Oaxaca has excellent restaurants, and you should eat in one. But the food that defines the city is cooked on comales in market halls and on street corners, by women who have been making the same thing for decades. This is where the value — and often the flavour — actually is.
How to eat cheaply here
- The city’s markets are the whole strategy: go hungry, order small, repeat
- Look for a queue of locals and a single-dish stall rather than a long menu
- Carry small notes; many stalls do not take cards
- Prices shift, so check the board or ask before ordering
Tlayudas
The signature Oaxacan plate and the best value in the city: a large, thin tortilla crisped over charcoal, spread with asiento — unrefined pork lard — then black bean paste, stringy quesillo cheese, cabbage and a grilled meat. Traditionally late-night food, cooked over coals on the street. One is genuinely a meal.
The smoke hall at Mercado 20 de Noviembre
The pasillo de humo is a corridor of charcoal grills where you buy tasajo (thin salted beef), cecina enchilada (chile-rubbed pork) or chorizo by weight from a butcher, hand it to a griller, and eat it with tortillas, spring onions and salsa at a communal bench. It is theatrical, smoky and cheap.
Memelas
Breakfast. A thick oval of corn masa cooked on the comal, pinched at the edges, then smeared with asiento, beans and crumbled cheese. Order two, add salsa, and you are set until mid-afternoon for the price of a coffee elsewhere.
