The Movable Feast Moves to Mexico

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If Hemingway and Fitzgerald were alive today they wouldn’t be in Paris. 

You’d find them in Mexico City, shuffling among bars and cafes in the neighborhood of Condesa. In the morning, they’d be at Malcriado, enjoying the egg and biscuit breakfast with macha salsa.

Mexico City right now is probably the closest thing to Paris in the 1920s.

It’s teeming with digital nomads drawn by cheap rents, abundant cafes and 70-degree days in the winter.

Condesa and its cousin – Roma Norte – are the epi-center, low rise urban areas that feel like forests and are blanketed with bike lanes, Wifi and Pilates.

You sit in a cafe surrounded by three English girls, a hip young couple from Russia and a group of 40-something gay men from America. A surprising number have children.

These are not your typical tourists. They are living here for weeks if not months or years. They speak at least passable Spanish. They fill the cafes reading, writing, banging away on laptops and doing Zoom calls. 

It’s happening because Covid unlocked remote work in a way that didn’t exist before.

That, and the weak peso, which hovering at about 20 to the dollar means everything is half the price. An main course in an nice restaurant can be about $15.

The zone is remarkably quiet for being in the heart of the city and feels extremely safe.

You hear English spoken everywhere. It can actually be hard to find Mexican food among all the noodles and gelato. We went to Farmacia, which specializes in homemade pop tarts.

Condesa may be a bubble, and yet, even with all the foreigners, it is still Mexico and Mexican. There is a slower pace and easy vibe that is a respite from the frenetic energy of New York or LA.

I’ve been coming to Mexico almost every year for four decades and obviously a lot has changed. 

But one of the most unexpected shifts has been the emergence of Mexico City as a destination for so many international people both to visit and live. 

Americans have for decades flocked to the beaches of Tulum or San Blas, but this is something new.  

Practically everyone I know in New York is heading to or has just returned from CDMX, as the city has rebranded itself.

Mexico City has become a major destination for the disaffected as well as the aspirational.

They are drawn by Instagram videos that portray a city that is surprisingly livable considering its size.  

And they are not disappointed. 

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

BREAKFAST CDMX: My favorite breakfast in CDMX is at Malcriado, the egg and cheese on a biscuit with salsa macha, coffee and freshly squeeze orange juice.

CDMX VINTAGE: It’s wild how vintage clothing stores have gone global.

CONDESA TOWNHOUSE: The kind of house I want to live in someday.

CONDESA WINEBAR: The weather allows everything to be open air all year around.

CONDESA TOWNHOUSES: The colors of townhouses in Condesa are amazing.