Circulo Mexicano

Manuel Álvarez Bravo was born at República de Guatemala 20 in 1902, and he is back on its walls: Grupo Habita made the building a hotel in 2020 and hung his photographs in it. From the street it is white, with rust-red cornices over the windows and wrought-iron balconies under them. Inside, Ambrosi Etchegaray let the old structure show. A black iron staircase zigzags up the courtyard past bare brick and rough dark stone, crumbling in places and left that way, and the 25 rooms sit round it on the second and third floors, most looking in rather than out. They follow the Shakers: linen with the seams left showing, a peg rail holding a round mirror, and in some a barrel vault of red tile overhead. A Shaker would have found the decoration about right. The photographs are the exception, and they have the better claim to be here.

Recommended for a couple who want to sleep in the old centre rather than come in to it each morning from Roma or Condesa. No room takes more than two, which answers the family question before it is asked. The cathedral is a minute from the door and the Zócalo three; the Palacio de Bellas Artes, thirteen minutes on foot, counts as a long walk from here. The ground floor opens to the street as a small market, barbershop included. On the roof, beside the pool and its bar, the restaurant runs as a rotating pop-up, last heard of as Comedor Mexicano under Enid Vélez. The view guests praise from the pool runs over the cathedral's domes to the ruins of the Templo Mayor, and from up there a building of the 1800s is one of the younger things in sight.