Welcome to our sunny survey of smart thinking and innovative enterprise in Mexico. With a population of 130 million and a GDP of almost €1.53trn, the North American nation is a business powerhouse, with strong links to its US neighbour to the north – its largest trade partner – and the rest of Latin America to the south. A colourful country stretching from the windswept coastline of Baja California to the jungles of Chiapas, there are opportunities aplenty in diverse sectors for the savvy entrepreneur here.

While Mexico might have a solid backbone in heavy industry, agriculture and natural resources, in recent years it has made a name for itself for excellence in the worlds of gastronomy, hospitality and design. Indeed, there’s a lot more than meets the eye, from a booming film-production industry to architectural prowess. If you’re looking to make it here, you’ll quickly discover that lots of deals are made over a meal – meaning that, yes, in-person meetings trump virtual ones – and that knowing some Mexican Spanish slang can go a long way (it helps to know your chela from your chingón).

For our Mexico Survey, we dispatched our team of writers, editors and photographers to meet founders and learn about their projects all across the country, from San Miguel de Allende to Oaxaca City. Along the way, we found intrepid companies and individuals who aren’t afraid to go out on a limb to bring their passion projects to fruition, whether it’s a mission to make Mexico a regional e-mobility leader or producing a competitive jet plane to sell across the globe.

Taking flight
Oaxaca Aerospace is developing a “Made in Mexico” aeroplane in a land not known for making planes. Run by the Fernández family, the firm has built various prototypes for its Pegasus jet. The hope? To one day become a full-fledged international plane developer. To read more, click here.

High life
Amid Mexico City’s property boom, architect and developer Meir Lobatón Corona is rethinking the capital’s skyline. His Torre Gutenberg project isn’t about creating a temperature-controlled grey box. Instead, every floor has a large balcony with doors and windows that allow air and light to flood in. Click here to read more.

Star quality
Mexico is going from strength to strength in film. “There has been more growth in four years than in the past 15 or 20,” says Austrian Alexandra Ruths Braas, the enterprising co-founder of Romero & Braas, which makes original content and provides production services to international film crews. Read more about it here.

Happening hospitality
Oaxaca City is attracting an international audience. How are its businesses adapting to satisfy the needs of its modish visitors? Find out here.

Guadalajara’s art renaissance
Mexican creativity doesn’t stop in the country’s capital, as the artists leading this revival will attest. Discover your new favourites here.

1.
Film production

“We came to Mexico and never left,” says Austrian Alexandra Ruths Braas, explaining how she ended up in the country alongside her business partner, Paul Krauskopf Romero, a German of Mexican heritage. The pair arrived in 2014 with a grant to make documentaries. More than 10 years later, Ruths Braas is still here, while Krauskopf Romero helms the Munich outpost of their company, Romero & Braas, which facilitates international film productions in Mexico, as well as making original content. “We help productions feel at home away from home,” says Ruths Braas. That means everything from location scouting to dealing with permits and sourcing technical providers. “There are people in Mexico who are used to an American way of working,” says Ruths Braas. “There’s amazing talent here.”

Netflix recently announced an investment of more than $1bn (€850m) in Mexican films and TV series over the next four years. The deal cements the country’s status as a rising filmmaking nation, which can only bode well for the likes of Romero & Braas. “There has been more growth in the past four years than in the past 15 or 20,” says Ruths Braas.
romeroandbraas.com

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2.
Graphic design

Mexico City-based studio owner Adolfo López-Serrano didn’t set out to build his own studio. What began as a solo consultancy evolved into Base Agency in 2018, which today works with brands such as Revolve and Wix. Base is one of many Mexican firms helping to redefine where the world turns to for design. “We have a dynamic creative ecosystem here and great talent,” says López-Serrano. As a bonus, operating costs are relatively low.

By the end of 2024, Mexico was home to more than 60,000 graphic designers. UK-born Andy Butler is the founder of Deduce Design, a Mexico City-based practice that has worked with everyone from Nike to Grupo Habita, the country’s leading hotelier. International perceptions, he says, are rapidly shifting. “Mexican designers are being sought out not just for value but for their creative vision.”

While Mexico City leads when it comes to the concentration of designers, some of the strongest work is coming from unexpected places, such as Cocay Branding in Quintana Roo and Prizma Studio in Sinaloa. Walk through any Mexican city and you’ll see the fruits of the nation’s design scene all around you – in street signs, protest posters and hand-drawn menus. This colourful visual culture is making Mexico a magnet for creative talent.

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3.
Hospitality

Mexico’s F&B sector is expected to grow by 6 per cent in 2025, buoyed by a rise in food tourism (which received a boost when Michelin launched its first guide to Mexico City in 2024). Opportunities abound for those trying something new. Take the capital’s Baldío, the nation’s first zero-waste restaurant and one of eight places in the city to have been awarded a green star by Michelin. 

There are new openings across the country: in Mexico City, Masala y Maíz has a smart take on fusion, combining Mexican, African and Indian cuisines. In Guadalajara, Xokol has embraced the communal-table experience, while Mesa Temporal in Oaxaca offers a walking dinner in which patrons eat in different rooms, exploring specific ingredients in each. These risk takers are taking the country’s hospitality scene in fresh directions.

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4.
Department stores

While US department stores such as Macy’s have been struggling, the picture couldn’t be rosier south of the border. Leading the pack is El Palacio de Hierro (The Iron Palace), a luxury player that has bet big on Latin American shoppers’ love of experiential shops, while also snapping up exclusive distribution deals with brands such as Loewe and Hermès. Last year its net profits were up by 23 per cent on 2023. How does it do it? First, it doesn’t skimp on costs. In 2015, for example, it spent almost $300m (€259m) on refurbishing its pyramid-like flagship in Mexico City. Second, it continues to branch out into new markets, with the most recent being in León in 2024.

El Palacio de Hierro isn’t the only department store that is demonstrating that multi-brand, in-person retail is a growth sector in Mexico. Take Liverpool, a group that dates back 175 years and operates 345 outposts across the country. Alongside a recently acquired 49.9 per cent stake in the US’s Nordstrom, it plans to open about 30 new shops in Mexico this year, many of which will be its smaller-format Liverpool Express stores. Meanwhile, another retailer, Coppel, has announced a $4.2bn (€ 3.6bn) investment in e-commerce and new shops. The skies are bright for Mexico’s department stores.
liverpool.com.mx; elpalaciodehierro.com

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Images: Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg/Alamy Stock Photo, Anna Pla-Narbona, Alejandro Ramirez, Alejandra Velazquez

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Read more from Monocle’s 2025 Mexico Survey:

• Three game-changing developments about to transform Mexico City
  
• Entrepreneurs to watch: the forward-thinkers making new paths in Mexican industries
  
• Eight ideas for Mexican businesses that are ripe for the taking
  
• Meet the self-starters behind the clever hospitality boom in Oaxaca City
  
• The entrepreneurial trailblazers revitalising Guadalajara’s art scene
  
• Oaxaca Aerospace’s Mexican-built plane has beaten the odds and is ready for takeoff

Mexico City is buzzing with energy, fuelled by a population that, over the past five years, has grown by about 700,000 to reach 22.5 million. Tourism is booming too, surpassing pre-pandemic peaks. This surge in residents and visitors has sent demand for housing, office space, restaurants and retail into overdrive, keeping developers and architects on their toes. Here we highlight three entrepreneurs who are doing things a little differently.

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1.
Best for: The high life
Meir Lobatón Corona

Glance at Mexico City’s skyline and you’ll see clusters of reflective buildings. “They don’t make sense in this temperature,” says architect and developer Meir Lobatón Corona. Mirrored buildings might work in cities such as New York but not here, where the temperature is relatively mild.

Monocle is visiting Torre Gutenberg, a recently completed 13-floor office tower in Anzures, two blocks away from Chapultepec Park, designed as a flexible structure. When tenants take occupancy of a floor, they move into a cement-and-glass shell that’s designed to be transformed over time and can be repurposed as an apartment or hotel room. “We thought, ‘Since we’re going to build it, let’s make it last’,” says Lobatón Corona. “The only way to do this was by building it as a structure, not as an office tower.”

From inside Torre Gutenberg, where the look is softened by travertine floors and oak panels, you can see the entire city unfolding before you. “It’s completely transparent,” says Lobatón Corona. Unlike many contemporary office towers, these spaces aren’t temperature-controlled grey boxes. Every floor has a large balcony with big glass doors and windows that allow air and light to flood in.

Torre Gutenberg is a well-ventilated, bright space that will hopefully be as relevant in 50 years’ time as it is today. “We’re starting to understand that we don’t have to innovate just for the sake of doing something new,” says its designer.

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2.
Best for: Rethinking the office
Andrés Martínez, Iterativa

When Andrés Martínez, a co-founder of Iterativa, discovered an office building on Reforma Avenue that had stood empty during the pandemic, he decided to bring it back to life. Iterativa partnered with an investment fund, which took over the lease, and then set about redeveloping it. Today it houses offices and a restaurant and nightclub, as well as co-working space Público.

Iterativa doesn’t completely own the buildings that it works on. “We find the opportunity, execute the project and operate it,” says Martínez. Alongside co-working spaces, the company is rolling out hotels and serviced apartments to meet the demand for housing and accommodation in Mexico City. When Monocle meets him in the Reforma 333 building, he shows us around the businesses that now occupy the former office block.

Público, which has big grey couches and glass windows that look out at the city’s Angel of Independence, was designed to be a hub where creatives could collaborate. “Instead of following the WeWork recipe of creating a huge common area and little spaces, we spread out the communal areas in different parts of the building,” says Martínez. Despite it being a towering office block, he was adamant about giving it personality. “We wanted to design the building [like a] house, to create something much more natural where people can meet.”

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3.
Best for: Adaptive reuse
Rodrigo Rivero Borrell, Reurbano

Developer Reurbano has a well-earned reputation for breathing new life into Mexico City’s historic buildings through adaptive reuse and urban regeneration. And in a city that’s peppered with architectural gems awaiting restoration, there has been no shortage of structures for the firm to work with.

When Monocle meets Rodrigo Rivero Borrell, founder and CEO of Reurbano, on the edge of the leafy Condesa neighbourhood, he whizzes us around the ground level of Zamora 15, a mixed-use space that, when completed, will also have 20 apartments. When he purchased the 80-year-old buildings in 2014, they had been abandoned for more than 25 years. Today Zamora 15 houses not only his brick-clad office but also an array of tenants who are all young entrepreneurs.

For Rivero Borrell, the choice of renters is integral. If there isn’t enough variety, “you lose a lot of the value,” he says. At a building that he developed in Roma, Reurbano welcomed tenants such as Eno, a restaurant chain popular with local residents, but also kept a grocer who had been in the building for years.

“The grocer is very important to the community,” says Rivero Borrell. “When you see what these people who belong to a community contribute to their area, you realise just how much good you can do by keeping them there.”

And while fostering a sense of locality and belonging is good for residents, the grocer’s presence also makes sense financially. “You cannot imagine how much a well-selected commercial space on the ground floor increases the value of the properties,” says Rivero Borrell.

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Read more from Monocle’s 2025 Mexico Survey:

• Inside Mexico’s creative gold rush: four high-growth industries to watch
  
• Entrepreneurs to watch: the forward-thinkers making new paths in Mexican industries
  
• Eight ideas for Mexican businesses that are ripe for the taking
  
• Meet the self-starters behind the clever hospitality boom in Oaxaca City
  
• The entrepreneurial trailblazers revitalising Guadalajara’s art scene
  
• Oaxaca Aerospace’s Mexican-built plane has beaten the odds and is ready for takeoff

1.
Roberto Rocha and Germán Losada
Co-founders,Vemo, Mexico City

“The first time that we met one of our investors, he said, ‘You either have the best electric-mobility model that I have ever seen or you’re totally crazy,” says Roberto Rocha, Vemo’s co-founder and CEO, sitting in a ninth-floor office in Mexico City’s Polanco neighbourhood. If the past few years are anything to go by – Vemo recently raised $63m (€56m) for further expansion – it’s safe to say that the company falls into the former category. “We have proven that we have the winning formula for a market such as Mexico,” says Rocha.

Opposite him sits Germán Losada, his Argentine co-founder and chairman. The former investment bankers founded their mobility start-up in 2021. Noticing that the take-up of electric vehicles (EVs) in Mexico was low, they hit upon their clean-mobility idea. A core part of their business is an EV lease-to-buy programme called Vemo Impulso for ride-hailing drivers who can’t afford to buy cars right away. “We provide leasing to people who are typically not taken care of by the traditional banks because they don’t have good credit histories,” says Rocha.

Vemo, which partners with ride-hailing platforms Didi and Uber, has had to create both the supply and the demand, since little infrastructure existed before its arrival. It has been developing an extensive EV-charging network across the country and paying 1,600 ride-hailing drivers fixed salaries to work two shifts per day in its cars through its Vemo Conduce arm. “In the absence of [state] subsidies, for the economics to work, we required significant utilisation,” says Losada. A third string in Vemo’s bow is operating EV fleets for businesses.

Vemo’s lease-to-own venture is now operating in five Mexican cities, while the rest of the business also expands. “Today we have the country’s largest public charging network,” says Losada. “And in terms of charging sessions, we’re the largest in Latin America.” Mexican sales of fully electric vehicles in the first four months of 2025 almost tripled year on year and Vemo sees opportunities in other Latin American nations. “We have a unique business model that’s proven to work,” says Losada.
vemovilidad.com

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2.
Adrián Marfil and Juan Manuel García
Co-founders, Los Patrones, Monterrey

Furniture brand Los Patrones has been tapping the domestic market for what it does best: metal. Founded in 2015 by Adrián Marfil and Juan Manuel García, it is continually evolving. In 2021, for example, the company took control of its production process. Los Patrones has become a benchmark for metal-furniture excellence in Mexico and is eyeing expansion both at home and abroad.

Monterrey is an industrial city. How did you harness its manufacturing side?
Adrián Marfil: Most of the materials that we use are metal, which is produced here. We have taken advantage of our geographical situation.

How did you end up taking over your factory?
Juan Manuel García: At the beginning, our provider was my father’s company. In that post-pandemic period of sluggishness, he suggested that we absorb it, along with all of the employees.

How are you evolving?
AM: We’re developing stainless steel for gardens and swimming pools, which would allow us to work better with hotels and other big projects. Then we want to look at e-commerce and retail sales.

Do you see yourselves as entrepreneurs?
JMG: We saw an opportunity and we took it – the perfect definition of entrepreneurship. The factory is part of the muscle but the heart and soul of the brand is the design.
lospatrones.mx

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3.
Maye Ruiz
Founder, Maye, San Miguel de Allende

When interior designer Maye Ruiz moved from Mexico City to the town of San Miguel de Allende in her home state of Guanajuato, she was initially concerned that being away from the epicentre of art and design would hinder her career. But the move – which was prompted by her desire to be with her husband, Daniel Valero, the founder of artisan-focused studio Mestiz – gave her the chance to get out of the CDMX bubble. “It is really refreshing,” she says.

In 2021, Ruiz established design studio Maye, which unabashedly embraces bold colours. “What matters most is working with people who bring a unique sensitivity and a strong creative drive,” she says. Her workplace, on a cobbled street near the centre of town, exemplifies her distinctive style. Visitors enter through a primary-blue steel door into a tranquil courtyard, where windows are framed in the same vivid hue. The bathroom and kitchen, meanwhile, are lined with ruby-red tiles.

“My style works really well in San Miguel de Allende,” says Ruiz. Many of her clients own multiple residences worldwide, which makes them more adventurous in their design choices. “They’re bold about colour here,” says Ruiz. Because the city is famously vibrant, with streets fringed with houses in shades of peach and pink, it’s easy to break away from beige.

Beyond residential projects, Ruiz has ventured into commercial design. Notably, she collaborated with her husband on the restaurant at Casa Arca hotel in San Miguel de Allende. Located in the historic Casa Cohen, it features Ruiz’s playful décor, including large woven lampshades.

Having firmly established herself in the city, Ruiz now aims to grow and diversify her business beyond Mexico and expand into product development. “We are always looking to partner with people and brands that share our vision and push us creatively,” she says. But she has no intention of straying from her new base. “Mexico City is such a vibrant city with so many things to do but it can also be really distracting,” she says. Being in San Miguel de Allende presents a unique opportunity to grow her practice. “It’s a place where you can focus on your business.”
maye.mx

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4.
Luis González and Ana Holschneider
Founders, Cervecería Hercules and Caralarga, Querétaro

“I’m restless and have my own ideas,” says Luis González, the co-founder of Hércules brewery, a glass of sour beer in hand. His wife, Ana Holschneider, who is sitting beside him at a beer-garden table in Santiago de Querétaro, agrees. “He’s always talking about the next project,” she says. González and Holschneider, who met in Mexico City and have four children, are entrepreneurs in every sense – even though Holschneider says that they established their careers “without knowing it” and González confesses that he has never put together a business plan. It all started 14 years ago when, after a stint in Hong Kong, the couple moved to Santiago de Querétaro to take over part of a half-abandoned textile factory that belonged to González’s family. 

Eyeing the beautiful factory buildings dating back to 1846 – as well as the grand hacienda attached to it – González saw potential and undertook an impressive renovation project with his twin brother, Carlos. The first step was to establish Cervecería Hércules, an independent craft brewery in a country dominated by big groups. “We saw the chance to make a quality beer in Mexico with profound brewing values,” he says. 

In step with González, Holschneider started a design studio called Caralarga, influenced
by pre-Hispanic Mexico. Having previously experimented with silk and pearls, she hit upon the idea of using the threads from the Querétaro textile factory. “I walked around the factory and saw the leftovers, which looked like queso Oaxaca [a stringy cheese],” she says. “I said, ‘If we can make jewellery from this thread, it will be spectacular.’”

The couple have come a long way. Caralarga, which employs 50 people, has moved into making large wall-hangings for collectors and interior designers across the globe. Cervecería Hércules, meanwhile, has invested in expanding its capacity. Alongside the two brewery bars – and organising concerts, film screenings and dance classes at the Hércules site – it has opened a beer hall in Santiago de Querétaro, as well as a restaurant and a shop in Mexico City. “We don’t want to open something just to open it,” say González.

The latest piece of the puzzle has been Hotel Hércules, which launched in July 2023 in the former hacienda. It has 40 rooms with a mid-century aesthetic and wall hangings from Caralarga. Holschneider and González aren’t finished yet. “I never thought that all of this would happen to me,” says Holschneider.
almacenhercules.mx; caralarga.com.mx

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Five more entrepreneurs to watch

1. Juan José Gutiérrez
CEO, Jelp Delivery, Tijuana: Logistics solutions software for last-mile delivery.

2. Montserrat Messeguer
CEO, Montserrat Messeguer, Mexico City: Making boots inspired by the north of Mexico since 2017.

3. Mario Ballesteros
Founder, Ballista, San Miguel de Allende: Curator and former magazine editor Ballesteros runs a platform for art and homeware.

4. José García Torres
Investor, Mérida: The gallerist is an investor in Mérida ventures Salón Gallos and Pizza Neo.

5. Laura Noriega
Founder, Tributo, Guadalajara: Design company from Jalisco’s capital that uses artisans from across the country.

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Read more from Monocle’s 2025 Mexico Survey:

• Inside Mexico’s creative gold rush: four high-growth industries to watch
  
• Three game-changing developments about to transform Mexico City
  
• Eight ideas for Mexican businesses that are ripe for the taking
  
• Meet the self-starters behind the clever hospitality boom in Oaxaca City
  
• The entrepreneurial trailblazers revitalising Guadalajara’s art scene
  
• Oaxaca Aerospace’s Mexican-built plane has beaten the odds and is ready for takeoff

As Latin America’s second-largest economy, Mexico has the expertise, population and market conditions to help your next venture succeed. We highlight some areas that are wide open for business.

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5.
Cosmetics: Make-up
A new face in the beauty world

As consumer spending rises, the beauty market is poised and ready. Native brands, such as Xinú perfumery, have distinguished themselves by creating distinctive bricks-and-mortar experiences. But there’s an opening for other Mexican brands nationally, in the rest of North America and beyond. With readily available natural ingredients, such as prickly pear, cactus, tepezcohuite and blue agave, the stage is set for glowing success.

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8.
Defence: Arms and aerospace
A regional security champion

Mexico’s defence sector has the potential to boom, given its proximity to the vast US market. The Mexican government clearly feels the same – earlier this year the country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, opened the sixth edition of the capital’s aerospace fair, Famex. The fledgling Latin American and Caribbean Space Agency is based in the country too. The government is looking to push technological independence and develop “Made in Mexico” through its Plan México, including funding a range of smes. There is room for companies to make everything from whole planes to components, given that areas such as turbine production are growing. New players shouldn’t look to compete with the likes of the US, UK, Israel, Germany or Japan. Nascent plane maker Oaxaca Aerospace knows that well. Instead, they should focus on offering competitive prices that developing countries might be interested in.

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Read more from Monocle’s 2025 Mexico Survey:

• Inside Mexico’s creative gold rush: four high-growth industries to watch
  
• Three game-changing developments about to transform Mexico City
  
• Entrepreneurs to watch: the forward-thinkers making new paths in Mexican industries
  
• Meet the self-starters behind the clever hospitality boom in Oaxaca City
  
• The entrepreneurial trailblazers revitalising Guadalajara’s art scene
  
• Oaxaca Aerospace’s Mexican-built plane has beaten the odds and is ready for takeoff

It’s a sunny morning in central Oaxaca City and the communal table at Bodaega bakery is buzzing with customers tearing into pastries. One popular variety is a take on a Danish treat called a spandauer, adapted for its warm setting with a mango-and-passion-fruit-custard filling. This mix of Nordic and Mexican flavours makes for a pleasant surprise.

With a modest population of 715,000 people, Oaxaca City is a place where time seems to move slowly: church bells clang gently amid plazas and streets lined with old buildings. A big part of its allure is this sleepy charm and many businesses embrace it. But things are changing. In the past five years, more than 17,000 people have moved here from the US and there has been a 77 per cent jump in tourism. Hospitality entrepreneurs are catching on, opening new hotels, cafés and restaurants that combine the city’s heritage with fresh ideas.

Bodaega’s co-owner Rafael Andrés Villalobos Valderrama, who opened the café with his Danish partner, Catherine Schmidt, hadn’t intended to launch a business when he returned to his home city. The couple met in Copenhagen while Villalobos Valderrama was working at Sanchez restaurant and doing an apprenticeship at Meyers Bageri, a popular bakery chain. After moving they noticed an increase in visitors, as well as a growing appetite for international delicacies. The couple opened Bodaega three years ago. “We ‘Mexicanise’ Danish pastries,” says Villalobos Valderrama. “We take guava or passion fruit and use it in a way that makes sense for local people.” An influx of customers from abroad has also meant that they could cater to a more diverse crowd than just a few years ago.

In 2023, Mexico’s Grupo Habita unveiled Otro Oaxaca, a 16-key hotel opposite the Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán. Designed by local firm Root Studio, its interiors feature furniture by the region’s artisans, reclaimed wood and natural materials such as red soil. This mix of old and new reflects a broader shift in Oaxaca, where entrepreneurs are expanding their footprints while taking pains to maintain the city’s cultural fabric.

When Juan Pablo Hernández moved to Oaxaca from the north of the country and opened Boulenc in 2013, he couldn’t have imagined that it would evolve into the multifaceted enterprise it is today. What began as a market stall selling sourdough bread has transformed into a diverse business encompassing a bakery, a café, a shop and two hotels. “We were investing and growing organically,” says Hernández, who expanded when more buildings on the street became available. “When you want to open a business here, there’s a social aspect you have to address,” he says, adding that he works with artisans whenever possible and sources his ingredients as locally as possible, including wheat from a nearby farm.

“The old culture here is so deep and profound,” says restaurateur Enrique Olvera, who co-founded Criollo in the centre of the city. “You need to spend time here to realise that time works differently. Hospitality is part of our DNA.” Olvera owns a string of restaurants including Pujol in Mexico City. When he opened Criollo in Oaxaca City with chef Luis Arellano almost 10 years ago, the goal was to create an experience that felt like dining in someone’s home. “What I enjoy most is going to someone’s house,” he says. “Mexican food, particularly what we eat in Oaxaca, is hard to translate to restaurants.”

This approach is evident in Criollo’s design. Guests enter through a door next to the kitchen and an open comal (a traditional flat griddle), on which tortillas are fired. They dine in an open-air pebbled courtyard that is reminiscent of a family gathering space, with chickens wandering around the tables. Olvera has also opened Casa Criollo, a two-bedroom guesthouse. Initially intended as his personal retreat during visits to Oaxaca City, the property is now available to visitors. Ironically, it’s often booked out when he’s back in town.

Dominican-born designer Javier Reyes is the founder of Rrres, a design studio that works with artisans in rural areas to develop colourful geometric rugs, throws and baskets. Last year he and his partner, Lillian Hardy, expanded by opening Landdd, a workshop space in Portland, Oregon. Reyes has grown the business in Oaxaca City too, launching a one-room guesthouse that features Rrres products. “We try to incorporate our design and vision,” he says. The guesthouse, which looks onto a small cactus-filled garden, has a sunny yellow kitchenette and is dressed with bright throws and geometric rugs. “We think of it as our studio guesthouse,” says Reyes.

On the outskirts of the city, about a 40-minute drive from the centre, is Alfonsina, a restaurant that is committed to blending tradition with innovation. It was opened by Jorge León and his mother, Doña Elvia, who can sometimes be seen pressing tortillas and cooking them on the comal. The tables in its peaceful courtyard are set under trees. From the open kitchen, homely dishes such as tamales and flame-grilled fish with mole and rice are prepared as part of a five-course menu.

The restaurant is committed to the use of locally sourced seasonal ingredients, as well as to sustainable practices such as rainwater harvesting to address the region’s water scarcity. León, who previously worked at Grupo Olvera’s Pujol in Mexico City and Cosme in New York, wants to find ecological solutions for his home city. “The restaurant industry can raise awareness and positively impact the environment,” he says. Most recently, Alfonsina launched a programme training fishermen in eco-friendly practices and supplying establishments in Oaxaca City and Mexico City.

Crudo is another good example of an entrepreneur embracing both traditional and modern sensibilities. After working in the US and Mexico City, Oaxacan-born chef Ricardo Arellano returned home five years ago to open an omakase restaurant that serves Japanese-style bites made from local ingredients. Noticing diners flooding in from the US and Canada, he saw an opportunity to expand and has since opened three bars and one more omakase counter. At the casual à la carte bar, diners are seated on wooden chairs along a narrow counter where they sip mezcal (the state’s drink of choice) and whisky cocktails flavoured with corn. They eat sashimi with pickled jícama instead of ginger. “You meet people from all over the world here,” says Arellano.

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Read more from Monocle’s 2025 Mexico Survey:

• Inside Mexico’s creative gold rush: four high-growth industries to watch
  
• Three game-changing developments about to transform Mexico City
  
• Entrepreneurs to watch: the forward-thinkers making new paths in Mexican industries
  
• Eight ideas for Mexican businesses that are ripe for the taking
  
• The entrepreneurial trailblazers revitalising Guadalajara’s art scene
  
• Oaxaca Aerospace’s Mexican-built plane has beaten the odds and is ready for takeoff

José Noé Suro isn’t one to rest on his laurels. The lawyer-turned-arts entrepreneur is responsible for almost single-handedly transforming Guadalajara, Mexico’s second city, into an international arts hub – but he isn’t finished yet. Last year, Suro and collector Nidia Elorriaga opened Plataforma, a beautifully restored art space in Guadalajara’s Colonia Americana district that transcends the building’s gloomy origins as a funeral home. The project was conceived as a launchpad for emerging talent, with the gallery dedicating an entire floor to residency studios for new talent. “It’s my gift to the city,” says Suro.

On paper, the capital of Jalisco state has long had all of the ingredients for artistic success. It is graced with a wealth of beautiful modernist buildings, the legacy of architect Luis Barragán, who was born here; rents are more affordable than in the capital with ample studio space available; and the landscape has an abundance of natural materials including clay, wood and agave. A manufacturing hub for electronics and technology, Guadalajara has developed a small but dedicated local collector base. It wasn’t until Suro took an interest, however, that the scene took shape.

An art lover with a sizeable private collection, Suro joined his family ceramics business, Cerámica Suro, in 1993. The firm, whose history dates back more than 70 years, found a second wind under his stewardship, ramping up its production facilities to create dinnerware for hotels, as well as kitting out restaurants by Mexican super-chef Enrique Olvera and Noma’s René Redzepi in Copenhagen. Meanwhile, commissions for tiles have come from as far afield as French brand Hermès and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. A household name in his native city, Suro was resolute that Cerámica Suro needed to be more than just profitable it would serve as a catalyst for a broader arts ecosystem too.

“People don’t come to Guadalajara to see a Tracey Emin show,” he says, guiding monocle around the airy modernist premises of Plataforma. “They come to see art made here.” Funded by the largest pharmaceutical company in Latin America, the space is proof that Suro’s dedication to promoting domestic art over the past three decades is coming to fruition. 

Other local entrepreneurs are capitalising on the attention Suro has brought to Guadalajara. Apto Galería, which opened in 2023, is housed in a former textiles factory in one of the city’s oldest neighbourhoods. 

“Nurturing long-term relationships with artists, collectors, institutions and the public is as important for the lifespan of our gallery as funding,” says co-founder, Florencia Pardo. “We collaborate with artists who might not yet have gallery representation.” 

Apto Galería aims to make Mexican contemporary art more visible internationally, while helping it to remain rooted in the identity of its home country. It has so far worked with more than 50 multidisciplinary artists, both Mexican and international, who have offered interpretations of Guadalajara through painting, sculpture and drawing.

Independent arts space Espacio Cabeza and Guadalajara 90210 – which presents work in unlikely locations, from rooftops to construction sites – are invested in making the city a vital node on the international art map. “There’s no point waiting for public institutions to step in,” says Marco Valtierra, Espacio Cabeza’s artistic director, as he gives Monocle a tour of the space, a former 1930s residence, where their Lo Visible show included a room filled with smoke and flickering light bulbs. “We’re interested in breaking with convention. It’s easier to experiment with perceptions of what art is in Guadalajara because the stakes are lower,” says Valtierra. 

From the outset, Suro was intent on nurturing artistic talent in the city and has hosted a residency programme in the premises of Cerámica Suro for the past 25 years. It has supported more than 600 artists specialising in ceramics, metalwork and glasswork. (Alumni include Canadian Marcel Dzama, Cuban-American sculptor Jorge Pardo and US painter Jeffrey Gibson.) Cerámica Suro generously sponsors them, providing them with materials and a space in which to work. 

“In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, artists left this city as soon as they could,” says Suro. “Now they see it as a strategic advantage to return.” The enterprise is mutually beneficial. When alumni return home, they take Suro’s name – and brand Guadalajara – with them overseas.

To retain visiting international talent, Suro, with his artist friends, established Premaco art fair (now known as GDL Art WKND) in 2019. It is positioned as the warm-up act to Zonamaco, Latin America’s leading contemporary art fair, held in Mexico City (CDMX) since 2002. Suro’s factory – and latterly Plataforma – opens for four days a year when international artists and buyers are already in the region, maximising spending potential. 

Guadalajara is proof that persistence and entrepreneurship can create a scene from scratch. It’s also a case study for ambitious stakeholders wanting to test a new market. Following Suro’s advice, Madrid-based gallerists Silvia Ortiz and Inés López-Quesada of commercial space Travesía Cuatro opened a contemporary-art outpost in Guadalajara in 2013, then another in CDMX six years later. Suro also persuaded a friend to lease the Arabic-style 1929 Casa Franco to Travesía Cuatro, giving it a Guadalajara landmark from which to operate. “Because of Suro, art is no longer centralised in Mexico’s capital,” says Ortiz, who regularly travels to Art Basel, Frieze Seoul and Arco Lisboa to discover new work and bring it back to Guadalajara.

No longer a creative underdog, the city’s art scene has quietly proved itself as distinct from that of CDMX. At its core, Guadalajara has a dogged entrepreneurial spirit and a cadre of artists and galleries supported by collections, fairs, collaborations and commissions. 

City Hall is starting to wake up to the area’s art potential. “With Suro’s help, I want to make Guadalajara into a global reference point for art,” says the city’s mayor, Verónica Delgadillo García, who joins us at a popular cantina called De La O. “We’re in a position to make art accessible to everyone,” says Suro. “And we will never take that for granted.”

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Read more from Monocle’s 2025 Mexico Survey:

• Inside Mexico’s creative gold rush: four high-growth industries to watch
  
• Three game-changing developments about to transform Mexico City
  
• Entrepreneurs to watch: the forward-thinkers making new paths in Mexican industries
  
• Eight ideas for Mexican businesses that are ripe for the taking
  
• Meet the self-starters behind the clever hospitality boom in Oaxaca City
  
• Oaxaca Aerospace’s Mexican-built plane has beaten the odds and is ready for takeoff

Based between the Mexican capital and Oaxaca City, the Fernández clan – best known for transportation business Traylfer – is developing and building a “Made in Mexico” aircraft in a country not well known for its plane-making prowess. The family’s Oaxaca Aerospace has built a series of prototypes for its diminutive Pegasus jet, with its distinctive “canard” formation (small wings at the front) and large ducted propeller at the back. The impressive PE-210A was followed by this year’s P-400T, unveiled at the Famex aerospace fair in Mexico City.

Rodrigo Fernández is the family business’s second-generation leader. The general manager says that Oaxaca Aerospace, which foresees military and civilian applications for its planes, is now ready for takeoff. The next step is to conduct further flight testing, with the goal of eventually converting the family factory that lies about a 20-minute drive from Oaxaca City into a production line for a full-fledged international plane developer.

How did Oaxaca Aerospace come about?
We’re a family business and my father is its president. For many years we specialised in fabricating trailers for transporting cargo. We have been making them for 40 years. My father has always loved aviation and has been up in those small, stripped-back Cessna planes that don’t have much technology. At some point, he wondered, “Why can’t we make a plane like this in Mexico?” and decided to do it. He began gathering together engineers and then we made our first drawings – that was in 2011. We had our first prototype by 2015 and began testing.

Was it difficult to develop and build an aeroplane in Mexico?
Yes, because there isn’t much of an industry here when it comes to making aircraft. Mexico has focused on the maintenance and manufacturing of parts, rather than on the design side. So it has been hard to find experts in aeronautics. We had to look overseas to universities and to retired people to help us keep the project moving forward. We do our wind-tunnel testing in Madrid, for example.

Have you identified a market for the Pegasus?
Our market is principally made up of emerging countries. We’re not about to take on advanced countries that have aircraft that are much more complex and sophisticated. Our proposal is more about military observation and safety missions, pilot training and things like these. There are a lot of countries in Latin America, as well as in Asia and elsewhere, that require this type of aircraft for these types of missions. If we can build a plane that has a low cost for maintenance and operation, it will be very attractive.

How far are you planning to go?
The dream is to eventually sell our planes across the globe and for the company to grow. We would also like to sell executive planes, such as a seven-seater.
aeronavespegasus.com

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Read more from Monocle’s 2025 Mexico Survey:

• Inside Mexico’s creative gold rush: four high-growth industries to watch
  
• Three game-changing developments about to transform Mexico City
  
• Entrepreneurs to watch: the forward-thinkers making new paths in Mexican industries
  
• Eight ideas for Mexican businesses that are ripe for the taking
  
• Meet the self-starters behind the clever hospitality boom in Oaxaca City
  
• The entrepreneurial trailblazers revitalising Guadalajara’s art scene