Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on how you’re looking at the situation – not all lunches can last for 8 hours and include aperitifs, wine, and cocktails. Maybe you’ve got somewhere to be; maybe you’d rather take a walk than sit in a restaurant; maybe you just don’t feel like it. For those days, there are tortas. In the United States, we’d just call a torta a sandwich, but in México a torta and a sandwich are two different things: a torta is made on a roll, and stuffed with all sorts of ingredients – meat, cheese, avocado, tomato, etc. – while a sandwich is two slices of sandwich bread with a couple of slices of meat and cheese in between – nothing exciting. So, if what you’re looking for is a meal and not a light snack, you’ll want to opt for the torta.

Tortas can be found all over the city in many forms, and most of them are prepared street-side. Don’t get me wrong, a good street torta from a reputable stall is good, but as I discovered this week, there are better options. I’ve been out running errands the past couple of days and happened to be near places I’ve been wanting to try at lunch time – Bravo Lonchería en the Colonia Cuauhtémoc and Eno on Petrarca in Polanco.

Bravo Lonchería

Bravo Lonchería opened on Río Sena a few years ago. I lived just blocks away when they started renovating the space – I could see the makings of the long lunch counter that dominates half of the restaurant when I walked by – but by the time it opened I had moved. According to this article in El Economista, the lonchería is a collaboration between three chefs who met while working together at Biko – this is one of the restaurants that always seems to show up on the “Best of Mexico” lists, but to be honest, I don’t love their food and the atmosphere is stuffy. I’m glad Bernardo Bukantz, Luis Serdio y Rodrigo Chávez left Biko to start Bravo because my lunch there was good, and the atmosphere is the opposite of stuffy. The decoration is modern industrial, and everything about the place is casual.

I ordered one of the house specials, a pambazo de pulpo; pambazo is a type of torta filled with potato and chorizo and dipped in chile sauce on the outside – it sounds weird, I know, but believe me, it’s good. This version is made with octopus (pulpo) instead of chorizo. I can guess what you’re thinking – “Octopus, in a sandwich? Really?” I thought twice before ordering it, imagining some chewy, rubbery stuff ruining a perfectly good pambazo, but I’m glad I took the chance because the chefs here know what they are doing, and the octopus was not rubbery at all. Not even a little. Just for that, I’ll absolutely be back.

To drink, Bravo has fresh aguas – sweetened flavored water drinks – that are made in house – I had a strawberry-lemon-ginger version and it was like strawberry lemonade – as well as beer on tap and soft drinks.  I’m also pretty sure I saw a decent selection of hard liquor, just in case you like your tortas with mezcal.

Bravo is open all day, and some of the breakfast items I saw on the menu look pretty phenomenal, like the eggs benedict sandwich, so don’t be surprised if this place shows up in the breakfast section of this blog in a few weeks.

Eno Lonchería

Eno has four locations, in Polanco, Palmas, Colonia Roma and Lomas. There are almost always lines of people waiting to be seated when I walk past the location on Petrarca in Polanco, so I considered myself lucky when I didn’t have to wait for a table. It’s not surprising that the place is so popular – it’s part of Enrique Olvera’s food empire.  In case you haven’t heard that name before, he’s the chef behind Pujol, another frequent name on the “Best of” lists.

The atmosphere at Eno is like a coffee house – they serve fresh bread and pastries , coffee and snacks and I’ve seen more than one person with their laptop out there – but when we went at lunchtime, there were waiters who seated us, took our order and brought the check.

The lunch menu consists mostly in tortas and sandwiches, as well as soup, salad, and snack items. To drink, there was a variety of aguas available – an unsweetened ginger-based option, pineapple and guava, and cucumber, lemon and matcha. We tried all three and they were alright. Mario ordered esquites – traditional Mexican street food consisting in corn cooked with epazote and served with cheese, chile and mayonnaise – and a chicken sandwich, while I ordered a chicken tinga sandwich – tinga de pollo is shredded chicken cooked with tomatoes, onions and peppers.  The bread was fresh, but nothing about the sandwiches was exceptional.  Let me put it this way: if I had some good fresh bread, I could probably make a more remarkable sandwich at home.  Mario’s review of the esquites was similarly blasé, though to put his review in context I should mention that he’s an esquite snob and has a demanding palate when it comes to this particular street food. On the other hand, I think we were both expecting a bit more from Enrique.

Comparing the tortas tested at Bravo and Eno, Bravo wins in my book, and I’ll definitely go back if I have the chance.  Eno on the other hand might be a good option if you need to eat and happen to be next door, but I’m not going to cross the Beast to get one of their sandwiches.

Locations: Bravo Lonchería: Calle Río Sena 87, Colonia Cuauhtémoc // Eno Lonchería: Francisco Petrarca 258, Esq. Horacio. Polanco / Explanada 730, Lomas de Chapultepec / Palmas 520, Lomas de Chapultepec / Chihuahua 139, Roma Norte