The Ultimate Tijuana Dining Guide

Courtesy of Antonio Diaz de Sandi
Courtesy of Antonio Diaz de Sandi

If all you ever get when you go to Tijuana is street meat and strip-club Coronas, 1) uh, we should totally be friends, and 2) you’re actually kinda sorta totally missing out on a TJ dining scene that has been in the throes of a full-on gastro-renaissance for the past few years.

Fix that by having this handy the next time you head south of the border. Yep, it’s our ultimate Tijuana dining guide.

Flickr/trontnort

Zona Río
What you’re getting: A lot of apps, including the crazy-good grilled octopus and the seared foie gras

Never mind its location inside a corporate office tower, this is the spot that put TJ fine dining on the map. Chef Javier Plascencia is the visionary in the kitchen, serving dishes like roasted bone marrow and local... goose barnacles???... alongside a wine list heavy on bottles from Baja’s nearby Guadalupe Valley.
 

Col. Aviación
What you’re getting: The beef tongue carpaccio and the arrachera-mole pie

Miguel Angel Guerrero is one of the OGiest chefs in Baja’s gourmet movement and has three restaurants -- including this classed-up pizza kitchen -- to prove it. Housed in a cavernous warehouse with a design that might be called machine-shop chic (think: rusted corrugated-tin wall sheeting, exposed beams), El Taller churns out wood-fired pizzas topped with everything from shrimp to octopus to escargot.
 

Zona Centro
What you’re getting: The Snake Oil cocktail (cardamom-infused bourbon mixed with fernet and Mexican Coke in a Mason jar, topped with a burnt marshmallow)

Though it's also got crazy-delicious seafood pizzas and pozole tostadas from chef Chad Whilte, the reason to come to this sceney Downtown restaurant is for the drinks, designed by San Diego’s revered Snake Oil Cocktail Company.

Courtesy of Verde y Crema

Col. Neidhart
What you’re getting: Esquites and the käsekrainer sausage (basically a gourmet cheese dog)

From the décor to the menu, this upscale-casual spot from top Mexican chef Jair Tellez is all about upcycling. Wine bottles that would’ve been trash become chic hippie curtains, and works by local street artists dominate the walls. The kitchen turns street food like esquites (grilled corn) into a sophisticated appetizer, and most everything -- from the wine to the organic chicken to the pastured beef in the sausage -- comes from within a 50-mile radius.
 

Zona Rio
What you’re getting: A fig and mezcal nieve

Maybe you’re the kind of person who doesn’t think vegetables and chiles belong in ice cream. That’s fine -- Tepoznieves has plenty of traditional flavors like strawberry, pistachio, and café con leche. But adventurous palates might try pairing a scoop of spicy pineapple with a dollop of cactus-, lettuce- or beet-flavored nieve, a slightly slushier (but no less delicious) take on ice cream.
 

Zona Rio
What you’re getting: The four-taster beer flight at El Tigre

This rundown outdoor mall is now theeeee place to sample Baja craft beers, with a bunch of different tasting rooms all in one spot. Play Nintendo at El Depa, a bar designed to look like some dude’s apartment, complete with flower-print grandma couches and an epic VHS tape collection. Downstairs at El Tigre, sip a piloncillo saison and browse the food menu, which is basically just a delivery system for rooster sauce and pork (think: Sriracha popcorn, bacon pancakes, Sriracha-bacon burgers, Sriracha fries with bacon, etc.).

Courtesy of Nabhe Hernandez

Zona Rio
What you’re getting: The “Gringo on Vacation”

Named for the indigenous flute-playing fertility god, this color-splashed taco joint serves killer grilled seafood tacos (get the “Gringo on Vacation,” a taco stuffed with grilled marinated shrimp and melted cheese, and the Fin del Mundo taco, with grilled panela cheese, black beans, and crunchy fried... crickets), plus aguachiles and the pre-Hispanic drink pulque (imagine a funky, viscous lemonade).
 

Centro
What you’re getting: The Caesar, duh

The origin story of the Caesar salad is disputed, but this historic, checkerboard-tiled Tijuana institution holds one of the best claims. It’s named after Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who opened this spot during Prohibition; one busy Fourth of July, he was running short on food and threw some romaine in a bowl with lemon and Parm -- thus, allegedly birthing the Caesar salad. Almost a century later, bow-tied waiters still make it tableside -- now with garlic, egg yolk, Worcestershire, and other ingredients -- for about $6.
 

Hit a food truck park

Telefonica: Centro; Food Garden: Zona Rio
What you’re getting: The taqueso from Food Garden (taco filling wrapped in a sarape of fried cheese, then tucked into a grilled tortilla)

TJ’s vacant lots are suddenly not so vacant since an army of food trucks and food collectives have set up shop in recent years. Some of the best are Telefonica Gastro Park, with trucks serving anything from bacon sausages to ramen, and Food Garden, where you can sip a local craft beer and play a game of cornhole or super-sized Jenga while you wait for your dinner.

Courtesy of Antonio Diaz de Sandi

Chapultepec
What you’re getting: Gobernador tacos and sea urchin tiradito (in-season)

Another Plascencia joint, Erizo (Spanish for sea urchin, a local delicacy) is a casual neighborhood fish market and eatery showcasing whatever’s just been caught off the coast. Keep it traditional with an Ensenada-style fish taco or sample something new like local chocolate clams and abalone.

Drink third-wave coffee

Colonia Cacho
What you’re getting: The lavender mocha at Das Cortez

For fancy coffee, head to Colonia Cacho, which has three of the city’s best coffee shops crammed into one hip ‘hood. Get your java cold-brewed, Chemexed, or siphoned at Jacu; admire the foam art atop your fair-trade latte at La Stazione; or post up for people-watching at Das Cortez’s open-air coffee counter.

Take a tour

A handful of groups offer public and private food-and-beer tours of Tijuana, complete with English-speaking guides. Stuff your belly and make new friends with Turista Libre, Let’s Go Clandestino, and Club Tengo Hambre.

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Maya Kroth is an itinerant writer who has been eating and drinking her way through Tijuana and San Diego since 2003, and writing about it for outlets including NYLON and the Washington Post. Her last known address was in Mexico City. Follow her on Twitter at @theemaya.