Wok'ando Cocina Casual

What Wok’ando is

Wok’ando Cocina Casual is a small Asian fusion restaurant at Versalles 15, local 4, in Colonia Juárez, Mexico City, a few streets south of Paseo de la Reforma. It cooks from Japanese, Thai and Chinese traditions with Mexican ingredients and a Mexican palate, on a menu designed to be shared rather than ordered as separate main courses.

The room is the other half of the appeal. The architect Sergio Arredondo designed the space and made the artwork on the walls himself, and the shelves are filled with artisanal ceramics and serving vessels collected across Mexico and from Japanese, Chinese and Indian makers. Warm light, wood furniture, plants and flowers, and about the size of a neighbourhood café.

It is not expensive. Most dishes sit under 300 pesos and published averages put a full meal at 350 to 600 pesos a head, which in Colonia Juárez is the cheap end of a sit-down lunch. It also opens at 09:00, so it works as a breakfast room as well as a dinner one.

Who cooks here

Wok’ando is chef Alejandro Candó’s restaurant. He worked more than thirty years in the industry, including stints as executive chef and corporate chef inside large restaurant groups, and has said he opened his own place in order to cook without so many rules. The menu reflects that: it does not try to be an authentic single-country kitchen, and it does not hide the Mexican ingredients inside Asian dishes.

The restaurant grew out of a delivery-only kitchen the chef ran during the pandemic, which is what I was told on the visit. Published coverage picks the story up at the dining room, which was quietly serving for roughly six months before a formal launch in May 2023, a deliberate decision to let the place find its regulars before being promoted.

How the menu works

You order à la carte from a short menu split into starters, specialities by region, noodles and desserts, and the portions are generous enough that two people can share three dishes.

• Ramen: the anchor of the menu, in several versions, including a vegetarian one. The special is built with marinated chicken, pork, bacon, mushrooms, nori and a cured egg.
• Small plates: gyozas with a Mexican accent, tuna wontons filled with fresh tuna, avocado, leek and onion.
• Tacos: duck magret, lacquered and served in oriental-style tortillas with hoisin, cucumber and carrot, four to an order.
• Noodles and salads: pad Thai with a peanut and tamarind sauce, cucumber, jicama and carrot, and a green papaya salad.
• Desserts and drinks: tapioca, horchata, vanilla and chocolate desserts, house infusions, cocktails, and aguas frescas served in large jars.

What I ate in July

The strongest impressions were the value and the room: warm light, wooden furniture, ceramics and flowers in a very small space, with most of the menu under 300 pesos. I ate from the ramen list, which runs wide enough to cover most tastes including the vegetarian version, and the green papaya salad, made with actual green papaya and not shredded carrot standing in for it. Portions of the tacos were solid rather than dainty, and the aguas frescas arrive in jars big enough to share.

What it costs

Prices are in Mexican pesos, observed in July 2026, and they move.

Item	Price
Most individual dishes	under 300 MXN, about 16 USD
Average spend per person, published	350 to 600 MXN, about 19 to 32 USD
A shared meal for two, three dishes plus drinks	roughly 700 to 1,000 MXN, about 37 to 53 USD

The reason to note this is the neighbourhood. Colonia Juárez has moved upmarket quickly, and a sit-down Asian lunch under 15 USD a head with table service is now unusual there. If you want to keep the bill down, order two shared plates and one ramen rather than a dish each.

How to book

Reservations are useful but not essential.

• OpenTable: search for Wok’ando, Ciudad de México.
• The restaurant’s own site, wokando.com.mx, carries a booking widget.
• Phone: +52 55 6090 6263.
• Email: wokandojuarez@gmail.com.
• Instagram: @wok.ando_juarez.

Weekday lunch is a reliable walk-in. Book for a group of four or more, and for Friday or Saturday dinner, since the dining room is genuinely small.

Getting there

• Address: Calle Versalles 15, local 4, Colonia Juárez, Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City 06600.
• Neighbourhood: central Juárez, between Paseo de la Reforma and Avenida Chapultepec, on the Zona Rosa side.
• Metro: Cuauhtémoc on Line 1 is a five to ten minute walk. Insurgentes on Line 1 is about ten minutes.
• Metrobús: the Paseo de la Reforma and Avenida Insurgentes corridors are both within walking distance.
• On foot: about ten minutes from the Ángel de la Independencia.
• Parking: street parking only and it is metered. Take the Metro or a taxi.

Before you go

• Look for the local number. It is Versalles 15, local 4, inside a building rather than a standalone restaurant front.
• It opens at 09:00. Breakfast and early lunch are the quietest and easiest times to get a table.
• Order to share. Portions are large and the menu is built for the middle of the table.
• Ask about the broths if you are vegetarian. There is a vegetarian ramen, but the standard bases are not.
• Get the papaya salad if you want the dish that separates this kitchen from the generic Asian fusion menu.
• Pair it with the neighbourhood. Wanwan Sakaba is the Japanese tavern a few streets away, and Niddo is the Juárez breakfast institution if Wok’ando is full in the morning.
• 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 the room and the plates at Wok’ando. For the rest of the city, open my map or browse the Mexico City recommendations.