Accommodation, Health, and The Mexican Culinary Experience
Published 08/12/2026 in Scholar Travel Stipend
Written
by Natural Premier |
08/12/2026
Quick, name 3 Mexican dishes without cheese or meat! If you struggled, it may have been because of the reductive commercialization of Mexican food in the US. Though Mexican dishes like the taco and nachos have been popularized in America, a variety of other Mexican flavors, ingredients, and cooking traditions have not been able to successfully make it into the American mainstream. Many of the dishes that do make it are dramatically oversimplified, being reduced to a few simple ingredients (Quesadillas need cheese + tortilla) or becoming flexible enough to have any ingredients alongside 1 key ingredient (anything can be called a taco if it has a shell). The only way to truly access and understand traditional Mexican cuisine is through authentic restaurants or home cooking.
As a lifelong vegan, I’ve struggled to discover traditional Mexican cuisine since the Americanized Mexican foods for sale typically rely on meat and cheese as key ingredients. Foods I encounter in Mexico will surely be authentic. Finding foods despite my dietary restrictions was a separate challenge.
This leads to the two goals I had during my trip to Mexico City: to discover cultural differences between Americanized Mexican Food and traditional Mexican food, and to assess the dietary accommodations of Mexico City restaurants. Though both of these topics are of personal significance to me, they also are directly related to the missions of both the Milken Family Foundation and the Milken Institute. Dietary accommodations are crucial, as good labeling and transparency about ingredients can mean the difference between life and death for a person with a food allergy. The mission of the Milken Family Foundation is to “to discover and advance inventive, effective ways of helping people help themselves and those around them lead productive and satisfying lives.”,with a focus on education in carrying out this mission. Information about dietary accommodation in Mexico will help educate people about what to expect when visiting or moving to Mexico, potentially saving lives. The mission of the Milken Institute is “accelerating measurable progress on the path to a meaningful life (...) with a focus on financial, physical, mental and environmental health”. If American dishes truly are oversimplifying Mexican foods by making them too reliant on processed ingredients like meat and cheese, this may have health impacts for the expanding Mexican American population across America. Maybe there are other staples or cooking methods being used in Mexico that can reduce emissions or substitute unhealthier, more carcinogenic ingredients for cleaner and healthier ones. This information could improve environmental and physical health.
Mexico City is the largest city in North America, with around 9 million inhabitants, and around 22 million people living in the entire CDMX metropolitan area. The size and diversity of the city was daunting; many of the neighborhoods had a distinct architecture and neighborhood identity. Some boroughs had canals and waterways dividing small islands, others had wide streets with green spaces in between, and the one where I stayed had each street named after a physician. Yet much of the city maintains a distinctly and proudly Mexican cultural identity, with small enclaves throughout that may cater to tourists and foreigners a little more. Despite the size of the city, every borough feels very much alive. By day, streets and walkways fill with shops and vendors selling everything imaginable. There certainly was no shortage of food to try.
To properly accomplish my two goals, I recorded many aspects of my dining experience as research data. I relied on three academic papers to inform my research. For culinary history and comparison, I chose excerpts from Jeffrey M. Pilcher’s book Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food, which offers an overview of the Americanization of Mexican food, and explores what should be considered as authentic Mexican food. The short answer is that even within Mexico many of the same dishes have regional twists and differences, so authenticity may have to be confirmed based on methods of food preparation, quality/source of ingredients, and the history of the restaurant serving the food. My second source, Leisure Time and Food Memory: An Anthropological Approach to Culinary Tourism in Central Mexico, is a more specific, interview-based study on which factors are important to culinary tourists in Mexico City. Though the study uses strict criteria for interviewees, it identifies historical significance (service and food preparation across generations) and contemporary use of past cooking techniques as some of the main drivers of tourists to Mexican Barbacoa Producers (restaurants). My last source, RAISing Standards for Inclusive Dining: Development and Validation of the Restaurant Accommodation and Inclusion Scale (RAIS) for Diners with Dietary Restrictions, is a paper exploring a new system of quantifying the dietary inclusivity of restaurants. The RAIS scale has three “dimensions” important to dining experiences:
● Inclusive Care (modification capabilities, staff knowledge, service quality)
● Allergen/Ingredient Transparency (menu clarity, allergen identification)
● Pricing Fairness (equitable charges for modifications/substitutions)
Accommodation using RAIS
There were 7 dining experiences complete enough for me to evaluate. I rated their dietary awareness and accommodation numerically based on a novel version of the RAIS Scale from the RAISing Standards for Inclusive Dining paper. I quantified factors like clear labeling (Allergen/Ingredient Transparency), available options for different diets, flexibility of ingredients (Inclusive Care), and price (Pricing Fairness). I weighed inclusive care the most since it demonstrates flexibility and consideration of the customer’s dietary needs (doing more work than necessary to accommodate). I weighed Allergen/Ingredient Transparency the second highest because it allows for a smoother dining experience and does not depend on unreliable staff knowledge. I weighed pricing fairness the least since generally Mexican food is affordable, and price was difficult to evaluate since currency exchange always made me feel as though my purchases were a good deal.
The top 3 most accommodating restaurants evaluated were Abacadabra Cocina de Corazon (2.4 / 3), Abasto Vegano Roma (2.3 / 3), and Masala y Maize (2.25 / 3). Abacadabre Cocina de Corazon is a small restaurant run by the owner herself, who picked up recipes from her travels with her chef husband. She actively converses with guests while cooking, takes orders herself, and curates the menu to be considerate of vegan and vegetarian dietary restrictions. Hers was the only (not exclusively vegan) restaurant I ate at that has a dedicated vegan/ vegetarian classification of dishes. Abasto Vegano Roma was the next best restaurant, with a menu that addressed gluten, protein content, and labeled ingredients well. The prices were outstanding and the staff seemed accommodating. Masala y Maize is a Michelin star restaurant that had the best accommodation of any restaurant I visited. Though the menu was uncategorized, the chef was able to render each entree into a vegan or vegetarian version, meaning I had the freedom to try any dish on the menu! Masala y Maize still had a relatively high price of items on their menu, and the reservation needed to access the restaurant made it feel a bit exclusionary and slightly less accessible than the other top options. It is important for safe and healthy food to be available and accessible to those across all levels of income, which is why the top two restaurants were in accessible locations and had affordable prices alongside their excellent accommodations.
Masala y Maize
The Mid-level restaurants, Por siempre Vegana Taquería 2 and Mora Mora Polanco, were both vegan restaurants with alright menus, untested/unlikely accommodation, and decent prices. The worst scored restaurants were Cuina CDMX and HelloJessie. Cuina CDMX was expensive and exclusive, but unlike Masala y Maize there was no vegan dish on the menu at all and accommodations weren’t great. HelloJessie is a Chinese restaurant with some menu items appearing fully in Chinese. The menu just had the name of the dish and the price, without further clarification in ingredients at all! Though I worked with the owner to craft a dish, the menu was the worst I experienced.
HelloJessie
Authenticity, Tradition, and the Mexican Culinary Experience
With regards to authentic Mexican food, my findings revealed that hunting for authentic Mexican food as a vegan is tough, but not impossible. Of the 7 restaurants I evaluated, only 2 could be considered as authentic Mexican restaurants specializing in traditional Mexican cuisine. These two were Por siempre Vegana Taquería 2 and Cuina. Though the cuisine at both of these restaurants was good, it didn't register as profoundly different from similar cuisine I have had in the US. Surprisingly, the restaurants with dishes that I found to be the most transformative were both Mexican-fusion restaurants, and were both ranked top 3 in my accommodations! I think that Mexican fusion restaurants in a way represent Mexican cuisine well because, as Jeffrey M. Pilcher explains in Planet taco, Mexican cuisine is vastly different across regions of Mexico, meaning authenticity is more loosely determined by ingredients, cooking technique, and history rather than a rigid recipe. Though all restaurants have culinary history and intentionality behind their cooking process and ingredients, discovering this information is difficult. Masala Y Maize checks all the authenticity boxes laid out by Pilcher; traditional dishes, intentional ingredients, rich culinary history, and special technique. For example, the dish I ordered was the Chile relleno de bharela ringan. This dish is a twist on Mexican Stuffed Pepper, making use of regional ingredients like Poblano Peppers (also known as Ancho Chile, described by Danilo Alfaro in his article What Is an Ancho Chile Pepper?) and quelites (regional herbs). But it’s a stuffed pepper with Bharela Ringan, an Indian eggplant curry. Both dishes are centuries old, fused together gracefully to create a memorable dish. The dish I ordered at Abacadabra Cocina de Corazon was a pizza with Mexican cebollitas (regional dish) and eggplant on top, curried and served with spices. The owner explained that the dish was inspired by dishes from all over the world. Though the food from each of the 7 restaurants I visited was certainly authentic, the dishes only really stood out when they introduced a creative fusion. This also in part might speak to the globalization of all foods, not just those in North America. The most exotic and special foods from each country are often exported and sensationalized so much that visiting other countries and trying these foods becomes a less exciting experience. It is only restaurants that fully deconstruct and reimagine the flavors of their region that can stick out in the face of culinary globalization.
Mora Mora: Plant-Based Restaurant and Market
Overall, dietary accommodations in Mexico varied by region, but there were options of some sort in each place I tried. It is worth noting I used reviews and data from the internet to inform my search for food, meaning the sample set of restaurants I chose probably do not represent the majority of Mexican restaurants. If someone is aware and proactive about their dietary needs, they will have options in Mexico City. Traditional food was present all over Mexico, but standout dishes were fusions of traditional dishes with modern twists.
Works Cited
Pilcher, Jeffrey M. Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food. Oxford University Press, 2012.
Thomé-Ortiz, Humberto, and Sergio Moctezuma-Pérez. “Leisure Time and Food Memory: An Anthropological Approach to Culinary Tourism in Central Mexico.” Folia Turistica, vol. 37, 2015, pp. 69–84.
Taylor, Jaimie, et al. “RAISing Standards for Inclusive Dining: Development and Validation of the Restaurant Accommodation and Inclusion Scale (RAIS) for Diners with Dietary Restrictions.” Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, 2024.
Milken Family Foundation. “Mission Statement | Milken Family Foundation.” Mff.org, www.mff.org/about-the-foundation/mission-statement/ . Accessed 22 July 2026.
“About the Milken Institute | Milken Institute.” Milkeninstitute.org, Milken Institute , milkeninstitute.org/about/ . Accessed 22 July 2026.
Alfaro , Danilo. “What Is an Ancho Chile Pepper?” Www.Thespruceeats.Com, The Spruce Eats, 28 June 2024, www.thespruceeats.com/what-is-an-ancho-chile-pepper-995560/
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