Restaurant in Mexico City, Mexico
Roma Norte's raw bar, open late, ranked.
La Docena is Mexico City's most-awarded raw bar, ranked #227 in Opinionated About Dining's Casual North America list for 2025 and rated 4.4 across nearly 2,000 reviews. It is the right booking for oysters and coastal Mexican seafood in Roma Norte, with easy availability on weeknights and long hours that extend to 2 am.
La Docena is Mexico City's most decorated raw bar, and at its Roma Norte address it punches well above the casual-dining category. Opinionated About Dining ranked it #227 in Casual North America for 2025, climbing steadily from #339 in 2024 and a Recommended listing in 2023. With a 4.4 score across nearly 2,000 Google reviews, this is not a cult favourite known only to insiders — it has broad, sustained approval. If oysters, ceviches, and cold seafood are what you're after in Mexico City, book here before looking elsewhere.
La Docena operates as a raw bar in the European-meets-Pacific-coast tradition, but planted firmly in Mexico City's Roma Norte neighbourhood on Avenida Álvaro Obregón. The format is built around cold preparations: shellfish, raw fish, and crudo-style plates that change with what's running well in Mexican coastal waters. That seasonal dependency is the single most important thing to understand before you go. Unlike a tasting-menu restaurant where the kitchen controls every variable, a raw bar's quality rises and falls with what arrived on the truck that morning. Come in high season for Gulf and Pacific shellfish — roughly autumn through early spring , and the offering will be at its widest. Summer visits are perfectly fine, but expect the selection to tighten as supply from cooler waters contracts.
Chef Tomás Bermudez has built the menu around Mexican coastal sourcing, which means the seafood you're eating has a shorter supply chain than comparable raw bars in the United States. That provenance shows in flavour. For first-timers, the practical advice is to ask your server what came in fresh that day and order around that answer rather than defaulting to a fixed list.
The kitchen runs Monday through Saturday until 2 am and Sunday until midnight, which makes La Docena genuinely useful across a full dining day. Lunch from noon is a lower-pressure entry point: the room is quieter, the pacing is more relaxed, and the same menu is available without the evening crowd. If you're visiting for a special occasion or want a focused conversation over food, a weekday lunch is the right call. Friday and Saturday evenings fill quickly and skew younger and louder , worth knowing if atmosphere matters to your group.
Booking difficulty is rated Easy. La Docena is a high-volume venue with long opening hours, so securing a table rarely requires more than a day or two of lead time on weeknights. Weekend evenings are the exception , book 3 to 5 days ahead if you're coming Friday or Saturday. The venue is at Av. Álvaro Obregón 31, Roma Norte, a walkable address well served by the city's ride-share options and close to Roma Norte's hotel cluster. No dress code is noted; the Roma Norte neighbourhood skews creative-casual, and that's the right register here.
Against other raw bars in the region, La Docena sits in a different tier from Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco or Taylor Shellfish in Bothell , those are counter-only, cash-forward institutions with no-reservation cultures. La Docena is more polished and more accessible to the reservation traveller. Within Mexico, it holds its own against coastal seafood specialists at venues like HA' in Playa del Carmen, though the formats differ considerably. For the broader Mexico City fine-dining picture, see our guides to Pujol, Quintonil, and Em, or browse our full Mexico City restaurants guide. If you're building a wider trip, our Mexico City hotels guide, bars guide, and experiences guide cover the rest. For destination dining elsewhere in Mexico, Animalón in Valle de Guadalupe, Le Chique in Puerto Morelos, Levadura de Olla in Oaxaca, KOLI Cocina de Origen in Monterrey, and Lunario in El Porvenir are all worth your attention.
For fine dining rather than casual raw bar, Pujol and Quintonil are the two reference points in Mexico City. Rosetta on Colima offers a different register entirely — European-influenced, more intimate, vegetable-forward. If you want something closer to La Docena's casual format but with a different cuisine focus, Em and Lorea both operate in the contemporary Mexican space. None of them replicate the raw bar format, so if shellfish is what you're after, La Docena has no direct equivalent among top-ranked Mexico City venues.
Yes, and for solo diners or pairs, the bar is a practical option at a raw bar format venue like La Docena. It fits the style of the place — casual, direct, food-focused. The venue's high volume and easy booking difficulty mean bar seats are generally accessible without advance planning.
La Docena is a high-volume venue with long daily hours, so it handles groups better than most reservation-scarce spots in Mexico City. Booking difficulty is rated Easy, meaning larger parties shouldn't need significant lead time. For groups with mixed dietary needs, keep in mind this is a shellfish-forward raw bar, so omnivores will have the widest range of options.
La Docena's identity is built around raw seafood, so lead with the shellfish program — oysters are the anchor of any visit. Beyond that, the kitchen under chef Tomás Bermudez works in a raw bar tradition that draws from both European and Pacific-coast influences. Specific menu items are not confirmed in available data, so check current offerings on arrival rather than planning around a fixed dish.
It works for a relaxed special occasion — a birthday dinner with people who eat seafood, or a late-night celebration taking advantage of the 2am close. It's not the right venue if you want white-tablecloth formality or a multi-course tasting format; for that, Pujol or Quintonil are the appropriate options in Mexico City. La Docena's OAD ranking signals the food is occasion-worthy, but the format stays casual throughout.
Dinner is the stronger call if atmosphere matters to you — the venue runs until 2am on weeknights, and Roma Norte picks up energy in the evenings. Lunch works well for a lower-key visit and the room will be quieter, which is useful for groups who want to talk. Either way, the kitchen is operating across the same long window, so you're not sacrificing quality by going early.
La Docena is a raw bar, not a full-service restaurant — the format is casual, high-volume, and built around shellfish and crudo. It holds an Opinionated About Dining ranking in North American casual dining (currently #227 for 2025), which tells you the cooking is serious even if the setting is relaxed. Arrive knowing what you want: the menu rewards people who eat shellfish, and the long hours (noon to 2am Monday through Saturday) mean you have real flexibility on timing. Don't come expecting a tasting-menu experience.
Keep this venue in your Pearl passport, rate it after you visit, and track it alongside every other place you collect.
