Food History of Cancún

Key eras

Fishing coast and coconut groves, before 1970

When work on the resort began on 23 January 1970, Isla Cancún had three residents, caretakers of a coconut plantation, and some 117 people lived in Puerto Juárez, a fishing village and military base. The fish dish of the Yucatán coast is tikin xic, Yucatec Maya for 'dry fin' after its butterfly cut: marinated in achiote and sour orange, wrapped in banana leaf and cooked over wood.

The planned city and its first markets, 1970s

Cancún was built as a federal tourism project, with the government financing the first nine hotels. Downtown grew in numbered supermanzanas for the workers who built and staffed them, and in the late 1970s the Mercado Javier Rojo Gómez, Mercado 23, opened with ten stalls as the city's first traditional market. It now has more than 200, with fondas selling cochinita, salbutes, papadzules and relleno negro.

Boom town of migrants, 1980s and 1990s

From 1970 to 1980 the population grew on average by more than 60 percent a year, and most cancunenses came from Yucatán and other Mexican states. Mercado 28 opened as a fresh market with Yucatecan cooking and seafood restaurants; after the 1994 peso crisis it turned mostly to crafts, though counters such as El Cejas, there since 1987, kept cooking.

Hotel strip and downtown, 2000s to today

The Zona Hotelera filled with hotel dining rooms, steakhouses and lagoon-side seafood restaurants along Boulevard Kukulcán, while downtown kept the taquerías, loncherías and cochinita counters. The MICHELIN Guide's Mexico selection lists two Cancún restaurants, Kiosco Verde and La Casa de las Mayoras, both away from the hotel strip.

Immigrant influences

• Yucatecan and Maya: The base of the downtown kitchen: cochinita pibil, panuchos, salbutes, papadzules, relleno negro and sopa de lima, cooked in the market fondas of Mercado 23 and at loncherías across the supermanzanas.
• Central and western Mexico: Migrants from the rest of Mexico brought taquerías al pastor, carnitas, pozole, menudo and tlayudas, which now share the Mercado 23 fondas and the downtown avenues with the Yucatecan plates.
• Cuban: In Supermanzanas 23 and 24, near the bus terminal, Cuban families run small kitchens serving congrí and ropa vieja; local press called the strip the city's Pequeña Cuba in 2026.

Signature innovations

• Tikin xic: fish in a butterfly cut, marinated in achiote and sour orange, wrapped in banana leaf and cooked over wood.
• Market fondas: Mercado 23's food stalls serve cochinita, salbutes, relleno negro and menudo beside its butchers and cremerías.