Exploring Mexico City with Leica’s New Sofort 2 Hybrid Instant Camera
With Las Alcobas as a relaxing home base, we trek across CDMX’s Polanco neighborhood and beyond
A quiet boutique hotel can be the best respite from a busy day in a large cosmopolitan city. Just past the bustling side streets of Parque Lincoln, Las Alcobas offers the ideal location and access to the city—from exploring the streets of Polanco among the Colonial Californiano style buildings to some of the city’s most luxurious shops and cafes. Beyond the neighborhood their concierge team plans tours to the pyramids of Teotihuacan, taco crawls, and a day focused on sights that tell the life, art practices, and love story of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. To capture the vibrant sites and experiences, we took along Leica’s new Sofort 2 out for a spin.
A hybrid instant camera with a print function, the Leica Sofort 2 brings together digital capabilities with the eternal analog applications. Images can be stored in the internal memory and on a memory card with the option to print on Instax Mini instant film. With film effects ranging from Normal to Vivid, Pale, Canvas, Monochrome, Sepia, Yellow, Red, Blue and Retro, the camera also has a built-in flash. With seamless connection with the Leica FOTOS app, images can also be transferred and printed from other Leica cameras and iPhone photos making it a fun camera to document travel adventures.
Before we embark on our explorations, it’s worthwhile to note that the rooms at Las Alcobas feature marble bathrooms, spa tubs and rain showers. Their restaurant, Anatol, offers breakfast specialties like soft scrambled eggs, Oaxacan cheese stuffed tortillas with black bean sauce and hoja santa and Lobster Esquites with epazote butter on the dinner menu. Their signature Margarita Las Alcobas arrives at the table in an elegant glass with a lime zest topped dome of bubbles with Ensenada 1941, Casa Dragones Blanco, Licor de Naranjas, jugo de limón verde and sal de Colima. Formerly a private residence and now a 35-room boutique hotel, Las Alcobas is on Avenida Presidente Masaryk. Designed by Yabu Pushelberg, this cozy oasis is just two blocks from the Leica Store.
Near Las Alcobas, the iconic bar Limantour’s Polanco outpost is a destination for cocktail enthusiasts. Their creative seasonal menus continue to celebrate local ingredients with culinary inspirations. The Jamaica Mezcal pairs Mezcal 7 Misterios Doba Yej with hibiscus, cardamom syrup and lime, served in a tall terracotta cup topped with a wedge of orange and a polka dot straw. The newest menu features street food inspirations like Gelatina de Mosaico.
While Contramar continues to be the popular see-and-be-seen restaurant of celebrated chef Gabriela Camara, locals know that her Entremar features the same menu in a quiet section of Polanco facing Parque Uruguay across from the handcrafted collections of ONORA Casa. Enrique Olvera’s Pujol and Jorge Vallejo’s Quintonil are also both a short walk from the hotel.
With a focus on Mexican designers, curated alongside some of their favorites from around the world, IKAL stocks everythinf from apparel and accessories to interior accents that lean into an overall feeling of whimsy and surprise. Nearby, we climb the stairs up to Xinu’s fragrance gallery which feels like entering an ethereal natural history museum exhibit. We explore LAGO’s flagship collection of Mexican and South American designers, and particularly appreciate the Oaxacan pottery on the store’s second floor—among natural linen dresses, a wall of throw pillows and handbags by Carla Fernández.
One of the tailored excursions planned by the concierge team at Las Alcobas focuses on the art and interwoven story of Kahlo and Rivera, two of Mexico City’s most revered artists. This start in the morning, floating in a colorful trajinera along the canals of Xochimilco to buy drinks, food and flower crowns. Mariachi musicians drift alongside boats ready to play private concerts. Paintings and souvenirs of their adorable pink Axolotl salamanders abound, with the chance to see live ones in an animal exhibit nearby.
For the next stop, we head to Museo Anahuacalli—designed by Juan O’Gorman for the Diego Rivera Museo. The plan to erect this pyramid-shaped building began in the 1940s with the goal to build a temple to display Rivera’s collection of Pre-Columbian art and with the intention to be the resting place for the artist and his beloved Kahlo after death. The floors are arranged from bottom to top to reflect the underworld, the earth and the heavens. Recently, architect Taller Mauricio Rocha designed three additional geometric structures adjacent to the original buildings.
Then we progress on to Coyoacán Market market—designed by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, who also designed the city’s famous National History of Anthropology Museum. And afterward, we walk out of Parque Centenario to the Fuente de los Coyotes and to Museo Frida Kahlo to walk around the gardens and explore her iconic vibrant blue house filled with art and personal collections.
Las Alcobas teams up with Eat Mexico to take hotel guests around CDMX to cooking classes and street food tours. Taking the guesswork out of which taco stands to try. A local expert plans the path, orders food, offers rich historical and cultural knowledge, and streamlines the experience to sample foods from many food stands and cantinas. The Navarte at night tour features tacos al pastor at El Vilsito, tacos arabe at Tacos Tony and a small-batch mezcal tasting with food pairings.
Carrying the Sofort 2 around Mexico City adds a level of fun in capturing architectural sights, culinary bites and the people who make this world capital a sought after destination. Images can be stored in the camera so that the most memorable moments from the trip can be printed later.
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