El Pan de María

What El Pan de María is

El Pan de María is the bakery of María Ciento38, a Sicilian restaurant at Santa María la Ribera 138, a few steps from the Kiosko Morisco. The restaurant occupies a nineteenth-century casona reached through a corridor full of plants, and the bakery is a small storefront at the front of the house, so you can buy bread without going into the restaurant at all.

It is a genuine early bakery. The oven is lit at two in the morning so the bread is ready when the doors open at seven.

The group behind it, María La Italiana, also runs the restaurant itself and Ninna Pastificio, a pasta shop, and the seasonal breads are sold across all three.

Who is behind it

Two women, a generation apart, both from Palermo. Every recipe comes from the personal recipe book of Antonietta Di Pasquale, known to everyone as the Nonna, who moved from Sicily to Mexico City with her family in 1979. Her daughter, Cristina María Cialona, directs Grupo María La Italiana, the group that runs the restaurant, the pasta shop and this bakery. She is the María the places are named for, and she is often the person you meet at the counter.

That makes the seasonal product here an unusual object: a Mexican ritual bread, made for Day of the Dead, built from a Sicilian grandmother’s recipes and sold by her daughter. It is not fusion in the menu-writing sense, where two cuisines are pushed together for effect. It is what happens when a family cooks its own way in a country that has its own calendar of breads.

The 2026 pan de muerto

Three versions this season, and what unites them is the filling: an artisanal cream made with the house limoncello, the Nonna’s own.

• Original. Built on masa madre, a sourdough starter, and scented with fresh citrus peel. The starter is the quiet difference here, since most pan de muerto is a straight enriched dough with no fermentation behind it.
• Ceniza de totomoxtle. The dark one. Totomoxtle is the dried corn husk that wraps a tamal, and burning it to ash is an old Mexican technique rather than a modern colouring. It is what gives this loaf its colour and its slightly ancestral edge.
• Beetroot, filled with guava. The pink one, coloured by beetroot, with guava inside.

The lineup moves year to year. In 2025 the pink version was a Tuna Rosa, naturally pink with a floral note from dried rose petals, and earlier seasons have carried ricotta and chocolate fillings. If you are planning a box around a specific flavour, check what is actually running before you order.

What I ate

The dark totomoxtle one and the beetroot are the two that make the box look like nothing else in the city, and the limoncello cream inside is the surprise: citrus and alcohol-warm rather than the plain sweetened nata that fills most of the city’s versions. The right shot is the bread torn open rather than the bread sitting whole.

Where to find it in the season

They start early. Social posts had pan de muerto on sale here in August, well ahead of the usual run-up, and the bakery was among the thirteen exhibitors at the sixth Festival de Pan de Muerto at Museo Kaluz in the Centro Histórico on 3 and 4 October 2026.

Seasonal lines at a bakery this size do not restock forever, so the back half of October is a safer bet than the first days of November.

What it costs

El Pan de María does not publish a fixed price list, and the seasonal breads are not reliably listed on the delivery apps either, so the only honest answer is to ask when you message them.

For context on the market this year, a supermarket pan de muerto starts around 20 to 30 MXN a piece and a filled one from a named bakery runs well above that. A sourdough-based bread with a limoncello cream from a restaurant bakery sits at the upper end of that spread.

How to book

There is nothing to reserve, but ordering is more work than it should be, and it is worth knowing why. The delivery apps carry a bakery’s everyday counter. The pan de muerto is a seasonal line that runs for a few weeks, so most bakeries never put it on the apps at all. Looking for it there and concluding they do not make it is the standard mistake.

• Message them. WhatsApp, or a DM on TikTok or Instagram, is how you actually order the seasonal bread, confirm what is running and ask the price.
• In person at Santa María la Ribera 138, from 07:00. Earliest is best at a bakery that bakes overnight.
• Across the group. If the bakery has sold out, the same breads are sold at María Ciento38 and Ninna Pastificio.
• TikTok @elpandemaria is the verified account. I could not verify an Instagram handle, so check in the app rather than guessing.
• Ask what is in today. The lineup moves and so does what has sold out by mid-morning.

Getting there

• Address: Santa María la Ribera 138, colonia Santa María la Ribera, Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City.
• Landmark: a few steps from the Kiosko Morisco, the Moorish pavilion in the Alameda de Santa María, which is the reason to make a morning of it.
• Finding the door: the restaurant is in a casona and the entrance is a corridor filled with plants. The bakery is the small storefront at the front.
• Metro: San Cosme on Line 2 and Buenavista are both walkable.

Before you go

• Go early. The oven starts at 02:00 and the doors open at 07:00. At least one reviewer got a piece that tasted a day old, so the hour matters here more than at most bakeries.
• The lineup changes every year. The pink one was a rose-petal tuna in 2025 and beetroot with guava in 2026.
• Tear it open rather than slicing it. The limoncello cream is the point and it shows better torn.
• Make it a walk. The Kiosko Morisco is a few steps away and the colonia is one of the most pleasant in the city on a weekend morning.
• Reviews are split, so set expectations accordingly and buy fresh.
• Ask the price when you message. It is not published anywhere, and the seasonal bread is usually not on the apps.
• Check the hours before you go. The hours on this page come from the venue’s public listings, which drift, so confirm before a special trip.

Watch the visit

The reel above is episode four of my 2026 pan de muerto guide: the black totomoxtle loaf, the beetroot one and the limoncello cream inside. For the other episodes, see Croque Voyage in Coyoacán and Pan Ajeno in Santa Fe, and for the rest of the city open my map or the Mexico City recommendations.