I didn’t get to say a proper goodbye to Houston. After five years writing about the Texas city’s excellent food, I left at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. My final meals in the place I’d grown to love came in takeout containers. Fajitas from El Tempo Cantina just weren’t the same without their trademark sizzle. The Tex-Mex cuisine that I encountered in my new home of NoVA didn’t live up to my already rock-bottom expectations. Until now.
That sizzle? It’s alive and well at Ometeo, the latest restaurant from Long Shot Hospitality, known in Northern Virginia for The Salt Line in Ballston, always my first recommendation for seafood lovers in the region. The new concept is a collaboration between the Long Shot team and Gabe Erales, the controversial Austin, Texas-based winner of the 21st season of Top Chef.
Long Shot partner Jeremy Carman says that a chef-driven Tex-Mex restaurant was at the top of his list when discussing the next expansion for the company, which also owns Dauphine’s in DC and two other Salt Line locations, and manages The Lost Fox in Ashburn’s One Loudoun. Erales collaborated with Long Shot chef-partner Kyle Bailey to create a menu that will satisfy diners’ itch for queso and fish tacos but looks toward Mexico and Erales’ upbringing in El Paso for inspiration. Daily, the kitchen is led by executive chef Manuel Pérez Hernandez, previously of José Andrés’ Oyamel Cocina Mexicana, but Bailey, culinary director Brenton Balika, and Erales are frequent presences as well. “It’s a dream team,” says Carman.
Erales’ take on Tex-Mex dips into Mexican dishes and refines basics, but he claims his whimsical way with classics is as much a part of the cuisine’s tradition as chips and salsa. “The lines of Tex-Mex have been blurred for so long,” says Erales. “Growing up in Texas and seeing what people consider Tex-Mex, you go to some Tex-Mex restaurants and you see a lot of regional Mexican dishes, and then others you see only northern Mexican food; and others you see the influences of barbecue and central Texas and what I like to call like campfire cooking.”
For example, the fajitas at Ometeo, from classic beef to pork, chicken, or seafood, are all available “con todo” (with everything). The upgraded versions are served over a raised flame, which Carman says was inspired by The Salt Line’s seafood towers on risers. There’s a $90, salsafied version of the seafood tower at Ometeo, too, but the most impressive experience at the restaurant is ordering the $78 fajitas de res con todo.
The basic marinated skirt steak that gives the dish its name is joined on the sizzling platter by caramelized onions, nopales, and queso asadero that melts and crisps at the table. But that’s not all. Pink-centered New York strip and a grill-crisped bone-in short rib are also invited to the party. Spread a soft, warm tortilla, crafted in-house from either Sonoran wheat flour or heirloom corn, with the cheese, veggies, and blistered chiles and hot sauces that come with the meal, then add meat for an explosively seductive bite of beef. Even the sides, arroz verde made green with a collection of Mexican herbs and Serrano chiles, and richly larded refried beans that are topped with stretchy Oaxacan quesillo, are avatars of something that surpasses even the Tex-Mex one will find at most places in its motherland.
Erales’ creativity and sense of humor find their way onto practically every plate, but none more so than the quail milanesa, an early dish since edited to include duck breast instead. “One of the most Texas things you could have is chicken fried steak and gravy. What is our Tex-Mex version of that?” he remembers asking Bailey and Carman. His creation featured two partially deboned quails that were breaded and seasoned not unlike a CFS, as it’s known in Texas. And the gravy, now served with the duck, is liltingly spicy almond-based mole blanco — the first version of the rare-even-in-Oaxaca sauce that I’d seen in the United States. The dish was finished with a refreshing fennel slaw that further brings it into the fine dining conversation.
Fans of The Salt Line’s beloved stuffies, or baked clams, will want to start with the Tex-Mex version, the stuffie “tamal,” which surrounds quahog clams with heirloom corn, Manchego, and chorizo verde. Like much of the menu, the moreish bites lean far spicier than the Portuguese New England original, so be prepared for some heat, especially from the salsas that include brick-hued ranchera, dusky tatemada, and a zingy salsa verde cruda.
It’s best to order several dishes at Ometeo and share with one’s tablemates, but the tres leches cake is one thing a diner will want to hoard. It’s Balika, with his years of pastry experience, who is responsible for a chefed-up version of the moist cake that will likely attract a cult following of its own.
The flat slice features thin layers of sturdy pastry bound together with liberal strokes of white chocolate mousse. For fans of many-layered, pudding-filled Doberge cake, think of it as a Tex-Mex version with fewer layers. But it’s hard to see just how many layers there are beneath the pico de frutas, a smart sweet take on salsa composed of fresh, seasonal fruit.
Everything I put in my mouth at Ometeo, from the creamy, zippy guacamole to the tacos de costra, filled with shaved New York strip folded inside a Manchego crisp, made me want to eat it again as soon as possible. The only reason the restaurant didn’t receive a higher star rating was service that was still finding its feet. But I can tolerate a few errors in that department when I find myself no longer missing Houston dining so much.
Ometeo
Rating: ★★★★
See This: Your cowboy fantasies have gone upscale at this 12,000-square-foot, two-story behemoth. Look for craft touches, including a wall covered in leather belts and banquette cushions shined up with silver Lone Star buttons.
Eat This: Fajitas de res con todo, “stuffie” tamal, tres leches cake
Appetizers: $9–$90
Entrées: $14–$78
Dessert: $9–$16
Open daily for dinner.
1640 Capital One Dr. N., McLean, ometeotexmex.com
Feature image by Shannon Ayres
This story originally ran in our March issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
