I should taco... getting lost in Mexico City

Mexico City is a seether, a polluted series of highways and skyscrapers. But it’s also a leafy network of ancient canals, tempting tacquerias, markets and churches; a blend of the Aztec, Baroque, colonial and commercial. For the meandering tourist, the greenest prospect presents itself in the residential, boutiquey district of Condesa, east of the centre, with a cool, downtown New York feel, all interiors boutiques and cafés.

We stayed at the Condesa DF hotel, a converted 1920s apartment block on a purple jacaranda-lined street, built around a triangular courtyard where you breakfast on frothing coffees and the best granola in the world, and which dims into a candlelit Japanese/Mexican restaurant at night. India Mahdavi’s design is a little bit sexy but unselfconsciously so, with bright white rooms and lovely marquetry that makes everything feel expensive. The hotel’s crowning glory is the rooftop bar, where smart young locals grab pre-dinner drinks, watching the sun go down as the washing dries on nearby rooftops and the treetops rustle convivially.

We wandered around Condesa and neighbouring Roma in the evenings, feeling safe, taking in the vintage vinyl and Formica-heavy ice-cream parlour Neveria Roxy — pumpkin, sweet potato and maraschino cherry flavours, anyone? We dined at Azul (a local San Lorenzo) and had a cold beer among the beautiful at Felix, where most of the patrons were smirting out on the pavement. The measures everywhere are Mexican — two vodka and tonics and a bottle of pink wine at nearby Baja-surf-and-turf-style Merotoro (the too expensive sister to Contramar, which is buzzier and the chicest place for a late lunch) and we strolled home arm in arm, like old sailors.

But that was all post-siesta. The first half of the day was spent walking. We snuck in a cab ride to the Centro Historico (all the guidebooks say you can’t hail cabs for fear of assault; you have to call them, which is a bore), which, with 1,500 historic monuments, is on Unesco’s World Heritage List. We loaded up on huevos rancheros at the super-trad El Cardenal, where they thrust pitchers of hot chocolate under your nose, pile on the sweet rolls and specialise in escamoles — ant larvae. I passed.

From there it’s a five-minute walk to the ornate cathedral with its Baroque portals, intricate chapels, morbid bleeding statues, stands selling camp Catholic memorabilia and its amazingly uneven floor, as though the building is being slowly sucked into the ground. There is also the opulent 19th-century Post Office, which shrieks of grandeur, parasols and phaetons, and, of course, the domed, gleaming Palacio Nacional.

But I wanted to shop. We trotted through the hardware district and swerved the intensely foodie San Juan area in favour of the artisan-stuffed La Ciudadela, a haven and a joy. Shadowy lanes of embroidered dresses, painted ceramics, woven bags, cheerful carpets, beaded skulls and endless gorgeous tat from all over Mexico. It feels cheap and exotic and thrilling.

A different kind of walk, on the other side of town, is through the green and pleasant Chapultepec (well, it gets green and pleasant once you’ve crossed a couple of stinky, hectic highways), towards the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, which takes you — in magnificently architected surroundings — from the earliest settlers, through the Aztecs and the Mayans, the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs, to today’s indigenous descendants.

We walked for five hours. We needed sustenance. We emailed Thomasina Miers — she of Wahaca fame — and asked for help. She sent us to Califa, not far from our hotel, which she said serves the best beef tacos in Mexico City. Oh Lord. I will say no more here. Book a flight, cab it to Califa and thank me later.

Swishy restaurants, museums, markets, bars, history and culture are all here, but sometimes a superlative bite of street food with a chilled beer and a bit of winter sunshine is what gives you a proper taste of a city.

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Rooms at Condesa DF start at $180 (condesadf.com)