La Habichuela

A local favorite since the city’s infancy and by now a must for visitors, the “Green Bean”—run out of the owner’s family home—is the fancy older sister of next-door Labná. The emphasis is on Caribbean flavors plus Mexican classics like chicken mole; regulars rave about the unusual, delicate cream of green bean soup. Somewhat like the menu, the back garden’s décor is incongruous but alluring: lacy wrought-iron chairs and candlelit tables stand among faux ruins—stone reproductions of Mayan deities, friezes, and stelae—draped with flowering hibiscus. It’s the perfect jungle setting for a late-evening order of Xtabentun, a liqueur of honey and anise. Try their signature dish, the Cocobichuela, a lobster and shrimp curry topped with tropical fruit and served in a coconut shell.