Victoria E.
Yelp
You don't come to San Angel Inn for the food, which, as I understand by the reviews from others, and from what I could read on the menu, is your typical continental European or Americana food, which is not something you should get in Mexico. It is, however, drop dead gorgeous. This used to be an Inn before it was turned into a restaurant. It felt very colonial European, and you really feel like you got dropped into a period movie, and it could be the colonial Africa, colonial India, colonial Macau (East Asia), colonial America, or colonial Mexico. I don't know if there is a way to tell these places apart, suffice to say it invoked yesteryear.
San Angel is where the old money is. My tour guide thought it would be good to take me here because Diego Rivera used to live right across from San Angel Inn, and this old colonial style neighborhood is a little sleepy and not touristy, but it's very regal in the old Mexico City way. I spoke to some of my friends who's been to Mexico, and they had not been, so I figure this is a neighborhood worth checking out because it's not as discovered as the rest of the hoods. I'd be right.
Air France and Lufthansa flight crew come here often. And they love coming to San Angel Inn for a drink. The court yard has been set to serve food and drinks. And I found a nice comfortable chair to sink in for my last Margarita. Did not want my driver to wait, so I invited him along for a drink. He had given me a lot of inside track on things, so a drink would have been the least I could do (besides paying the fees for his time spent.)
We sat at the court yard and watched people coming and going, many are French, a few English. No Americans. I had a photo taken by my driver sitting on that big oversized lounge chair, margi on hand. It was one of my favorite photos on this trip. I was most satisfied at that moment.