Michelin-Starred Restaurants in Mexico / Rosetta: From the Chinampa to Your Table
Multi-award-winning restaurant focused on deeply Mexican ingredients and creations, with a menu that changes with the seasons.
By Alejandro Pohlenz
There’s a restaurant located inside a gas station in Alicante, Spain. It’s called El Xato. You might say, quite reasonably, “So what?” After all, there are thousands of restaurants in thousands of gas stations across Spain. The surprising part is that this one earned a Michelin Star in 2019 — and still keeps it!
Some time ago, I wrote a pilot for a TV show called Acción Planeta with a producer friend of mine. It never aired, but during the research I discovered Elena Reygadas. She amazed me because, for the production of some of the legumes she uses in her restaurant, she employs a pre-Columbian agricultural method: the chinampa. It’s an island made from layers of mud, branches, and grass. It floats on shallow waters, though it’s anchored to the ground. So, beyond growing her own vegetables, Elena preserves a tradition that was on the verge of extinction.
The Story
Elena Reygadas (born 1976) studied English Literature (like one of my sons, who went to Edinburgh). Later, she specialized in cooking in two great cities: New York and London. She founded Rosetta in 2010, a restaurant housed inside a Porfirian-era mansion in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood. The interior is bright, full of greenery and wood, adorned with vintage lamps. Cozy, inviting.
(By the way, the Rosetta Stone — from which the restaurant takes its name — is a fragment of an Egyptian stele that turned out to be a kind of dictionary of Egyptian, Demotic, and Ancient Greek. In other words, thanks to that stone, Egyptian hieroglyphs could finally be deciphered. Elena says she chose the name because “my cooking seeks to translate Mexican ingredients into a contemporary expression.”)
Elena Reygadas: Michelin-Starred Chef and Sustainability Leader
The awards received by Ms. Reygadas and Rosetta are remarkable. She won The World’s Best Female Chef award in 2023. Rosetta is featured in The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list and, in 2024, earned the coveted Michelin Star. It also received the Green Star — awarded for sustainability, innovative ecological practices, and social responsibility. Bravo!
The Menu at Rosetta
“Our à la carte menu changes according to the seasonality of Mexican ingredients.”
Some of Rosetta’s edible masterpieces include: tongue carpaccio, al pastor beet tartare, and kale tacos. There’s also a cinematic minestrone, salt-crusted snapper mussels, suckling pig with mole, and wagyu sirloin tip. Don’t miss the browned butter ice cream.
- What we love and you must try: wagyu sirloin
- What we don’t love as much: service can be a bit rushed and impersonal
- Address: Colima 166, Colonia Roma, Mexico City
- Hours: Monday to Saturday, 1:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. Closed Sundays
- Ideal for: Lunch and dinner
- Payment: Cash and cards
- Accessibility: Yes
- Reservations: Yes, available via Google Maps
- Phone: +52 55 5533 7804
- Pet Friendly: No
- Kid Friendly: Yes
- Vegan Options: Yes
