La Bonvi

What La Bonvi is

La Bonvi is an upscale taquería in Mexico City from chef César de la Parra. The Polanco branch, which opened on 10 November at Anatole France 139, is the second location; the first is at Pedregal 33 in the Lomas de Chapultepec and Lomas de Virreyes area. It shares its Polanco address with Aúna, the Michelin Guide listed restaurant owned by Jorge Vallejo of Quintonil.

It is not a street taquería. The Polanco room is a proper restaurant with a garden, wooden furniture, art and mirrors on the walls and an open kitchen where the tortillas are pressed in front of you. In the evening it fills with a dressed-up Polanco crowd and the music is loud enough that reviews complain about it.

What holds it together is a short menu. There are a handful of tacos, a few tostadas, some sides, and very little else, which is what allows every component to be made properly.

Who cooks here

César de la Parra’s story is the reason this place gets attention. He began washing dishes, worked through kitchens in Mexico City, then went to Spain to train with Martín Berasategui, Andoni Luis Aduriz and Juan Mari Arzak. He now directs Grupo Carolo, which started as a small bakery in 2007 and grew into a group of more than sixty restaurants, with brands including Blanco Colima, Blanco Castelar and La Popular operating in Mexico and the United States. Dishwasher to sixty restaurants to a Michelin star for tacos is the short version, and it is why a new opening from him draws a line from the first week.

In 2024 he opened La Once Mil, a taquería built on hand-nixtamalised tortillas, premium cuts and grill precision. His line about it, tacos en serio, no en serie, tacos taken seriously rather than made on a production line, is the thesis behind La Bonvi as well.

Awards and press

• La Once Mil, the chef’s other taquería, took One Michelin Star in the 2026 Michelin Guide Mexico, announced in Guadalajara in May 2026, and is the only taquería in the world holding a star. La Bonvi itself has no Michelin distinction.
• La Once Mil opened its first European location in Madrid in the summer of 2026.
• La Bonvi has been reviewed by The Infatuation Mexico City, which calls the Polanco branch the master of picaña tacos and Polanco’s unofficial runway show.
• Aúna, the restaurant at the same address, is listed in the Michelin Guide Mexico as a recommended restaurant.

How the menu works

You order at the table from a short card. There is no tasting menu and no reservations, so the sequence is: queue, beer, table, tacos.

• Tacos: trompo de picaña, the signature, a thick grilled piece of beef rump; ribeye; shrimp with pineapple; fish; cochinita.
• Cachetada: cachetada de picaña, thin sliced beef with melted cheese and crisp edges, the dish most reviews single out.
• Tostadas: spicy tuna, and avocado.
• Sides: pickled cucumbers, salsas made in house.
• Tortillas: pressed to order in the open kitchen.
• Sweet: a housemade mango sorbetto appears on the card.
• Drinks: a beer on arrival while you wait, then a normal bar list.

What I ate

The order I would repeat at La Bonvi:

• Trompo de picaña, a large juicy piece of beef on a tortilla made a metre away.
• Shrimp taco with pineapple.
• Spicy tuna tostada and avocado tostada.
• Pickled cucumbers alongside, which cut through everything else.

I went in sceptical about paying Polanco prices for tacos, and these were the best tacos I had eaten in a long time. The menu is deliberately small, so this is close to the whole card.

What it costs

Item	Price
Average spend per person	200 to 500 MXN, about 11 to 27 USD
Welcome beer while you queue	Complimentary
Other drinks	Charged separately
Service	Not included, 10 to 15 per cent is standard

Listings put the per person average in that 200 to 500 peso band, and The Infatuation marks the Polanco branch at the top of its price scale, so treat the upper end as realistic once drinks are on the table. These are premium cuts and hand-made tortillas priced accordingly, not street tacos.

How to book

You cannot. La Bonvi takes no reservations at either location. The system is:

• Turn up and give your name at the door.
• Take the beer they hand you and wait outside.
• Expect thirty minutes or more. Thursday to Saturday evenings run longer, and my own wait was over thirty minutes.
• To avoid it, arrive at 12:00 when it opens, or in the mid afternoon between the lunch and dinner peaks.

Getting there

• Address: Anatole France 139, Polanco III Sección, Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico City, in the same building as Aúna.
• Other branch: Pedregal 33, Lomas de Virreyes.
• Metro: Polanco or Auditorio on Line 7, both a walk of ten minutes or so.
• Landmark: a few blocks from Avenida Presidente Masaryk, in the heart of the Polanco restaurant grid.
• Parking: valet is the norm in Polanco. Street parking in the evening is not realistic.

Before you go

• Do not plan around a booking. There isn’t one. Build the wait into your evening.
• Go early if you want to hear your table. The room gets loud after 20:00.
• Order the pickled cucumbers. They are the cheapest thing on the table and they balance the fat in the beef.
• Keep the star straight. The Michelin star is La Once Mil’s, not La Bonvi’s. If you specifically want to eat at the starred taquería, book that one instead.
• Pair it with the same building. Aúna, also at Anatole France 139, is the Michelin Guide listed sit-down option if you want a table you can reserve.
• Check the hours before you go. The hours on this page come from the venue’s public listings, which drift, so confirm on Google Maps or the venue’s own channels before a special trip.

Watch the visit

The reel above is the short version of this meal, taco by taco. For everything else I have filmed in the city, open my map or browse the rest of the Mexico City recommendations.