Benito Juárez and 20 de Noviembre markets
Moles, toasted grasshoppers, and the smoke-filled grill corridor where you pick your own meat.
Duration
1 hr – 2 hrs
Best time
Between noon and 3pm
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
The two markets adjoin, a block from the Zócalo, and they complement each other. Benito Juárez holds the dry goods: Oaxaca's seven moles as paste, drinking chocolate ground to order, quesillo cheese in skeins, chapulines — grasshoppers toasted with lime and chilli.
The 20 de Noviembre holds the pasillo de humo, the smoke corridor: an aisle of grills where you buy meat by weight at a stall, have it grilled on the spot, and carry it to a shared table with tortillas and spring onions.
Getting there
One block south-west of the Zócalo, between Las Casas and Aldama streets. All on foot.
Rules on site
In the smoke corridor, meat is bought by weight at one stall and the table, tortillas and sides are paid for separately at others: bring cash in small notes. The aisle is crowded and smoky, hard going if you are asthmatic.
Other places in Oaxaca
Monte AlbánA Zapotec capital levelled off the top of a mountain, looking down three valleys.
Zócalo and Santo DomingoThe arcaded square, and Mexico's most gilded baroque church two streets away.Hierve el AguaPetrified waterfalls and natural pools at the edge of a cliff.
MitlaGeometric stone mosaics cut without mortar, unique in Mesoamerica.