Food Tours · Tour

Pulque at the Revolution Monument, and the Kiosco Morisco

Santa Maria la Ribera and San Rafael are two neighbourhoods that Mexicans love and almost no visitor reaches, and this is the bike tour that goes there. It opens with a drink at the meeting point, before anyone gets on a bike, which is how the group stops being strangers. Sopes first, made with blue corn, at a street stand, which is everyday food here and is not what gets served to tourists. San Rafael comes next, by the Tabacalera district: tree-lined streets, historic buildings and newer ones jammed together, and the Cine Opera, an Art Deco cinema with two carved stone masks of comedy and tragedy on the front, bronze and crystal chandeliers inside, and nobody in it for a long time. Then Santa Maria la Ribera, which is Art Nouveau, Art Deco and neoclassical all in the same few streets, and the Kiosco Morisco at the centre of it: an ornate iron-and-glass pavilion in the Moorish style, which is the emblem of the neighbourhood and where everybody meets. The traditional market runs Monday to Saturday; on Sundays the route changes slightly but the food does not. Pulque comes at the Monumento a la Revolucion, and it is a reason to come: fermented agave sap, thick, sour, faintly alcoholic, drunk here for a very long time and almost impossible to find outside central Mexico because it does not travel. The michelada is at the end, back at the meeting point, over recommendations for the rest of your stay. There is also a stop where the guides talk about a subject the Mexican press mostly does not, and which they care about. It is not what you booked for and it is worth listening to. Nearly four hours, six people at most, in English, with the bike and all the food and drink.