Two more locations of Meso Maya have opened since 2011, and Sanchez has developed several other Mexican concepts for Firebird. The menu is packed with classics done expertly: Bistek Oaxaca, wood-fired and served with a corunda tamal, housemade crema Mexicana, queso fresh and roasted serrano salsa verde Carne Asada served with a sweet corn tamal, crema Mexicana, charred salsa, queso fresco, and black beans and Cochinita Pibil, braised with a tangy orange and achiote sauce. “But now we are known for that, so I keep bringing a little more, gradually adding more real Mexican items.” “Six years ago, bringing mole and cochinita pibil to Dallas was not easy, because people were not ready for that,” he says. Meso Maya opened to rave reviews from critics and customers like when it opened in August 2011-even though it was ahead of the curve in authenticity. His thorough server training has paid off: today’s Meso Maya customers can expect the attentiveness and passion found in professional servers at the best restaurants. “There was the perception that people shouldn’t expect good service from a Mexican restaurant, but in order to compete with the other restaurants in the city, you need the service,” Sanchez says. And he nixtamalizes and grinds the corn for his tortillas right in the restaurant, like many people do throughout Mexico.īut there was something else Sanchez wanted to add: top-quality service. He uses hickory to char tomatoes for salsa because that’s the way they did it when he was a kid. His carnitas recipe, for example, is from Michoacán, and his tamales are like those made in Guanajuato. He started working in a bakery at age 9 and later worked in kitchens throughout southern Mexico. Memories of Sanchez’s youth influenced his menu. “I worked on it there for three months to get feedback from him and his friends and family,” Sanchez remembers. Sanchez worked on Meso Maya’s menu in the home kitchen of Mike Karns, owner of Firebird Restaurant Group-the company that was developing Meso Maya. And we wanted to do it in a way that was approachable.”Īt that time, Sanchez notes, only a few such concepts existed in the Dallss/Ft. “I wanted to bring something to the community, and go back to my roots and remember everything I was eating with my mom and grandmom. Worth area,” says Sanchez, whose previous experience included stints at Dallas restaurants Cuba Libre, Hibiscus, and The Porch. “My main idea was to bring a regional Mexican food option to the Dallas/Ft. The average Dallas foodie’s understanding of regional Mexican cuisine was in its nascent stages when Nico Sanchez, a native of Guanajuato in central Mexico, began developing the menu for Meso Maya in 2011. Seven of those chefs are leading the restaurant scene in the “Big D” past its Tex-Mex tradition. But in the past decade, a cadre of chefs has introduced that city to a new level of Mexican cooking, including regional specialties, creative tacos and twists on tradition aimed to please millennials. Savory TexMex cooking-fajitas, burritos, chile con carne-was born in Texas and still pleases many palates in and around Dallas.
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