Inside The New York Times’ 41 Greatest Mexican Restaurants in America

<p>Bill Esparza spent more than a year helping The New York Times build its list of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/13/dining/best-mexican-restaurants-united-states.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">41 greatest Mexican restaurants in America</a>. This week, Rob flips the script and interviews Bill about how the list came together, why so many “best Mexican restaurant” lists get the country wrong, and what he found crisscrossing America in search of regional Mexican cooking, from al pastor in Charlotte and gorditas in Chicago to an unexpected Aguascalientes community in Oklahoma City. Plus, Bill breaks down why Mariscos Jalisco, Valle, Mercado La Paloma and other California standouts made the cut, what makes a restaurant “great” rather than simply famous, and why some of the most exciting Mexican food in America is happening far outside the cities people usually look.</p><p>Produced (and co-hosted!) by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/robert_haleblian/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">Robert Haleblian</a>. </p>