Where locals go

Regios (as Monterrey locals are called) organize their weekends around carne asada, the mountains and long family meals. Here’s where they actually go.

Weekend food

The real ritual is a backyard or park carne asada, but if you’re eating out, locals hit the no-frills cabrito and asador places rather than anything downtown that looks aimed at visitors. Neighborhood taquerías serving tacos and carne asada by weight are where regios actually eat, not the tourist strip in Barrio Antiguo.

A day off in the mountains

Weekends mean the sierra. Families head to Chipinque, to the Cola de Caballo waterfall south of the city near Villa de Santiago, or out to the Cañón de la Huasteca for the dramatic rock walls. The pueblo of Santiago itself, with its little plaza and food stalls, is the classic regio day-out.

Drinks and nights out

Barrio Antiguo is where everyone ends up for bars and live music on a weekend night, locals and visitors alike. For something calmer, San Pedro’s Calzada del Valle area has the more polished bars and cafés where the well-off crowd goes. Craft beer has taken hold too, with local breweries scattered around San Pedro and the west.

What a friend here would tell you: eat cabrito where the parking lot is full of families, and go up the mountain before 9am on a Saturday, before everyone else does.