Mexico City for The Night Owls: a Friday-to-Monday weekend

The mariachi square warming up: bands in silver-buttoned suits waiting for hire, a song for a few euros, and the Tenampa cantina for a tequila.

An unmarked door, a dim upstairs room, mezcal by the copita and tacos de lengua; the kitchen runs late and the table turns into the night.

A Cuban band on the stage and a dance floor that fills by midnight; the free class at ten gets you through the first song.

Eduardo García's bright all-day room with a long communal table, chilaquiles and pastries from the oven; the right start for a day that began at noon.

The bar the world's lists put first, behind a plain door with a host: clarified cocktails, a short wait, and a bill that behaves.

A club on the upper floors of a Roma building, house and disco until the small hours; the queue on the stairs is part of the evening.

Gabriela Cámara's Sunday lunch runs until the evening: tuna tostadas, the whole fish split red and green, and a room that stays loud.

The 1937 ballroom's motto is that whoever does not know it does not know Mexico; Sunday is danzón, couples in their seventies and a live orchestra.

A hole in the wall where the suadero bubbles in a copper pan past midnight and the line is office workers and bar staff, not visitors.

Castro and Che planned the Granma expedition at these tables in 1955; the coffee is roasted on site and the enfrijoladas arrive without ceremony.

The column's base holds the bones of the independence heroes; on a Monday morning the traffic is the only crowd, and the view down the avenue is yours.

Open every day of the year, including Mondays: ride to the top floor for the Rodins under the rooflight and spiral down the ramp with coffee in hand.