Roma

Colonia Roma, usually just La Roma, lies a short way west of the Centro Histórico in the Cuauhtémoc borough. It is really two colonias, Roma Norte and Roma Sur, split by Calle Coahuila, and runs from Avenida Chapultepec in the north to the Viaducto in the south, with Avenida Insurgentes separating it from Condesa. The land was shallow lake bed in Aztec times, with the island village of Aztacalco, which survives as the small barrio of La Romita and its church founded in 1550. In the early 1900s developers laid out the colonia for wealthy families leaving the old centre, and it was named after the Potreros de Romita, the pastures around that village.

Roma's golden age lasted until about the 1940s; then the rich moved further west, office blocks replaced many mansions, and the 1985 earthquake hit it hard. Even so, about 1,100 buildings from before the 1930s still stand, more than in any of its sister colonias, in a mix of French-influenced Porfirian, Art Nouveau, Neo-colonial and Art Deco styles. The best-preserved streets are Orizaba, Colima, Tonalá and the tree-lined boulevard of Álvaro Obregón. Landmarks include the castle-like Edificio Río de Janeiro of 1908, nicknamed the Casa de las Brujas, on the plaza with its copy of Michelangelo's David, and the Edificio Balmori on Orizaba. The city named Roma a Barrio Mágico in 2011.

Today Roma Norte is the city's busiest dining district: three restaurants hold a Michelin star (Rosetta, Expendio de Maíz and Máximo) and many more appear in the guide, from Contramar's seafood to taquerías, while Mercado Roma is a food hall. Galleries such as OMR cluster around Colima and Plaza Río de Janeiro, Leonora Carrington's house and studio is on Chihuahua Street, and Roma Sur, quieter and more traditional, has the Mercado Medellín with Latin American produce and the street where Alfonso Cuarón grew up and set his film Roma. Since 2020 short-term rentals and remote workers have made it a focus of the city's gentrification debate.