My recent travels took me to Mexico City which meant I found myself at Pujol. I say "found" but the reservation was made 3 months in advance. I knew I was going to be at Pujol even before I had a plane ticket or hotel in Mexico City. This was the Mexican food experience I never knew I needed, perfected with immaculate attention to service and a wide range of fine, traditional eats.

My visit happened in May 2024 so that's 1 month before Pujol received its 2 Michelin stars. I think this blog post will be a fine guide for a recent experience and even though the menu always changes, the mole is a standard offering that gets updated with a new age every day.

Overall, I thought most items were really good but most were very traditional items that were sometimes on the salty side. This dinner was also a 4 hour experience which might turn some people off.

Tasting Menu:

Team Tastic came here for a Monday night dinner and the tasting menu ($3495 MXN after tax, tip not included) included the following:

1. Snacks
   1. Tuba and tortilla chips
   2. Panucho
   3. Baby corn
2. Octopus ceviche
3. Amberjack tostada
4. Seabass
5. Braised lamb
6. 3394 day-old mole madre
7. Traditional flan

The first course was actually a trio of snacks. The "tuba" was actually a cold soup of fermented coconut and agave syrup that served as a refreshing palate cleanser for all the good that was to come in the meal. The tuba came with a side of tortilla chips that tasted pretty basic to me.

The panucho was a crispy cracker with macadamia nuts sauced up in a pico de gallo. This didn't taste any better than similar street-style food I'd had in Mexico City.

The baby corn was the most interesting snack of the course. These were smoked in a little husk prior to serving and were drenched in a chicatana (read: ants!) and chile costeño mayonnaise sauce that gave them a buttery hot finish. This was the first taste of luxury of the night because my cooking class instructor told us that chicatana is the caviar of Mexico.

The second course was an octopus ceviche with heart of palm juice and pico de gallo. Similar to the first snack, the soup was refreshing to slurp down and the octopus had a tremendous tenderness in each bite. You could almost feel the suckers twitch a bit on your mouth because it tasted so fresh.

Next up was an amberjack tostada with serrano pepper mayonnaise and grasshopper dusted on top. It might sound weird to have grasshopper in your tostada but this grasshopper had a peppery finish that made the amberjack taste amazing. Amberjack is typically a neutral tasting fish but this one was so savoury and a strong crunch from the tostada gave this morsel a ton of physical complexity.

Our fourth course was a whole seabass, cut up and served tableside. This fish was accompanied by a mess of green pistachio mole, shallot, fava beans, seasonal vegetables, and watercress. The fish had a good tenderness but man was the topping salty. I think the shallot mix on top was meant to be savoured with the green pistachio mole but there wasn't enough mole to go around so all that was left was a salty fish. I did not enjoy this one.

Next up was the braised lamb, which was a medallion of the most tender lamb served with a side of guacamole, eggplant, and pasilla (chili pepper). The guacamole was honestly an optional topping because the braised lamb was already quite buttery on its own. The better accompaniment was the eggplant topped with chickpea that made for a very full-body bite that wasn't too overwhelming in volume. Finally, the pasilla chili paste was a tiny pot of heat. I needed only a little bit to feel the burn for many bites. This braised lamb came with a basket of tortillas to serve as the vessel for transporting everything into my mouth.

To slow things down, the sixth course was a serving of Pujol's world-famous mole (pronounced "mole-lay"). This mole had been kept alive for 3394 days up until our visit and to prove its age, it was served with a dollop of newer mole. Mole is a chocolatey sauce that you typically eat on top of tortillas or meats but Pujol imagines mole as its own course. The best part of this course is how robust and earthy the nearly 10-year old mole is in comparison with the fresh one. The worst part of this course is I am pretty sure this old mole was part of the reason I had so many gastrointestinal problems for the rest of my Mexico City trip. I suppose you haven't truly lived a Mexico vacation if your digestion doesn't get challenged though. Still worth it.

Finally, we made it to dessert which tonight was a giant flan cake cut up for our table. This flan was made with goat cheese which gave it a full-body feeling and served with a house-made vanilla ice cream to have a sweet finish. I wish I had more space in my stomach for this dessert but the other courses were no joke.

Jokes on us though. After the flan cake was taken away, we were given a set of concha to finish things off. These had a great cookie crunch and I was grateful they were as tiny as they were because I was about to burst.

Vibe:

Pujol is understated elegance at its finest. Walking in feels like you're walking through the front yard of a millionaire with smooth cement steps leading you into the dining room. The dining room is preceded by a large zen garden that the staff direct you to walk around as well as a lounge area for sitting if you arrive early for your reservation.

For our party, we were seated in a private dining area meant for large groups so I didn't get the typical Pujol seating experience. However, as great as this private area was, I felt the table was very large which made it hard to talk to my fellow diners on the other side. At best, I could chatter with those seated next to me or seated at a perpendicular angle.

Special shout-out goes to the restrooms at Pujol. The restrooms are all single stalls and almost fully black. Inside you will find soothing sounds of the ocean waves and native insects chirping in the night. I thought it was nice that the experience of Pujol extended this far beyond the dining table.

Service:

Service of the staff was second-to-none at Pujol. They did everything they possibly could to make us feel welcome and appreciate our service.

A few small details put the experience over the top for me, and I've listed a few examples below of the service at its finest:

1. Placing dishes in front of guests in perfect synchrony
2. Constantly checking in with the table to serve more vegetables or more fish during the seabass course
3. If you so much as make a move towards the toilets, the staff will guide you in and out

Food service felt a little lacking. Perhaps it was due to the size of our table (10) but this was a LONG dinner. We started at 6:30pm and did not leave until almost 10:30pm. If you are a faster diner, you might not enjoy this tasting experience.

Final Thoughts:

One-liner: Minus the seabass, Pujol truly offers the best that traditional Mexican cuisine has to offer, and commands quite possibly the oldest mole you can find in the entire country
Highlight: Baby corn
Price per person: ~4,600 MXN or $350 CAD after tip
Would I go back? No.