Cochinita pibil
Photo: Popo le Chien · CC BY-SA 3.0

Cochinita pibil is a signature dish of Mexico; we have verified places to eat it in Cancún and Mérida.

Cochinita pibil · Cancún

Cochinita pibil is pork marinated in bitter orange and achiote, wrapped in banana leaf and slow-roasted until it falls apart, then piled into tacos and tortas with pickled red onion and habanero.

Cochinita pibil is a Yucatec Maya dish from the Yucatán Peninsula. Cochinita means baby pig, so the full version roasts a whole suckling pig, though most cooks use shoulder. The meat is marinated in the juice of bitter (Seville) oranges with achiote, which gives the burnt-orange colour, then wrapped in banana leaf and cooked in a píib, a pit with a fire at the bottom. It comes with corn tortillas, red pickled onion, black beans and habanero. In Cancún it is the morning order at the Mercado 23 fondas and at El Tatich, which sells it as tacos and tortas.

Where to eat in Cancún:

Where to eat Cochinita pibil in Cancún: the editor picks

Cochinita pibil · Mérida

Cochinita pibil is the Yucatán's defining plate: pork shoulder marinated in sour orange and achiote, wrapped in banana leaves and slow-roasted overnight in an earth oven (pib), shredded over the heat.

The dish predates the Spanish conquest. The pib was the Maya earth-oven cooking method, used for chicken, deer and turkey before Spanish pork arrived. After 1542 Spanish citrus (sour orange) and pork married with Mayan recado rojo paste of achiote, garlic and pepper, and the cochinita pibil we know today emerged. Saturday-morning markets still cook it overnight in pit ovens and sell it from 6am.

Where to eat in Mérida:

Where to eat Cochinita pibil in Mérida: the editor picks

Book food experiences in Cancún

See all 700 food experiences in Cancún

More dishes across Mexico