When real estate developer Octavio Aguilar saw the decadent Mexico City mansion at Luis G Urbino 84, home to only two families since it was built in the 1940s, he knew it would be a hotel, his hotel. Lodging had never been a part of Aguilar’s portfolio, but he’d spent his whole life traveling around the world, developing a passion for boutique hotels along the way. One trip he took as a teenager with his mother and sister, to France’s Loire Valley, was particularly foundational—they stayed in three smaller spots, he says, never needed a reservation, and the service was perfect and personal. When he got older, he’d flip through the Relais & Châteaux book to find the places he thought “had the most character.”
And so Aguilar, who still calls his native Mexico City home—though he has properties in New York, Miami, and Madrid—brought to life the Casa Polanco, named for the posh neighborhood that sprang up with Spanish Colonial revival flare at the same time the house did, all around the tidy, rectangular Parque Lincoln, an easy stroll to the sprawling Chapultepec Park (one of the oldest urban green spaces in the world, at twice the size of Central Park). Casa Polanco took several years to design and renovate, including two years and 20 meetings, says Aguilar, to persuade the regulatory body at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes to let him open such a business on a residential street front. Aguilar had already been waiting “8 to 10 years” to deploy the stunning “Irish Green” Italian marble in one of his projects; it’s now the showpiece of the lobby and the color thread that brings the lush exterior foliage indoors, along with an arrayán tree rising through the center of the dining room.
The 19-room hotel opened quietly in 2022, with a doting concierge to match Aguilar’s Loire Valley memories and a bartender who serves Clase Azul on the rocks, compris, in a library off the veranda. The full-service experience is quickly gaining ground on all sorts of best-of travel lists, especially as Mexico City enjoys a broader tourism boom. Aguilar is leveraging outside interest in his city to show off Mexican artists and artisans: The hotel is supplied and scented by Xinú, a local botanical perfumer (their Flor de Musgo candle, at $90, is how I’ll hang on to my own memories of Casa Polanco), while curator Santiago Toca has filled Casa Polanco with sculptures by Rodrigo Gargarza and paintings by Jordi Boldó. (Each February, art-minded visitors can enjoy a five-day visual feast throughout the city during Zona Maco, the biggest art fair in Latin America.)
Along with a promenade—“walking helps you experience any city more”—Aguilar recommends visitors explore Mexico City’s culinary offerings. Some clear hits: the famed Pujol, a few minutes’ walk from the hotel, with a mole madre that’s been simmering perpetually for at least a few years. In Roma, Elena Reygadas, named World’s Best Female Chef of 2023, reigns supreme with Rosetta, featuring Mexican-infused haute Italian cuisine (and yet another fantastical indoor arboretum), plus a bakery, Panaderia Rosetta, down the street. And on the tree-lined Avenue Álvaro Obregón, farm-to-table fare wins the day at Máximo Bistrot, where the vibes are bustling and the cocktails are spiced to ambrosial perfection. Cups runneth over.
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