Type: Downtown restaurant and bar
Neighborhood: Centro
Telephone: 999-924-1779
Address: Calle 59 no. 501-a. x 60 y 62, Entrances on 59 and 60
How to Get There from the Centro: You’re there! Just one block north of the Plaza Grande.
Parking: Not really, but there is downtown parking not associated with the restaurant.
Air Conditioned: Yes
Outdoors: Yes
Drinks: Two Full bars. Be sure to check for drink specials
Payment: Mastercard, AMEX, Visa
Wifi: ?
Hours: Breakfast: 9 AM to 12:30. Including takeout bakery goods made in-house. Lunch specials: 1 PM to 5 PM daily specials on the Executive Menu Monday-Saturday. Dinner menu: 1 PM to 10 PM, Sunday to Thursday, 1 PM to 1 AM, Friday and Saturday.
Notes: >Vida Catrina can neatly be described as a 3-in-1 restaurant and bar. Their unique dual-street entrances, three tasty and creatively prepared day-long, fusion Mexican food menus, and the comfortable and relaxing bar/patio make this a great addition to Centro’s eateries. The Calle 59 entrance is a long, narrow space lined with tables and chairs. Here is where the coffee station and their inhouse bakery items can be purchased early in the day. Take them to go, or eat there. The Calle 60 entrance (just doors up from the corner of Calle 59) has a somewhat bigger dining area and one of their two bars. The entire restaurant is decorated in the theme of colorful Catrina art. Passing beyond this section leads you outside to the airy and comfortable courtyard that sits in the center of the L -shaped restaurants. Another bar sits in the back of the patio for their nighttime look, including live music on weekends.
The concept of Vida Catrina is a restaurant-canteen. Their decoration, architecture and environment distinguishes their authentic flavor with a bit of Mexico, with other features borrowed from the bars in Spain and the pub in England. Here’s a nice little touch if you are still struggling with the language of Mexico. Vida Catrina has menus in English and English-speaking waiters. Rather than rewrite the wheel, we suggest you check out Debi Kuhn’s blog post on Vida Catrina for food descriptions.

Type: Cocina economica with Italian and Mediterranean food
Neighborhood: Fraccionamiento Francisco de Montejo
Telephone: 999-743-7968
Address: Calle 42 no. 337 x 53g y 53h, Local 1, Plaza Sara-Isabel
How to Get There from the Centro: Take Calle 60 north to Avenida Tecnologico. Continue on Avenida Tecnologico until you see the Chedraui North store on your left and Gran Plaza on your right. Before the underpass and BEFORE Chedraui, at the Y in the road, veer to the left. At the signal, cross over the southbound side of Avenida Tecnologico and immediately get into the right lane and merge over onto Calle 51. Chedraui will now be on your right. Continue on and follow Calle 51 going west (the street changes numbers many times) until the big intersection where there will be two PEMEX’s and and El Trumpo Restaurant on the corners. This intersection is with Calle 42. Get into the lefthand turn lane and turn left onto Calle 42. The restaurant is on the right side of Calle 42 in the Plaza Sara-Isabel minimall.
Parking: Yes
Air Conditioned: No
Outdoors: Yes
Drinks: No… juices and teas
Payment: Cash only
Wifi: N/A
Hours: Monday-Saturday, 1 to 5 PM
Notes: > Don’t let the small, casual space scare you away. Chef Carlos Cuturi creates lovely Italian and Mediterranean delights out of his small kitchen that are big on flavor, portion and value. Each dish is prepared with fresh ingredients and homemade sauces to create a variety of lunch choices that will leave you satisfied and happy. Choose from one of his regular menu items such as four-cheese, spinach, or meat lasagnas, eggplant parmesan, moussaka, keftedes, meatballs with pasta, kotopita, cannelloni or vegetable ratatouille. Or maybe you prefer to try a daily specials. In either case, you will feel like you’ve experienced a taste of Italy without the traveling. Lunches are accompanied by a choice of pesto rice, iceberg lettuce salad, soup or light and creamy potato croquettes.
On our recent visit, while we read the whiteboard menu, Chef Cuturi described the daily specials. Smells of sautéeing garlic filled the air. Our orders arrived promptly to the casually set table where the utensils and napkins are in the center, family style. Our lunch order was two orders of the Special of the Day (baked ziti with a light tomato sauce), a large plateful of vegetable ratatouille with pesto rice and the layered spinach lasagne topped with a béchamel sauce. Each dish was delightfully flavored and there were definitely moments of silence as we ate. Average lunch price: $55 -65 pesos.

Type: Lebanese Takeout Food
Neighborhood: Colonia Mexico Norte
Telephone: 944-5099
Address: Calle 19 # 92-c x Prolongacion Montejo y Calle 28, Col. Mexico Norte
How to Get There from the Centro: Take Paseo de Montejo through the Burger King underpass heading north. At the intersection of Office Depot and Parisiana Fabrics, go one more block north to the Rogers/Calle 19 signal. Turn right onto Calle 19. Panaderia El Fericio will be right there on the left side of this block.
Parking: Small lot in front, and parking is pretty easy on the street
Air Conditioned: No
Outdoors: No
Drinks: No alcohol
Payment: Cash only
Wifi: N/A
Hours: Monday to Saturday, 8:00 AM to 2:30 PM. Sundays, 11:00 AM to 2:30 PM
Notes: Here is another great Lebanese take-out place that is a little closer to the centro (and easier to find…) than S’mir. The store has authentic Lebanese products. Panaderia el Fenicio is set back into the corner of a tiny strip mall… it’s not even really big enough to be a strip mall. The store offers quite a few basic ingredients for cooking Lebanese food that are hard to find elsewhere. They also carry home-made arabe breads (such as pita bread), empanadas, kibi and a selection of dips and sweets. Some special things you’ll find there include freshly-made tahini, Zatar spice, tasted and herbed flat bread, Arabe pepper, freshly-made cows’ milk cheese balls and ground wheat. Of course, we think the best reason to go there is the cool camel sign…

Type: Lebanese food to go
Neighborhood: Fraccionamiento Campestre
Telephone: 944-8158, 944-8286
Address: Calle 9 #278b entre 38 y 40
How to Get There from the Centro: Take Paseo de Montejo up to the Burger King circle and go to your left at this glorieta on to Circuito Colonias and continue to Avenida Campestre. Turn right on to Avenida Campestre at the signal. Continue north to Calle 7. Take a left turn on to Calle 7. Continue until you reach the end of the street where it will cross with Calle 40 (which is a two-way street). Make a quick right and cross over Calle 40 and then make a quick left turn onto the first street on your left which is Calle 9. S’mir is on the left. It’s a yellow building with parking in front in a carport.
Parking: Yes
Air Conditioned: Yes
Outdoors: No
Drinks: No alcohol.
Payment: Cash only
Wifi: N/A
Hours: Daily, 7:30 AM to 4:00 PM.
Notes: S’mir is a full-service deli stocked full of Arabe (Lebanese) freshly-made and ready-to-go food products available for take-out only. All of their products are made in-house and you can even watch the production line in action through the glass wall behind the service counter. From numerous dips, kibis, stuffed grape leaves, freshly made Arabian breads, labne, Lebanese salads and meat kebabs (alambres) to sweets like date pies, S’mir offers a broad selection of locally prepared Lebanese botanas. We can attest to the fact that S’mir food is delicious and has been for years… one of Merida’s best-kept secrets (until now, of course). The food is consistently fresh and tasty.

A few of their freshly made products that we especially love include:

• Date pie
• Stuffed grape leaves
• Tabouli
• Chicken soup (Their chicken soup with rice comes in two separate plastic containers. One has the liquid soup, the other is full of rice with chunks of chicken, pine nuts and other goodies. Heat up the liquid, pour in the rice concoction and prepare to get better, no matter what ails you!)
• Xcatic dip (the Chipotle dip is also delicious)
• Berenjena (Eggplant)
• Alambre (Grilled meat Brocheta)
• Freshly made Arabe bread (as well as chips made from the same bread)

Type: Fresh Fast Food: “the perfect salad”
Neighborhood: Colonia Jardines de Merida
Telephone: Telephone: 999-196-2706
Address: Avenida Yucatan #858 x 17 Diagonal
How to Get There from the Centro: Take Paseo de Montejo north to Avenida Perez Ponce. (This is the Walmart intersection.) Take a right at this intersection and follow Avenida Perez Ponce staying to the left, at the second signal turn right onto Avenida Aleman. Continue on Avenida Aleman approximately 1.8 miles. The road name will change to Avenida Yucatan. You will pass through the signal at Circuitos Colonias and the next intersection is Diagonal 17. You will see the large V concrete statues (they are a modern interpretation of a henequen plant, by the way) and the café is just beyond those statues and the park on the right side of the street. The cafe is next to Jardin de Merida, a pleasant tree filled park and is essentially located behind Plaza Fiesta.
Parking: Yes
Air Conditioned: Yes
Outdoors: Yes
Drinks: No alcohol. (see below)
Payment: Cash only
Wifi: Yes
Hours: Monday-Saturday, 12 Noon to 10 PM.
Notes:We learned this from our roving restaurant reporter:

Owners, Ximena Lapuente and Tino Mondragon, a young and nutrition-wise couple, own and manage Natural Avenue. The small café provides a fresh alternative to traditional fast food in Merida. The café is an open, light and fun space. It is the place to go for made-it-yourself salads, sandwiches, fresh fruit aquas and smoothies. You can take your salad or sandwich para llevar (to go), enjoy sitting in an air-conditioned interior or sit outside in the tree-filled park next door. You can do all this while answering your email, as WIFI is also available here.

Natural Avenue‘s concept is to offer nutritional food in a made-to-order ‘your way’ meal. They offer a variety of fresh ingredients such as cheeses, meats and vegetables that they prepare daily to create the variety of ingredient choices for the mix-in’s to your own salad creation. Ingredients also include tuna, chicken on the grill (a la parrilla) with pepper or arrrachera style, or lemon chicken. The idea is that you choose one of the three sizes of salad portions (small, medium or large) as the base of your custom-made salad. Then you choose from the dozen-plus add-ins available: the fresh vegetable, cheese toppings and/or meat to mix in. Your romaine lettuce salad is then tossed to order with the ingredients you’ve chosen after it’s been dressed with one of the many house-made dressing of your choice. And there you go! Sandwiches are also made to order on fresh-made ciabatta bread. A selection of made to order smoothies and aguas are also available, in addition to bottled beverages.