At the bottom of a quiet street in Colonia Reforma, a neighborhood located in the northern-central area of Oaxaca City which hides many of the city’s best-kept food secrets, we find Garnachas La Güera. While the area is characterized by its quiet, residential streets, this restaurant is a small paradise where joy, music and good food transport you to the tropics. Garnachas La Güera specializes in food from Juchitán, a village in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, close to Oaxaca’s southeastern coast and the border with the neighboring state of Chiapas. If Oaxaca is a state, Juchitán is like its own country within it.

It is 6:30 pm – the workday of most of the taco, quesadilla and memela vendors in the city is over, but “The Artist’s” shift has just begun. Every day, as the dusk light bathes the streets, 34-year-old Caleb Santiago sets up his food cart right below the centuries-old clock that overlooks the corner of 5 de Mayo and Murguía. By 7:00 pm, he is ready for another night of juicy hamburgers and hot dogs. Among all the late-night hamburger stalls sprawled across the city, Caleb’s is something else. Initially known as just “Cangreburgers,” this little SpongeBob Squarepants-inspired cart has been feeding Oaxacans for the last 16 years.

Oaxaca’s street food scene has surprises for us every day of the week. From breakfast to lunch, we can find plenty of stalls with a plethora of options: eggs, tamales, tortas, tacos, hot drinks, juices and more. However, when sunset bathes the streets of the historic center, most of these stalls are disassembled into heaps of tarps, letting esquites, burger and hot dog stands take over the night shift. Fortunately, this is not the case for Empanadas del Carmen Alto, a classic among locals for serving up daytime dishes until midnight. The menu at Empanadas del Carmen Alto is succinct: memelas (thick corn tortillas topped with various ingredients), the famous empanadas de amarillo (calzone-like corn tortillas filled with chicken and mole amarillo) and squash blossom or mushroom quesadillas.

Throughout Mexico, both foods and drinks are centered around corn, a tendency that’s most evident in Mexico’s wide variety of antojitos, or “little cravings,” small, portable snacks featuring some variation on the corn tortilla – of which the taco is undoubtedly the most well-known globally – antojitos are one of the joys of Mexican cuisine, and vary impressively across the country’s 32 states. In the southwestern state of Oaxaca, there’s no shortage of delicious antojitos – at breakfast, soft, steaming tamales wrapped in the region’s abundant banana leaves are the name of the game, while night owls have ample opportunity to crunch into a tlayuda, a giant tortilla folded over lots of shredded, mozzarella-like quesillo cheese, then griddled over hot coals until crispy on the outside and molten on the inside.

I first met Socorro Irinea Valera Flores years ago, when Oaxaca was not yet under the spotlight of the culinary industry. As part of a high school project in which I had to map Oaxaca’s most “heartwarming” spots for food and drinks, I visited the iconic Aguas Casilda, a nearly 100-year-old storefront that has been selling aguas frescas (fruit-flavored water) to at least three generations of Oaxacan families. The idea of fruit-flavored water might sound strange to foreigners, and unremarkable to most Mexicans (the beverages are common throughout the country, albeit with a more reduced variety). But in Oaxaca, aguas frescas – essentially a mix of fresh fruit pulp, plain water, and some sugar if needed – are synonymous with freshness and excitement, given the selection of different flavors made from the myriad of fruits that grow locally.

Flor Heras (36), co-owner of the Heras family business El Rito and head chocolatier of Reina Negra Chocolate, wakes up every day with the goal to keep chocolate and mole evolving and resurrecting with the same passion the Mayans put into the preservation of their myths. Founded in 2010 by Flor’s father Luis Heras Cortés, El Rito (which means “Ritual”) started as a brand that sold mole paste and traditional chocolate tablets outside of Oaxaca. Their artisanal processes favored the use of natural and high-quality ingredients, rendering homemade, authentic flavors. El Rito products soon caught the attention of local businesses and customers – due to their success, in 2017, Mr. Heras and his family opened a brick-and-mortar shop.

Standing behind the smoke veil raising from the hot clay griddle, Thalía Barrios Garcia roasts dozens of tomatoes of all shades of red with the confidence of a woman who has her future in her own hands. At the early age of 26, Thalía is the owner and head cook of Levadura de Olla, one of Oaxaca City’s most exciting new restaurants. Despite the pandemic – or maybe because of it – Levadura de Olla’s popularity has skyrocketed in the last few months, likely due to its healthy menu that is friendly to most dietary styles and, more importantly, because it is deeply rooted in the cooking styles of Thalía’s hometown: San Mateo Yucutindoo.

Gathered in the parks of Oaxaca during the early 2000s, groups of high school friends, including our dear Roberto, would herald in the end of another school year and the start of a summer of easy living with refreshing nieves in hand. A cup of icy, colorful nieve marked the beginning of carefree afternoons and liberation from homework. Lined up in their wooden containers, the diverse and bright array of fruit nieves resembled the exuberance of the summer unfolding around us: the rich green of the trees, the gentle yellow of the afternoon sun and petricor – a beautiful Spanish word describing the subtle and comforting smell of moist earth after rain.

Years ago, we were traveling with a friend through Belgium during a particularly cold spring when, after a long day, we decided to warm up at a local bar. We were happy – and a bit surprised – to find that they had a decent selection of Oaxacan mezcales. Filled with yearning for our warm homeland, we ordered two shots of mezcal made with tepextate, the agave with the longest lifespan among the 20 wild varieties used for making mezcal in Oaxaca. That first sip unleashed the mineral and herbal flavors of this lonesome agave plant – which can require up to two decades of maturation before it can be turned into mezcal – and took us to its terroir: a rocky Oaxacan landscape where the central valleys meet the mountains and the wind blows dry and gentle.

The name of a food stall followed by “del Carmen Alto” has a particular ring in Oaxaca, calling to mind a whole world of stands, all of which are located in the two blocks facing the church La Iglesia del Carmen Alto, in the heart of the city’s historic center. It’s not entirely clear why El Carmen Alto is a street-food hub, but it’s probably related to the fact that, back in the 1970s, the Plaza del Carmen used to host a weekly open-air market where people from all over the Oaxaca Valley would bring their produce. This market turned out to be so popular that it eventually moved into a permanent building, named Mercado Sánchez Pascuas, where it still operates today.

In Oaxaca, having a proper, hearty breakfast and also being on the go are not necessarily contradictory things. Memelas de San Agustín, an easy-going spot that has been feeding hungry Oaxacans for at least 15 years, is living proof. This small stall doesn’t have an official name – people just started referring to it this way since it’s located right behind the Iglesia de San Agustín on Fiallo Street. But it’s become a beloved destination for delicious versions of its namesake dish – essentially thick corn tortillas that are pinched around the edges and in the middle, making the texture slightly uneven so that their toppings (and their juices) stay in place.