Pizza in Mérida: Where Tradition Meets Price-to-Quality Perfection

Mérida’s pizza scene is a love letter to tradition with a modern twist. If you’re looking for the best, start at Fausto’s. This Centro staple isn’t just the highest-rated—it’s a masterclass in balancing Italian technique with Yucatec ingredients. The lasagna here is a regular standout, but the pizza? The crust is thin and crackly, with just the right doughy chew. Next up, Il Calabrese. This Centro joint nails the wood-fired vibe, with a stone oven that gives every slice a smoky char. The four-cheese pizza is rich and creamy, but it’s the spicy Calabrese sausage that steals the show. Prices are mid-range (MX$100–200), but the quality matches. Al Forno in the Mexico neighborhood is where you go for a date night. They serve wine by the glass and have a terrace that’s perfect for sunset. The quattro formaggi is a must, but be ready to pay a premium (MX$100–200). The AC here is a lifesaver if you’re not into the Mérida heat. Don Eduardo is the surprise hit. Located in Yucatán, this budget-friendly spot (MX$1–100) serves up a 4-cheese pizza that rivals the pricier spots. The crust is crisp and golden, and the owner’s dedication to quality shines through. One reviewer called it "the best pizza under $10 in town." Rounding out the list is Pizzeria Oliva in Paseo Montejo. It’s the most upscale pick, with a sleek decor and a standout gorgonzola pizza. The tiramisu is a dessert cheat code, but the pizza is the star. Open late, it’s perfect for post-dinner cravings. If you only try one pizza in Mérida, make it Fausto’s lasagna pizza. It’s the city’s best blend of old-world charm and new-world creativity. No excuses—go now.

It's 8 PM on a Wednesday, and Calle 23 A smells like cheese and woodsmoke. Antica Roma is filling up. Table by table, the way it does every night. Couples settling in. A glass of sangria, so red it looks like it could stain linen, getting poured at the table nearest the kitchen. Then the fettuccine starts coming out, plate after plate, steady as clockwork. The kitchen at this Los Pinos restaurant doesn't stop moving until close to midnight. Antica Roma sits at Calle 23 A No. 350, between calles 34 and 36, in the residential quiet of the Los Pinos colonia. It has a 4.7 rating from more than 2,000 reviews, and it's one of those Mérida restaurants that locals treat as settled. The debate isn't whether to go but what to order. The fettuccine has the most devoted following, though the sangria runs a close second. Prices land between MX$100 and 200 per plate, which keeps the place accessible for a weeknight dinner that nobody planned. Open daily from 1 PM to 11:30 PM (11 PM Sundays), it caters to Mérida's late-dining rhythm. Reviewers keep returning to two words: romantic and accessible. The kind of place where dinner stretches past three hours and nobody minds. Fifteen minutes north, on Calle 27 in San Esteban, Due Torri takes a different approach. This is a smaller restaurant, with around 680 reviews and a 4.6 rating, but what it lacks in volume it makes up for in precision. The oven is what everyone talks about. It shows up in review after review, referenced the way people talk about a favorite bartender or a lucky parking spot, with affection that borders on superstition. The lasagna, Due Torri's signature, comes out of that oven with the top layer of cheese bubbled and golden-brown at the edges, each layer underneath holding its shape on the plate. The pasta, the ragu, the béchamel, the final crust of browned cheese: they stay distinct, and when your fork breaks through, you hear a faint crack before the steam rises. Comfort food that someone took seriously. The carpaccio at Due Torri has its own following. It's the appetizer that slows the meal down, thin-sliced and dressed with oil, the kind of opener that makes you pause before picking up your fork. Music plays throughout the evening, another detail reviewers consistently mention, filling the room without competing for attention. Due Torri sits at Calle 27 No. 349-A, between residential blocks where you could walk right past without noticing the entrance. Open from 1:30 PM on weekdays (1 PM Sundays) until 11 PM, with prices in the $$ range, it runs on the same philosophy as Antica Roma: good Italian food at prices that don't punish you for eating out twice a week. Back on Calle 23 A, the sangria glasses are refilling and the fettuccine plates keep coming. Antica Roma won't close for another two hours. Nobody looks ready to leave. Mérida's Italian restaurants don't compete with the city's Yucatecan food scene for attention, and the regulars at these two places prefer it that way. Antica Roma and Due Torri have both figured out the same thing: keep prices reasonable and the kitchen open late. The food does the rest. In a city with well over 500 places to eat, both fill up on a random Wednesday. That says more than any star rating could.

By 8 PM on a Wednesday, every table at Antica Roma is taken. Calle 23 A in Colonia La Florida is a residential street where most storefronts close by sundown. Not this one. The door stays open until 11:30, and by now the room fills with the smell of dough blistering somewhere behind the kitchen wall. A round of sangria arrives at a corner table. The server, whose name might be Mario (he comes up so often in reviews that he has become part of the place's identity), slides a plate of fettuccine across the table and vanishes before anyone can wave him down. The dining room hums with the particular noise of a place that has been full enough, long enough, that no one is performing. Everyone here looks like they have been here before. Antica Roma has over 2,000 reviews and a 4.7 rating. That makes it one of the highest-rated Italian restaurants in a city with more than 500 places to eat. Prices sit at MX$100-200 per person. Not cheap, not a splurge. The fettuccine arrives wide and glistening, coated in enough sauce that each strand holds weight, the edges catching low light from across the table. It is the kind of plate that tells you whether a kitchen knows what it is doing within the first forkful. Reviewers seem to agree. The fettuccine and the sangria are the two items that surface most, and both have the sort of following that fills tables on a Tuesday, not a Saturday. What has made Antica Roma a fixture in this neighborhood is the mood as much as the food. Reviewers reach for the word "romantic" with notable consistency. This is where people go for a date night or an anniversary dinner, the kind of evening where you want enough quiet to hear each other talk. The kitchen runs all seven days starting at 1 PM, so the lazy Sunday afternoon crowd looks different from the 9 PM Thursday regulars. Both would tell you it is their spot. At Calle 23 A No. 350, between calles 34 and 36, Antica Roma has built something that feels more like a neighborhood institution than a trending opening. People do not come here to post about it. They come here to eat. Across town in San Esteban, Due Torri runs a different kind of operation. About 680 reviews. A 4.6 rating. Smaller. More focused. On Calle 27 349-A, the menu leans toward what comes out of the oven, with lasagna and carpaccio drawing the most attention from reviewers. People mention the music and the overall feel of the house, the kind of comments that suggest they come here as much for the room as for the plate. Due Torri opens at 1:30 PM on weekdays, 1 PM Sundays, and stays open until 11. Where Antica Roma has made romance its calling card, Due Torri has bet on something quieter: the comfort of a neighborhood spot that knows what it does well and does not try to be anything else. Mérida's food scene has been shifting. Mezcal bars are opening every other month and fusion menus keep multiplying across the city. But these two Italian kitchens keep doing what they have done for years. The oven heats up. The tables fill. By 9 PM at Antica Roma, someone at the corner table has ordered a second round of sangria and the fettuccine is long gone. At Due Torri, the last lasagna of the evening goes out to regulars who stopped needing a menu a long time ago. You cannot buy that kind of loyalty. You earn it one plate at a time.