Café Allende

At Mexico City’s Cafes Chinos, Chilaquiles and Chop Suey at 2 a.m. - Eater

"“Oh, that one’s really delicious,” Jesus Chew tells me as his daughter, Maria Guadelupe Chew, sets down a plate holding a crusty popover filled with pastry cream next to my cafe lechero. “Almost no one makes those anymore.” I’m sitting at the Chew family-owned Café Allende, in Mexico City’s bustling Lagunilla neighborhood. Maria Guadelupe is also the cafe’s accountant and on the weekends, she brings her father from his house in the far northwest corner of the city to spend time in the cafe. The elder Chew, a local celebrity, greets patrons as they amble past the ancient cash register and sidle up to the Formica tables." - Lydia Carey