Casa Mercedes

The first bite of my entrée brought tears to my eyes.

We recently visited a new restaurant for us in Guanajuato, Casa Mercedes, for our wedding anniversary.  The restaurant has a reputation as one of the best, if not the best, restaurant in Guanajuato City.  It is the best restaurant that we have eaten at here.

Handy for us, the restaurant is in our neighborhood. 

It is within walking distance of centro also, but many people take cabs there to avoid the steep walk and/or because it might be hard to find if you are not familiar with the area.

We made a reservation although we were eating early by Mexican standards, so as I suspected it probably wasn’t necessary.  There was one other couple there before our 6:30 pm reservation, and another group arrived while we were there.

We were offered our choice of available tables, and we chose one with a view towards centro.

 We also realized partway through the meal that we could see the house we are renting from the restaurant.

There is an extensive but not overwhelming wine list with many selections from Mexico and other locations.  We selected a blend from Casa Madera, the oldest winery in the Americas and a place that we have been, on our road trip from Minnesota/Wisconsin (where our families live) to Mazatlán when we first moved to Mexico in 2018.

For our first course, we each had a large salad with seasonal greens and berries.  Kevin’s came with balls of goat cheese on the side.

For our entrees I had the daily sustainable fish of the day, a white fish (do not recall the name) on a bed of puréed potatoes with roasted carrots in a white wine reduction sauce.  It sounds simple but was outstanding and reminded me what fine dining was like; it is something we rarely do although I used to do it regularly.  It is how I used to entertain myself when traveling for work, and Kevin and I enjoyed eating out approximately once per week when we lived in Carson City.

Kevin’s entrée was a braised pork shank in a stew with hand made tortillas.  It was also outstanding.

For dessert we had a poached pear with ant honey crumble (!) – sounds odd but it can be best described as a very crystalized and sweet honey. 

We enjoyed a little añejo tequila with our dessert as the final treat of the evening.

Casa Mercedes is a special occasion restaurant that I hope to return to in the future.  The menu changes seasonally, so I look forward to seeing what is available during my next visit.