Crossing the border for margaritas at La Roca

There are many different reasons to like a bar. Because it does the best cocktails. Because it is the cheapest around. Or the most expensive. Because it’s a great place to meet people for sex. Because all your mates go there. Because it is ubertrendy.

The colorful, ornate, majolica-tiled, lushly colonnaded bar restaurant of La Roca, in Nogales, Mexico, isn’t really any of these things. And it certainly isn’t ultra-convenient: you must cross a border to get there from Nogales, Arizona. Why do this? Because some unique combination of architecture, clientele, burritos, good live music, fountains, palms, Modelo beers, margaritas, beautiful families, possible narcowives, a looming cliff behind (the place is built into the living rock, hence the name), all combine to make something special. And let’s face it, the mere fact it is on that liminal, edgy, Mexico-American borderland adds a definite frisson.

P.J. O’Rourke once described the deliciously dramatic sensation of crossing the Iron Curtain in Germany during the Cold War. The way he kept looking around, imagining himself, piquantly, in a spy thriller: “Hey, this is me, in East Berlin!” Well, stepping from slightly rundown, rather quiet American Nogales into Mexican Nogales offers a similar headrush.

When you come to La Roca, there is a lush, sunsplashed patio with a tinkling fountain. Greenery erupts. When you climb the stairs, surreal art hangs on bright blue and red walls. Antique brass chandeliers sway over busy waiters in proper white tuxedos.

This is the restaurant part of La Roca (part of it is actual caves in the cliff). The food is not sophisticated, but it is consistently excellent. Tostada ceviche, enchilada shrimp, succulent tacos, “sea cheese” (I still have no idea what this is). You will be surrounded by noisy Mexican middle classes, feasting and drinking, as musicians belt out everything from ancient ballads to spirited remakes of Jimmy Buffett.

You can also skip the food — though I advise against — and head straight for the bar, El Balcon. Yes, it is a sweet and pretty balcony. And it is a glorious place to sit on a long sunny afternoon and drink seventeen pitchers of margarita, between three. Or was it eighteen?

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s March 2023 World edition.