Quintonil

Jorge Vallejo · Mexico City, Mexico

Newton 55, Polanco, Mexico City

Quintonil is named after a wild quelite herb used in Mexican cooking, a plant that grows everywhere and is noticed by almost nobody. That choice of name says everything about Jorge Vallejo's philosophy: an attention to the ordinary ingredients of Mexico that reveals them to be extraordinary. It holds two Michelin stars and sits a block from Pujol in Polanco.

Jorge Vallejo opened Quintonil in 2012 with his wife Alejandra Flores, a year after returning from a stage at Noma in Copenhagen. The restaurant's tasting menu focuses on Mexican ingredients: wild herbs, heirloom corn, regional chillies, insects, coastal seafood, prepared with a delicacy and precision that feels closer to the Nordic new wave than to traditional Mexican cooking. Where Pujol is a statement about Mexican fine dining as a concept, Quintonil is more intimate, a chef working through a set of deeply personal questions about what Mexico tastes like. The restaurant reached number 9 in The World's 50 Best Restaurants in 2022.

What to know

• —Two Michelin stars
• —Peak ranking of number 9 in The World's 50 Best (2022)
• —Named after a wild quelite herb, a statement of culinary philosophy
• —Jorge Vallejo staged at Noma, Copenhagen
• —Focus on wild herbs, heirloom corn, regional chillies, and indigenous ingredients