🍴Mexico City restaurant review: Carmel, a Roma Norte gem

Pop into Carmel for vermouth tonics—they make their own vermouth—and what we're convinced are the best croquettes you can find.

This is an excerpt from our guidebook, Eternal Spring: Our Guide to Mexico City.

⭐️⭐️💲💲
Tapas bar

Pros
✅ Friendly staff
✅ (Some) English spoken
✅ Good vibe
✅ Outdoor seating
✅ Indoor seating
✅ Popular with locals
✅ Popular with expats
✅ Open Sunday
✅ No reservation required

Cons
❌ No English menu
❌ Can be loud
❌ Closed Monday

Located on Córdoba one-half block north of Avenida Álvaro Obregón, Carmel was originally a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with a big menu and an accomplished chef. But it changed formats in recent months to focus on its strengths, so it’s more of a bar than restaurant now.

Those strengths? Homemade vermouth, out-of-this-world Barcelona-style tapas, and a fun, casual hang-out atmosphere.

This was clearly the right decision, but it hasn’t changed our experience. Carmel still makes the best croquetas de jamón (ham croquets) we’ve ever had.

We always order at least three each, and we usually pair them with the huevos rotos con jamón (broken eggs with ham) or patatas bravas (cubed potato with olive oil and paprika). And at least two light and delicious vermut (vermouth) and tonic cocktails.

There are several vermouths to choose from, but we always go with the homemade house vermouth that’s good enough to drink straight up. If a vermouth cocktail or shot isn’t your thing, there’s a small but solid selection of wines, sodas, and other drinks too.

And Carmel is open for breakfast, assuming you don’t mind waiting until noon—the tapas are great at any time, day or night—so there are good espresso and coffee choices too.

Carmel has seating inside and out. It can even sit seven at its bar, which is unusual in Mexico City. This is one of our favorites, and we’ve quickly become repeat customers.

Fun fact: Carmel derives its name from El Carmel, the neighborhood in Barcelona, Spain where one of the restaurant’s three owners grew up. It’s the highest point in that city, and the inspiration for the phrase “del Carmelo al cielo”—“from Carmel to heaven”—that Carmel now uses as its slogan. And they may be on to something, too: The croquets really are heavenly.

Menu

Note that the scribbles shown here are part of the menu, not something hand drawn later.