America's 50 Best Mexican Restaurants

May 21, 2014— -- From a high-end restaurant in Chicago specializing in ribeye carne asada to a modest taqueria in Mountain View, Calif. serving some of the finest carnitas you’ll ever encounter, America has no shortage of great Mexican restaurants. Running the gamut from super-upscale to inexpensive and no-frills, we’ve rounded up the 50 best in America.

America's 50 Best Mexican Restaurants (Slideshow)

It wasn’t so long ago when “Mexican” food was best represented stateside by a heaping platter of rice and refried beans along with gloopy enchiladas covered in melted cheese, with maybe a couple hard-shell tacos on the side. But we’ve come a long way since then: today most people realize that the standard menu of burritos, chimichangas, quesadillas, and the like are in fact more Tex-Mex than authentic Mexican, and that once you head south of the border there’s a whole world of flavorful (and non-cheesy) possibilities to explore.

Thankfully, the cuisine of just about every region of Mexico is now well-represented in the American culinary landscape. Chef José Andrés’s consistently packed Oyamel, for example, is proof that our appreciation of the varied regional cuisines of Mexico has come a long way. Oaxaca-inspired dishes like chicken in rich mole sauce and quesadillas filled with huitlacoche, once hard to find in the U.S., are increasingly considered mainstream. And while authenticity is prized, some of the country’s most highly regarded chefs, like former pastry chef Alex Stupak and Oklahoma-born Rick Bayless, have also turned their attention and creativity to Mexican, which has become somewhat of a cuisine  célèbre. 

In order to assemble our ranking of America’s 50 best Mexican restaurants, we analyzed results from surveys we sent out to some of America’s leading culinary authorities, writers, and critics, used to assemble our rankings of America’s 50 Best Casual Restaurants and the 101 Best Restaurants in America. We supplemented those with best-of lists both in print and online, and rounded it out with our personal favorites from around the country. We also made sure to include restaurants that specialize in authentic Mexican fare; while some Tex-Mex classics on the menu are acceptable if done really well, the main focus needs to be on true Mexican cuisine.

So come with us on a journey through Mexico’s culinary heritage, by way of Mexican restaurants in locations as unexpected as Tigard, Oregon and Memphis, Tennessee. A warning, however: by the time you get to #1, you’ll be starving.