Best Restaurants in Guadalajara: Where to Eat & Drink

There are so many great restaurants in Guadalajara worth checking out.

I have been back to the city several times now and each time I find another amazing place to eat. The food in this city is just incredible and the restaurant scene just gets better and better.

So this post is a huge compilation of all of the traditional foods to try in Jalisco, the best cafes, bars, restaurants, and cantinas to check out on your trip.

One of my greatest joys in life is good food, so I promise I left out all of the average eats and have only given you the very best restaurants in Guadalajara to try.

The Best Foods in Guadalajara (and where to have them)

Birria

The absolute best meal I had on my trip to Guadalajara was a plate full of birria tacos. Birria is traditionally made with goat, it’s slow-cooked to utter mouth-watering perfection, and served with onions, cilantro, spicy salsa and tortillas.

The best birria in Guadalajara (in my humble opinion) is at Birrieria Las 9 Esquinas.

Las 9 Esquinas is a little square in the centro area of Guadalajara where you’ll be surrounded by several different birria restaurants.

I’ve been told all are delicious, but I personally tried The food from this particular restaurant – it stands out in the square as the main one and the food was absolutely outstanding.

This is the birria place you want to look for when you get to the square.

In addition to a plate of birria, we also had the consomme of lamb and an order of birria tacos.

I highly recommend getting the tacos – the meat was absolutely perfect and then have some consomme to dip your tortillas into. Life doesn’t get better than this. You can pay with both cash and card here and they serve ice-cold bottled beer.

Carne en su jugo

Carne en su jugo, or meat in its juices, is a beautiful idea and is executed better in some places than others.

One of the most famous places for carne en su jugo in Guadalajara is Karne Garibaldi.

I guess there are a few locations around the city, but the one we went to (and our Airbnb host said this was the best one) was the location in Santa Tere.

It’s a huge restaurant, but it specializes in this particular dish. Karne Garibaldi is best known for being the fastest serving restaurant in the world. They bring you your plate of food literally at a sprint from the kitchen and it’s on your table in less than something like 10 seconds from the time you ordered it.

When we visited (on a Saturday night around 9pm), the service was great, but the thing I loved most wasn’t actually the carne en su jugo.

They always bring a plate of tortillas chips and a hot refried bean dip to the table when you sit down and it is absolutely delicious. They are without a doubt the most delicious refried beans I’ve ever had.

Locals love it so much they buy bags of it to take home with them. Luke and I shared a large platter of the carne en su jugo here and combined with the never-ending plate of chips (they give you free refills every time your plate looks a little bit low), it was more than enough food for us, and we’re hungry people.

However, while Karne Garibaldi is the most famous, it wasn’t where I had the best carne en su jugo. That was actually at a little spot in the town of Tequila!

It doesn’t loook very delicious, but it tastes SO good. As does this bean dip.

Tortas Ahogadas

Another must-try dish that is as Guadalajara classic is the Torta Ahogada. You’ll see signs for this famous sandwich all over the city. I wish I had tried more than one so that I could make a better comparison for you.

The basics of the sandwich are a fresh bread roll usually filled with carnitas (tender pork meat from all parts of the animal).

Then its also filled with onion and sometimes other vegetables. Then it’s completely doused in a spicy red salsa. If you are getting it from a street vendor like we did, they put it in a plastic bag and then ladel in a bunch of sauce.

Eating it is messy and slightly tricky to get the hang of at first.

If you’re having it at a sit-down spot, they’ll put the sandwich on a plate and then ladle the sauce over the top. Whenever I saw people eating it this way, they used a fork and a knife.

I googled in Spanish where most people recommend for the best tortas ahogadas, and the two places that consistently came up on every list were Jose el de la Bicicleta and Tortas Toño.

I tried both and I can honestly say that the tortas at Tortas Toño are significantly better (in my humble opinion).

The thing that I just couldn’t get on board with at Jose el de la Bicicleta is that everything is cold – the bread, the pork, and the salsa that they fill the bag with are all cold. I feel like it just lacks the heat of at least one of the elements.

At Tortas Toño, it’s sort of like a cafeteria-style assembly line. They ask you what size bread roll you want, what meat you want (the pierna is my personal favorite), and then you take it over to the sauce counter and choose which level of spice you want.

The bread and meat are room temperature, but the sauces are hot. The mild salsa was my favorite because it was so flavorful and it wasn’t really that mild at all (and I like spice!)

They were actually being made off the back of this bicycle – hence the name

Very filling and very reasonably priced.

Pozole

The last dish that kept coming up as one of the must-try dishes that come from Guadalajara (or the state of Jalisco) is a bowl of white pozole.

The number one place that was recommended to me again and again was La Chata.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to try it here as it was a little bit further away from my Airbnb than the closer La Gorda.

I wouldn’t recommend La Gorda unless you’re looking for a late-night spot after a few drinks on Avenida Chapultepec. It was cheap and cheerful, but I thought the pozole here was not that flavorful.

It did, however, come packed full with corn and fantastic pork meat both of which I really enjoyed.

Best Restaurants in Guadalajara

There are so many great restaurants in Guadalajara worth checking out. Besides the spots that I mentioned above, these are some of the ones that were most often recommended to me.

Santo Coyote

Calle Miguel Lerdo de Tejada 2379

I thought that this was just a breakfast place, and for that it should be visited, but it also has a really delicious-looking menu for lunch and dinner. Santo Coyote is in the hipster Americana neighborhood, where you’ll find a ton of cafes and restaurants.

Birrieria El Chololo

Calle San Antonio 288

I learned about this place on a recent season of Taco Chronicles. I knew I was going to be going back to Guadalajara soon and the birría there looked and sounded absolutely incredible.

It did not disappoint.

You order based on how many people are eating, so we got an order for two.

It comes with as much consomé as you can eat, which it turns out is at least three bowls full (this stuff is GOOD!).

After about 10 minutes of slurping the consomé with freshly made tortillas, they brought out the main event, the plate of birría meat. It was so tender, so juicy, so buttery. My mouth is watering just thinking about it again. It’s one of the best meals I had in Guadalajara.

Magno Brasserie

Calle José Guadalupe Zuno Hernández 2061

This restaurant consistently tops lists for best restaurant in Guadalajara.

It should be high on your priority list to make a dinner reservation here. On weekends, it can be booked out for weeks in advance. It’s a combination of local and regional dishes that have been jazzed up into something much more gastronomic.

mexico city street food tacos should always have a nice consomme or soup on the side

Pozole is a must-have while you’re in Guadalajara!

Romea

Calle Emerson 5

I think of all of the “fancier” restaurants in Guadalajara (I put it in quotes because the prices of these restaurants are SO crazy reasonable compared to not just the US, but even Mexico City).

Any restaurant with a charcuterie menu is a place that I want to spend a lot of time. They also have a killer wine list with plenty of Mexican-made options to enjoy alongside your delicious meats.

Los Milagros de Dalila

Carratera Guadalajara – Chapala km 25

This isn’t technically in Guadalajara, but it’s somewhere you should definitely add to your list for your next trip to this region of Mexico.

It’s about 20 minutes from Guadalajara on the way to Chapala. It’s literally just off of the highway and if you make this trip at any point you absolutely have to stop here for their burritos.

These aren’t the burritos you are familiar with in the US (I love me some Chipotle, but this is not at all like that).

Head inside and over to the counter to choose from their huge selection of guisados, or stews. The ones that are most famous here are the machaca and the other shredded beef dishes.

Xokol Tortilleria, Molino & Antojeria

Calle Ignacio Herrera y Cairo 1392

The tradition of using local corn, soaking it in limestone, and hand grinding it goes back to Maya and Aztec times and it’s a tradition that is dying out in many parts of Mexico. But Xokol are doing their best to keep this tradition and flavor alive.

They use tons of different varieties of corn that are native to Mexico in making their dough which they then use for all types of tortillas, tamales, and tostadas.

The food here is traditional Mexican with a modern twist. You’ll find different types of moles, tacos, and slow-cooked meats but in a slightly elevated way that you won’t find at the street stalls.

Best Cafes in Guadalajara

I absolutely love the cafe culture that is alive and thriving in Guadalajara, especially in the Americana neighborhood.

They all serve up delicious coffee, amazing Mexican breakfast options (you can never go wrong with chilaquiles) as well as more international options like crepes, waffles, and different styles of eggs.

Piggy Back

Calle Justo Sierra 1821

This colorful cafe is one of the better breakfast options in the centro area. I really loved their coffee and even once found myself heading there for an early afternoon pick-me-up.

Fitzroy Espresso

Calle Marsella 126

In the Lafayette neighborhood, this is definitely one of the more upscale cafes in Guadalajara. As the name suggests, this is a really great place for a coffee. They also have bakery items and a few small food options.

Cafe Pa’l Real

Calle Lope de Vega 113

This cafe is constantly being praised as the best in the city. Coffee lovers have to make a pilgrimage here and enjoy some of their breakfast or pastry options, but seriously, the coffee.

There’s almost always a line. They also do meals throughout the day, so come for an early lunch to avoid the crowds or simply grab a coffee to go.

La Cafeteria

Libertad 1700

This cafe was right in the neighborhood of my Airbnb in Americana and every single day there was a line out the door.

The food is outstanding and the prices are literally unbeatable for the quality and quantity of your meal. I loved their coffee, but the chilaquiles would bring me back here every weekend if I lived in Guadalajara.