Casa de los Azulejos

The Counts of the Valley of Orizaba rebuilt their Madero street palace in the 1730s and covered every outside inch of it in blue, white and yellow talavera tile from Puebla - a gesture so extravagant it spawned the legend of a father telling his wastrel son he would never "build a house of tiles," and the son answering with this. The facade still stops pedestrians mid-stride: three storeys of glazed geometry framed in grey stone, with Chinese-influenced vases and cherubs worked into the pattern. Since 1917 it has been the flagship of the Sanborns restaurant chain, which means anyone can walk into the courtyard - a glass-roofed hall of Moorish columns, peacock murals and waitresses in traditional dress serving enchiladas suizas, the house invention. On the staircase, an early Jose Clemente Orozco mural, Omniscience, painted in 1925, comes free with the visit.

The main sights

• The tiled facade - three storeys of 1730s Puebla talavera.
• The courtyard restaurant - glass roof, columns and peacock murals.
• Orozco's Omniscience - the 1925 mural on the main stair.
• Madero street life - the pedestrian river flowing past the tiles.

When to go

Morning light favors the facade; breakfast inside beats the lunch rush. The pedestrianized street is liveliest - and densest - on weekend afternoons.

Before you go

It is a working restaurant, not a museum - viewing the courtyard means threading between tables, and the food is reliable rather than remarkable. The mural is on a stair landing; a polite minute is all it needs.

Nearby

The Torre Latinoamericana across the street, Bellas Artes a block west and the Zocalo ten minutes east along Madero.

Key facts