The Mexico Restaurant Where Anthony Bourdain Ate The World's Best Tostadas

If you're reading this, Anthony Bourdain is likely not a name that's unbeknownst to you. He rarely requires an introduction to anyone, really. Bourdain's legacy is one that transcends food because he saw it as something that was inseparable from the people and the landscapes it came from. That preface is what carried his career, and it's why so much of his advice around food and travel still hits the mark years after his passing. In fact, people are still scrounging through the internet to dig up recommendations from him. You'll find hundreds of them scrolling through his old Reddit threads — one being a restaurant in Mexico called La Guerrerense, where he came upon what he deemed to be the best tostadas in the world.

Now, Mexican cuisine is not one that Bourdain treated lightly. In the same thread, he wrote that it was "the most undervalued, underappreciated world cuisine with tremendous, tremendous potential." Mexican cuisine is a cuisine that, as Bourdain preached, is very much tied to its people and its landscape. The wide range of colors, flavors, and ingredients used is directly related to the variety of geography found across the Mexican territory. La Guerrerense, on the other hand, sticks to just one thing: Tostadas. But they apparently do them very, very well. As he wrote, "The stuff they serve there is as fresh, as vibrant, as sophisticated, as flavorful, as anything I've ever had at a beach style restaurant."

Upon your first look at the simple food stand that is La Guerrerense, you probably wouldn't suspect its running list of accolades. Even before being featured with Bourdain on the eighth season of "No Reservations," the founder's daughter-in-law, Sabina Bandera, was combining ingredients, making salsas, and using fresh local fish — and making a name for herself while doing it. Not only has Saveur hailed her as Mexico's queen of ceviche, and the Mexican Gastronomy World Forum recognized her as one of the world's leading traditional Mexican cooks, but her family's humble food stand has been deemed the most famous in the world. But, even with all of the praise, the stand remains humble.

While they've since opened a restaurant in Mexico City, you can still find the Banderas setting up shop every Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday on the same quiet corner their family has been since the 1960s. The prices remain humble, too — their most famous sea urchin ceviche tostada goes for just $2.50, while a pate de pescado con callo de hacha, or fish pate with chunks of scallop and fresh avocado, comes in at just under $5. It's mind-blowing food made by honest people. La Guerrerense has drawn the likes of Rick Bayless, Enrique Olvera, Nancy Silverton, Marcus Samuelsson, René Redzepi, and the world to Mexico, showcasing the vibrant cuisine in exactly the way Bourdain hoped it'd one day be.