A city guide to Toluca

La Marquesa (FB @ParqueForestalLaMarquesaOficial)

Officially Parque Nacional Insurgente Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, universally just La Marquesa, a pine forest at 3,000 metres between Toluca and Mexico City where locals have been spending Sundays since 1936. Here, you’ll find horses, go-karts, quads, ziplines, playgrounds, and a row of roadside comedores dishing up whatever's fresh. Chilly thanks to the altitude, but jumpers exist.

Rosa Taproom (IG @rosataproom)

Find the red door on Morelos, ring the bell, and wait. Rosa is deliberately hard to find, and the regulars like it that way. Inside though, is ramen paired with Mexican craft beer, a short menu done with real care. Needless to say, reservation is essential.

Interstellar Base (IG @interstellar.brewery)

A Mexi-Kiwi brewery on the edge of Toluca whose production plant moonlights as a secret taproom at weekends, by reservation only. Expect pastry stouts, hazy IPAs, brut IPAs (you heard that right), and wild ales fermented with capulin berries from the street outside. Restraint isn't the house style.

Cervecería 722 (IG @sieteveintidosbrewingco)

The 722 in the name is Toluca's area code, a holler of civic pride that we’re 100% here for. Vittorio Fedeli runs the brewery; the taproom is all bohemian warmth and vintage clutter. You’ll find four core beers including a cracking hibiscus ale, plus experimental batches only pouring here.

Verde Botella (IG @verdebotella_beer)

A beer shop set inside Casa Azul, a Toluca casona whose rooms have been converted into small restaurants, cafés and artisan shops. Verde Botella holds one of them, with 380-odd craft labels from Mexico and beyond. Juan de Dios will ask what you actually like, then steer you somewhere strange.