Mexico eats seasonally in a way that catches visitors off guard. Some dishes simply do not exist for ten months of the year, appear on every menu in the country for a few weeks, and then disappear until the same time next year.
September is the biggest of those windows. Between the flag going up and the fireworks coming down, the food turns patriotic — in colour, in history, and in a couple of cases quite literally in name.
Here is what to order while you are in Puerto Vallarta this month, what each thing is, and where the tequila fits in.
The one month with its own menu
Mexico eats seasonally in a way that catches visitors off guard. There are dishes here that simply do not exist for ten months of the year, appear on every menu in the country for a few weeks, and then vanish again until the same time next year.
September is the biggest of those windows. Between the flag going up and the fireworks coming down, the food turns patriotic — in colour, in history, and in a couple of cases quite literally in name. Here is what to order while you are in Puerto Vallarta in September, and what it is.
Pozole: the dish of the night of the 15th
If a Mexican family invites you over for the Grito, they are going to feed you pozole. It is not optional and it is not a coincidence — this is the traditional dish of Independence night, and it is the one thing to eat on 15 September.
It is a soup built on cacahuazintle hominy, big soft kernels of corn simmered for hours with pork until the broth is heavy and the corn has opened like flowers. Jalisco — this state — is famous for the red one, pozole rojo, coloured and deepened with guajillo chile.
What makes it is what you put on top, and you do that yourself at the table: shredded cabbage or lettuce, sliced radish, raw onion, dried oregano crushed between your palms, a lot of lime, and ground chile to taste. It comes with tostadas on the side, and the correct thing to do with those is spread them with cream and eat them between spoonfuls.
Where: almost any pozolería or family fonda in town in the run-up to the 15th, and the food stalls on the plaza on the night itself. It is a night dish here — many pozolerías only open in the evening.
Chiles en nogada: the tricolour on a plate
The most beautiful thing anyone eats in Mexico, and it exists for about two months a year.
A roasted poblano chile — green — stuffed with picadillo: pork and beef cooked with apple, pear, peach, plantain, raisins and nuts, so it is somehow savoury and sweet at once. Over it goes the nogada — white — a cold cream sauce of fresh walnuts. On top, parsley and pomegranate seeds — red. Green, white and red, and yes, that is the point.
It exists in September because that is when both key ingredients are ready: the fresh nuez de Castilla walnuts and the pomegranates. The season runs roughly from late July into late September and then the dish is gone. The story goes that the nuns of Puebla invented it in 1821 to feed Agustín de Iturbide in the colours of the new flag — historians argue about that, everyone tells it anyway.
Where: restaurants in Puerto Vallarta that cook Mexican food seriously put them on the menu in season, usually as a special rather than a fixture. Ask, and book — the good ones sell out.
Everything on the plaza
The stalls that appear around the square in September are their own reason to go, and they are cheap. What to look for:
- Elotes and esquites — corn on the cob or off it, with mayonnaise, cotija cheese, chile powder and lime. The cup version is easier to walk with.
- Tejuino — a fermented corn drink from Jalisco, sour and cold, served with lime and salt and, if you order it properly, a scoop of lime sorbet on top. Nothing else tastes like it.
- Aguas frescas — jamaica (red), horchata (white) and limón (green). Three cups on a tray is a flag, and every stallholder knows it.
- Banderillas — corn dogs, straightforwardly. A fair is a fair.
- Churros — made in front of you, eaten too hot, worth it.
- Tricolour everything — gelatina, cake, sweets, flags on toothpicks. September commits.
Tequila, in the state that owns it
You are in Jalisco. Tequila is not a themed cocktail here — it is a local agricultural product with a protected name, made from blue agave, and the town it is named after sits a few hours inland from Puerto Vallarta.
Two things that will improve your September considerably:
- Order it as a bandera. Three shot glasses: lime juice, blanco tequila, and sangrita — the sweet-spicy tomato and citrus chaser. Green, white, red. You sip between them; you do not throw them back.
- Sip a good reposado on its own. The stuff that gets ruined with salt and a lime wedge at home is not the stuff people drink here. Ask what the bartender drinks.
And if you want the thing that is genuinely local rather than merely Mexican, look for raicilla — the agave spirit of the mountains directly behind this bay, made in the highland towns like Mascota and San Sebastián del Oeste. Smokier, wilder, and until recently almost impossible to find outside western Jalisco.
Every ATV route we run finishes with a tequila tasting included, which is the least ceremonious and most useful introduction there is: after three hours in the mountains, with a guide who can tell you what you are drinking and why.
How to fit the eating around the riding
Simple sequencing, and it works all month:
- Ride in the morning. September mornings are clear and cool; the afternoon is when the rain arrives.
- Chiles en nogada at lunch. It is a rich plate and it is better as the main meal of the day than at ten at night.
- Pozole after dark on the 15th, then the square.
- Do not do all three on the same day. Or do, and accept the consequences.
The ride that suits this best is ATV A La Carte, because it is the one where you set the route and the length — a shorter morning if you have a long lunch booked, a longer one if you do not. It is private, it includes the waterfall stop and the tasting, and the guide will happily tell you where to eat afterwards. That last part is worth more than most restaurant lists.
If you would rather have the route decided for you, the three-hour Río Cuale tour gets you back downtown by early afternoon with the whole evening ahead of you.
Ask us where to eat
We live here and we eat here, and in September we are eating the same things you are. Tell us the day you are coming and what you like, and we will point you at the pozole that is actually good rather than the one with the biggest sign. Everything we run is on the tours page.
