Roma Norte is a residential neighborhood full of incredible restaurants and bars that are popular with locals and visitors alike. Thanks to its central location and the widespread use of English, it’s one of our top choices for travelers looking for a vacation rental. Roma Norte isn’t much of a destination if you’re looking for monuments, museums, and other sights. But 🏛️Centro is a quick 10 to 20 minute Metro or Metro Bus trip away.
What Roma Norte does have is pretty, leafy streets ideal for walking. There are interesting buildings in the Belle Époque, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco architectural styles all over. Some are crumbling while others have been beautifully restored. Take your time as you walk the streets to look at the doorways and entryways, windows, courtyards, and more. There are little details everywhere.
Roma Norte is also one of the better neighborhoods in Mexico City for street art. If you’re interested in this, there are guided bike and walking tours available, though we haven’t tried this option yet. We haven’t had to: We seem to stumble across brilliant new street art each time we walk around the neighborhood.
We have taken multiple taco bike tours. This is a terrific option for anyone looking an insider’s perspective on tacos, history, culture, and more. You can find tours that are centered on Roma Norte but also venture into La Condesa and other parts of the city. We were happy with the tour we took most recently with 📲Bikes and Munchies.
Finally, Roma Norte has some interesting shopping possibilities. There are tiny stores and shops selling vintage items, clothing, Mexican handicrafts, art, and more all throughout Roma Norte. It’s a great neighborhood for browsing or looking for unique souvenirs. And don’t overlook the incredible 🛍️El Palacio de Hierro Durango, an upscale department store that takes up a city block and is reminiscent of the Grand Magasins of Paris.
This is an excerpt from our downloadable book, Eternal Spring: Our Guide to Mexico City, which is designed to work seamlessly on your phone, e-reader, tablet, or computer. Use it to plan your itinerary, and refer to it any time you need to when you’re in Mexico City.
👁️ See and do
If you like to wander around, people watch, and enjoy quirky, beautiful shops, Roma Norte is just about ideal.
Just be careful of the uneven sidewalks: Many are bent out of shape by tree roots, seismic activity, and other factors, and they’re rarely fixed or patched in any meaningful way.
🏟️ Arena México (Lucha Libre)
Arena México is technically in Doctores, but it’s walkable from Roma Norte and can be found just across busy Avenida Cuauhtémoc to the northeast. It’s also the home of the city’s Lucha Libre (“freestyle wrestling”) matches, which is an excellent way to spend a Tuesday or Friday night, or a Sunday afternoon.
Lucha Libre is a spectacle, an inexpensive feast for the senses that combines sport and sleight of hand entertainment with pretty women dancing for the wrestlers, exploding fire pots, screaming fans—many wearing Lucha Libre masks—and micheladas and snacks. The wrestlers take these matches seriously: We’ve seen several horrible injuries.
The matches are rich with tradition and ritual. There are one-on-one and multi-wrestler matches, and each is fought as if it were a championship of some kind. Fans can choose between the técnicos (“good guys”) and rudos (“bad guys”), alternatively cheering on or booing them both.
📲Lucha Libre tickets are available at Ticketmaster. We recommend buying them in advance and not doing so via a scalper in front of the stadium right before a match. You can, however, consider buying a souvenir Lucha Libre mask outside the stadium.
Each year in March on International Women’s Day, the male wrestlers step aside for their female colleagues, who put on quite a show of their own. We’ve coincidentally gone to Lucha Libre on this day two years in a row, and it’s fantastic.
⛲ Fuente de Cibeles
This fountain in northeastern Roma Norte is in the center of a busy, multi-street intersection. It surrounds a statue of a Roman goddess that’s modeled after a similar spot in Madrid. It’s a pretty photo op, and it includes one of the large and colorful “CDMX” structures that you see throughout the city.
There are shops and restaurants, including trendy 🍴Contramar, all around the fountain and, on weekends, a large outdoor bazaar with excellent street food options to its southeast on El Oro.
We’re embarrassed to admit that we still refer to the statue in the center of the fountain as one representing Queen Victoria. We have no idea why we ever thought that, but now it’s lodged in our brains.
🌳 Jardin Pushkin and 🌳 Jardin Dr. Ignacio Chavez
These two parks straddle Avenida Cuahtemoc in the east of Roma Norte—Jardin Dr. Ignacio Chavez is actually in Doctores—and if you visit one, you should visit the other as well.
Jardin Pushkin offers basketball courts and, for the kids, swings, slides, and play structures. There are also fun dog murals of dogs throughout the park.
Jardin Dr. Ignacio Chavez hosts a nice flea market around its outside edge on the weekends with vendors selling old movie posters, albums, collectable toys, and more.
🎨 MODO (Museo del Objeto del Objeto)
MODO, the Museo del Objeto del Objeto (the museum of the object of the object), is a quirky showcase of changing exhibits of, well, objects housed in a historical building. And these are literally objects of all kinds, most tied to Mexican daily life now or in the past.
Even those who didn’t grow up in Mexico will appreciate MODO and the nostalgia it triggers. It’s highly visual, so knowing Spanish isn’t a requirement.
You never know exactly what you’ll find here, but the objects are grouped and displayed by theme. And because some of the exhibits rotate regularly, it’s worth revisiting every so often. We usually take an hour or so exploring each time.
🛍️ El Palacio de Hierro Durango 📲
El Palacio de Hierro Durango is the Roma Norte location for Mexico’s best upscale department store chain. It’s an incredible store—almost as large as the typical U.S. mall and with about the same variety—that offers everything from furniture to electronics, clothes, and other high-end items.
We refer to Palacio de Hierro as the Nespresso store, since it’s where we buy the coffee pods for our Nespresso machine. So we visit about once each month, and we always take the time to walk through and admire the design, fashions, high-end housewares, furniture, and more.
Don’t expect to find any bargains here: Palacio de Hierro is as upscale as it looks. And like the Parisian Grand Magasins it resembles, it offers some interesting and ornate decorations during Day of the Dead, Christmas, and other holidays.
🌳 Plaza Luis Cabrera
Plaza Luis Cabrera is a small, tree-lined park that interrupts Calle Orizaba between Guanajuato and Zacatecas and is surrounded by small shops, local businesses, and, sadly, a Starbucks.
It is most notable for the fountains at its center that run only during the day and create rainbows in the sun. But there are benches and various art installations, too, and this quiet place is perfect for reading or enjoying a meal or snack.
🌳 Plaza Rio de Janeiro
This tranquil park is most notable for its replica of Michelangelo’s “David” statue, neatly positioned in a series of fountains, and the architecture of the buildings that surround it. Be sure to look for the infamous Casa de las Brujas (Witches House). It’s not as scary as it sounds.
You will often find vendors here selling clothing, jewelry, baskets, and other items. And there are some decent restaurants in the area, most notably Marmota to the park’s west.
Avoid Gran Cantina Filomeno to its east; this is one of the rare horrible dining experiences we’ve had in Mexico City and the service is terrible.
We’d love to get your feedback as we build out our guidebook. Please ❤️ if you like what you see here or 💬 with any thoughts or suggestions.
I’ve been talking about coming back to Mexico City and this article really makes me want to do it sooner rather than later!