In 1926, just over 20 years after the founding of the Colonia Roma as a Parisian-style enclave for Mexico City’s wealthiest families, the doors opened to the neighborhood’s first market, called el Pasaje Comercial Parián. The space took its name from the long-demolished Mercado Parián, which occupied the city’s central plaza from 1703 to 1843 and sold, among other goods, luxury products imported from Asia by Spain’s legendary Manila galleons. The grandiose name matched El Parián’s flamboyantly eclectic facade—crusted with limestone garlands, heraldic shields, and Art Nouveau mascarons—if not the modest ambitions of the shops inside, which sold fruit, fish, and cold cuts to local families. Set on one of La Roma’s most important thoroughfares, El Parián became emblematic of the neighborhood, reflecting its gracious origins, its decades of decline in the second half of the 20th century and, most recently, its emergence as a port of call for a transient international population flocking to the Mexican capital.