Mercado de San Juan Arcos de Bélen Mexico City

Apr 8

Written By Sky

Mexico City has numerous food markets, and to make things trickier, several of them share the same name. That’s how we ended up at Mercado de San Juan Arcos de Belén instead of the famous Mercado de San Juan, which was our original destination. After following a patchwork of directions without ever getting a proper address, we landed here. Funny enough, it was a few days later that we realised it was a different Mercado de San Juan all along!

Fortunately, the “wrong” market turned out to be a happy accident. Roughly spread across roughly 125 square metres with nearly 400 stalls of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, meats, chiles, moles, juices, and steaming trays of prepared foods. Colourful plastic bags hung in rows, hand-painted signs promise every imaginable market delight.

After walking through the lively aisles, we settled on Gloria y Familia Taco Placero (stalls 191, 208, and 209). Every time we passed, the trays of grilled vegetables, stewed huitlacoche, fragrant rice, tamales, beans, soups, and bright salads pulled us back for another look. It also happened to be one of the most vegetarian -friendly stalls we’d seen, with a cheerful spread of ceramic dishes brimming with flavour.

Our lunch quickly became a vehicle for exploring the stall’s variety of salsas. Gloria had at least ten different kinds of freshly made salsas and hot sauces, all delicious and brimming with happiness! So much so that, in the end, we couldn’t resist asking her to fill our empty water bottles with salsa so we could take those vibrant flavours with us.
We tucked into grilled nopal cactus, sweet onions, yellow rice, and vegetable rice, all sprinkled with herbs native to the region, along with stuffed poblano chiles, a steamed tamal wrapped in its leaf, and elote sprinkled with cheese; every bite was like a new discovery.

After lunch, we stopped at a few stalls to buy moles and chiles. Our favourite stall is Moles Sarita (+52 55182235), stalls 194 and 195. Here, we stocked up on a generous sampler of moles and dried chiles. The stallholders were warm and generous with their knowledge, happy to explain names, origins, and cooking tips. By the time we left, our bags were heavy, our taste buds buzzing, and we were reminded that sometimes getting lost is the best part of travel.