A 1915 Roma Norte mansion given new life.
El Cortés stands on Calle Colima, behind the ornate façade of a former private home that once served as a presidential residence. Inside, the scale is deliberately domestic: 15 rooms and suites, low-lit salons, old portraits and terraces screened by pink bougainvillaea.
Owner Carlos Zaragoza spent three years tracing photographs through local archives and working with craftspeople to restore the home’s original features. The result is neither a period reconstruction nor a showcase for contemporary design. Antique furniture, tapestries and worn gilded frames sit alongside Mexican craft and modern art. Much of the character is found in the smaller things. A silken tassel, a talavera tissue box, a tiny artwork from 1828 hanging in the first-floor lounge. Yet, none of this is hard to find.
What we love about El Cortés
- The history of the 1915 Art Nouveau mansion, once used as a presidential residence
- The mere-15 individually designed rooms and suites
- Carlos Zaragoza’s three-year restoration, informed by archival photographs and traditional craft
- Original beams, intricate plasterwork, antique furniture and contemporary Mexican pieces under one roof
- The restored stained-glass panels in the two Patio Suites, reworked by craftsman Ramón Sierra
- Dinner at Lotti by Swiss chef Luc Liebster, meshing European classics with Mexican ingredients
Start in the house, then follow Calle Colima.
Spend generous time exploring El Cortés and its salons, where family portraits and tapestries share space with Zaragoza’s personal art collection. Balcony and terrace rooms afford views over the trees and bougainvillaea, perfect for whiling away mornings, lost in a good book.
On your doorstep, Calle Colima offers an immediate route into Roma Norte. The Museo del Objeto (MODO) is on the same street, with exhibitions drawn from its vast collection of everyday Mexican packaging and design. Nearby roads lead past independent galleries, bookshops, ateliers and early 20th-century houses, while Parque México and Parque España provide green space farther west. Roma is best explored without too rigid a plan; much of its appeal lies behind shopfronts, in small gallery courtyards, and at tables that spill onto the pavement.
Lotti occupies the El Cortés’s ground floor and opens onto a small street-side patio. Named after chef Luc Liebster’s grandmother, the restaurant takes familiar European dishes in a more personal direction, using Mexican produce and flavours rather than treating the two traditions as separate. Roma Norte also has one of the city’s strongest concentrations of great restaurants. Booking ahead is worthwhile.
When to Travel
Year round
You can visit Mexico City year-round. November to April is generally drier, with clear days and cooler mornings and evenings. March to May tends to bring the warmest weather, while the rainy season runs from May to October. Showers during these months often arrive later in the day, leaving mornings free for exploring, and the city’s parks are especially green.
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