Quintonil

Quintonil is a contemporary Mexican restaurant in Polanco, Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico City. Owned by the couple Jorge Vallejo and Alejandra Flores, Quintonil started as a more casual eatery with a daily menu but has since evolved into a fine-dining destination. Its menu, which includes both à la carte and seasonal tasting menu options, including heirloom vegetables, native herbs, and insects sourced from across the country.

Quintonil
The restaurant's entrance in 2016
Restaurant information
Established	9 March 2012 (2012-03-09)
Owner(s)	Alejandra Flores Jorge Vallejo
Manager(s)	Alejandra Flores[1]: 19:10–19:25
Head chef	Jorge Vallejo[1]: 19:10–19:25
Food type	Mexican
Dress code	None[2]
Rating	(Michelin Guide, 2024)
Street address	Newton 55, Polanco, Miguel Hidalgo
City	Mexico City
Postal/ZIP Code	11550
Country	Mexico
Coordinates	19°25′51.2″N 99°11′30.4″W
Seating capacity	42[3]
Reservations	Yes[4]
Website	quintonil.com/en

Quintonil has received positive reviews and multiple culinary accolades. The British company William Reed Ltd has continuously ranked Quintonil in its list of the World's 50 Best Restaurants since 2016, placing it third in 2025 and naming it the best restaurant in North America that year. Additionally, the restaurant was awarded two Michelin stars in 2024, in the first Michelin Guide covering restaurants in Mexico, becoming the highest-rated restaurant in the country and tying with the Mexican restaurant Pujol.

Description

Quintonil offers both à la carte dishes and a nine-course tasting menu, which changes seasonally.^[5][6][7] Diners may also opt for a wine pairing at an additional cost.^[2][5] The restaurant sources its fruits and vegetables from Milpa Alta and Xochimilco in Mexico City, as well as the neighboring states of Hidalgo and the State of Mexico. Pork is imported from Michoacán and Yucatán,^[3][8] beef from Durango, and fish from Baja California.^[9]

Quintonil's menu features both traditional and unconventional Mexican ingredients, including staples like beans, squash, various chiles, and mushrooms, as well as lesser-known elements such as quintonil, other heirloom vegetable and herbs, and insects. While most dishes are plant-based, a few incorporate beef.^[7][6][10] Signature items like huauzontles and chilacayote mole have been offered since the restaurant's opening.^[4] A variation of mole madre, originally sold at the fellow restaurant Pujol, is also available.^[5] The beverage selection includes European wine variants alongside Mexican options such as mezcal, local vintages, and artisanal beers.^[6] In 2024, Quintonil held an Entomophagy Festival, where insects were the central ingredient in several dishes.^[11]

The restaurant has volcanic stone floors and walls made of wood and mirrors.^[9] Vallejo and Flores bought their plates at an outlet in Austin, Texas; the chairs were purchased from Pujol, and the tables were custom-made along Mexican Federal Highway 15.^[12] It seats 42 guests,^[3] requires reservations, and has no mandatory dress code.^[2][4] As of 2025, it employed 60 people.^[10]

History

After dropping out of high school, Jorge Vallejo studied gastronomy at the Centro Culinario Ambrosía.^[3] He trained at the restaurant Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark.^{[1]: 2:00–2:15} In 2009, while working at Pujol in Polanco, Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico City, he met restaurant manager Alejandra Flores.^[3] The couple began dating and left Pujol in 2011 to open their own restaurant with a "family concept", which they described as a place where they would "welcome customers and bid farewell to friends".^[3][13] Named after quintonil, a type of amaranth,^[14] the restaurant opened in Polanco on 9 March 2012 with a limited budget from a loan.^[3][15][16] Initially offering affordable menú del día meals, Quintonil gradually transformed into a fine dining establishment.^{[1]: 19:30–22:00}

For Quintonil's tenth anniversary in 2022, Vallejo and Flores invited international chefs, including Dominique Crenn and Julien Royer, to collaborate in reinventing Quintonil’s signature recipes and create new dishes.^[15][17]

Reception and recognition

Tiffany Yannetta of The Infatuation recommended the tasting menu, calling it "entertaining" and highlighted the Entomophagy Festival, suggesting diners try the restaurant's experimental dishes, such as bluefin tuna with frozen wasabi powder.^[5] Adrián Duchateau wrote in Afar that Quintonil incorporates local vegetable and herb varieties "as part of the progressive and sustainable eating program it so elegantly advocates".^[7] Scarlett Lindeman described it as part of the new wave of Mexican cuisine and it is a "place to impress that's not Pujol".^[6]

A writer for Bon Appétit encouraged the reader to try "delicious new things you might otherwise skip [...] like cactus, tamales, mole, and escamoles".^[18] Leslie Yeh of Lifestyle Asia praised both the restaurant's ingredients and ambiance.^[19] César Calderón expressed disappointment with several dishes in his review for Gourmond, describing the mango iced ceviche starter as overly cold and poorly paired with the tequila he ordered. He also found the salbute with nixtamalized huitlacoche in browned butter, agave syrup, and chile mixe powder underwhelming. Calderón concluded that Quintonil "offers a pleasant, interesting, and often very tasty experience—nothing more".^[20] In its list of the top 23 restaurants in Mexico City, Time Out ranked Quintonil ninth.^[21]

Awards

William Reed Ltd has ranked Quintonil on its World's 50 Best Restaurants lists multiple times: at number 3 (2025),^[22] 7 (2024),^[23] 9 (2022 and 2023),^[24][25] 11 (2018),^[26] 12 (2016),^[27] 22 (2017),^[28] 24 (2019),^[29] and 27 (2021).^[30] There was no list in 2020 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food industry.^[31] In the 2023 edition, the publication stated, "Quintonil is the setting for chef Jorge Vallejo's boundary-pushing Mexican cuisine and his wife Alejandra Flores' remarkable hospitality. Focused on fresh, local produce and traditional Mexican [flavors] and techniques weaved into modern preparations, it is fast becoming a classic".^[32]

When the Michelin Guide debuted in Mexico in 2024, it awarded 18 restaurants with Michelin stars.^[33][34] Quintonil and Pujol received two stars each, meaning "excellent cooking, worth a detour"—tying for the highest number of stars awarded in the country. The guide added: "[t]he elegant cuisine is an enticing melding of excellent local product, impressive execution, and great creativity to produce refined compositions".^[35]

Quintonil, along with six other Michelin-starred restaurants in Mexico City, was honored by Martí Batres, the head of the Mexico City government. He presented the chefs with an onyx statuette in appreciation of their role in promoting tourism in the capital city. The statuette, inspired by the pre-Hispanic sculpture The Young Woman of Amajac, pays tribute to the important contributions of Indigenous women to both national and international gastronomy.^[36]

Quintonil received the Best Wine and Spirits Program award from the México Gastronómico guide, published by Larousse Cocina in 2025.^[37]

Gallery

Example of a nine-course menu served in November 2013.

• 
  Lightly toasted Mexican herb salad with Cotija cheese and grilled tomatoes
• 
  Shrimp cocktail with coconut and guava
• 
  Oaxacan string cheese soup, fried pork belly, and plantain
• 
  Catch of the day with burned chipotle chili, pumpkin, and pineapple purée, with coriander
• 
  Braised brisket wagyu beef and pulque, corn and dried chili demi-glace
• 
  Chilacayote mole with charred tortilla and basil sprouts
• 
  Vanilla rice pudding, seasonal plums, orange and thyme sorbet
• 
  Flan
• 
  Guava ponche with cinnamon, bread with hibiscus sugar and crystallized orange, with a sugarcane
• 
  Coconut beverage

See also

• List of Mexican restaurants