cochinita pibil, buried in a pit in the ground.

This bakery just a few blocks north of Parque Santa Ana is a great place to start your day with a light breakfast of a pastry and a coffee. It has a small garden and plenty of seating if you want to linger for awhile at your laptop. The decor is an inviting updated colonial style with pasta-tile floors and more contemporary touches, such as the steel staircase leading up to the second-story seating. You'll only wish it didn't close so early—at 1 pm during the week and 2 pm on the weekends. 

Don't let the bare walls and basic furniture fool you—this restaurant, a few blocks east of Parque Mejorada, offers one of Mérida's best dining experiences. Chefs Xóchitl Valdés and Selena Cárdenas have impressed gourmets with their celebration of corn, the basis of many of the dishes served here. Before you leave, stop in at the adjacent store, which sells local honey and honey products, from candies to shampoo. 

Residents of Izamal have strong opinions on which restaurants make the best panuchos, salbutes, papadzules, and other local specialities, but Restaurante Muul is on many short lists. The atmosphere is no-frills, though the location is convenient, right on the main plaza just steps from the ex-convent.

Grab a seat in this palapa restaurant directly across from the water and watch the day's catch come straight from the docks. The menu features local specialties like ceviche, seafood soup, fish fillet stuffed with shrimp, and breaded seafood rolled into a ball and deep-fried. In season (July–December) you can order lobster and octopus cooked several different ways. With a seashell-strewn floor and plastic tables, it's far from fancy, but you're sure to leave satisfied. Owner Diego Núñez and his family also operate Río Lagartos Adventures and can arrange a variety of tours.

This elegant restaurant at the inn of the same name is beautifully designed in hues of pink and brown, with long-stem roses on every table. Chef David Segovia's menu is an haute interpretation of Mexican and Yucatecan cuisines, with sauces incorporating local chiles, tamarind, and hibiscus (or jamaica) flowers. There are also pastas, salads, and sandwiches if you'd like a lighter meal. You can sit in the formal dining room, the more casual open-air patio, or the rooftop bar. 

This oasis of carnivorous delights serves tortas—Mexico's answer to the sandwich—and tacos at four locations in Mérida. In addition to ham and cheese tortas, you can get pork loin in smoky chipotle-chile sauce, chorizo sausage, turkey strips sautéed with onions and peppers, and several other delicious combos guaranteed to go straight to your arteries. If you don't speak Spanish, just point to one of 20 types of ingredients while they heat up your tortilla. Not a meat lover? Try some unusual combos, like chopped cactus pads sautéed with mushrooms, or scrambled eggs with chaya or string beans. All of the Wayan'e locations are casual and unassuming, with plastic tables and chairs, but most diners gather around the counter where the food is handed over. The restaurant closes when the food runs out, which is usually around 2 pm.