Bakery cafés in Mexico City

Conchas, orejas and the garibaldi

The concha (shell), a soft bun under a sugar crust scored like a shell, is said to descend from brioche dough, in a variation made by French bakers who arrived in the 17th century. Puff pastry came with the Spanish. The oreja (ear), made from it, got its sugar and butter from French bakeries during the Porfiriato, the long rule of Porfirio Díaz, when French influence reworked many Mexican recipes.³

The garibaldi was created at Pastelería El Globo in 1884.³ El Globo was founded that year by the Italian Tenconi family and Giovanni Laposse as a French-style pastry shop at the corner of Madero and Isabel la Católica. It closed in 1918 during the Revolution, reopened in 1923 behind the Palacio de Bellas Artes, and has belonged to Grupo Bimbo since 2005.²

La Ideal and the old shops of the Centro

Pastelería La Ideal opened in 1927, founded by Adolfo Fernández, and moved that same year to 16 de Septiembre, where its main shop still stands.²⁴ It bakes more than 350 varieties, between 25,000 and 30,000 pieces a day, and has four branches besides the main shop, one on República de Uruguay and three in the State of Mexico.⁴

Upstairs, its Museo del Pastel shows cake designs for birthdays, weddings and baptisms, each with a card naming the pastry cook who made it.⁴ Chilango, writing in 2022, singled out La Ideal's rosca de choux and its canoas de dona.²

What pan dulce costs in 2026

In August 2026, INEGI's national urban food basket priced pan dulce at MX$94.07 a kilo, against MX$54.52 for pan blanco (bolillos and teleras), and pan dulce was 5.25% dearer than a year earlier. Sweet bread takes 58.2% of what Mexican households spend on bread, according to INEGI's 2025 household spending survey.⁵

Café bakeries price by the piece, and higher. In April 2023 a vanilla or chocolate concha at Panadería Rosetta cost MX$35, a rol de guayaba (guava roll) MX$30 and a rol de almendras MX$50, with breads overall from MX$15 to MX$110.⁶

Where the bakery cafés are

Roma's are on and around Calle Colima. Rosetta, at 179 Colima, is the bakery of the chef Elena Reygadas, whose restaurant of the same name opened on the street in February 2010. She was named the World's Best Female Chef in 2023, the restaurant won a Michelin star in 2024, and the guava roll has a flaky, buttery crust close to a croissant's.⁷ The bakery opens at 07:00 Monday to Saturday.

Abarrotes Delirio at 114 Colima, B41 Boulangerie at 41 Orizaba and Patisserie Dominique at 157 Chiapas are a short walk away. In Polanco, Baia Café at 199 Avenida Campos Elíseos and Debbie & Peponne at 189 on the same avenue are almost neighbors, and Chai at 38 Galileo opens daily 08:00–20:00.

In Del Valle, La Trigueña - Pan para todos at 570 Nicolás San Juan opens at 08:00 every day, and Café Moreno at 81 Ajusco serves until 22:00. Cocoa Coyoacán II is at 291 Venustiano Carranza in Coyoacán.