People plugged into the Twin Cities restaurant scene probably know the Oro origin story well but here’s a short version for the rest of you. Chef Gustavo Romero and his partner Kate Romero opened Nixta, a tortilleria, during the pandemic in 2020. He is a veteran of San Francisco’s fine dining world and she a veteran of the Twin Cities fine dining world (with stops at Surly’s Brewer’s Table and Travail). Nixta did brisk business with takeout meals during the height of the pandemic and beyond and this year they purchased the adjoining space and developed it into a standalone restaurant: Oro. It started out as a counter-service restaurant but is now a formal dine-in restaurant with a liquor license and cocktails and everything. It’s also probably the best Mexican restaurant in the Twin Cities metro. Or so we thought after our first dinner there this past weekend.

Now when I say that Oro is a formal restaurant I don’t mean to suggest that it has a very fancy dining room or luxe trappings. It’s not very large, the tables are small and close together, and it doesn’t look formal in the sense of stuffy. And nor does it bear the design signifiers of sceney places (exposed duct work, gleaming wood etc.). But that’s not to say it’s not attractive in its own right. The artwork on the walls is lovely—from the large mural in the reception (which presumably also doubles as the takeout processing area) to the various paintings in the dining room. At the far end of the room are sacks of corn, arranged like an art installation. It’s not going to challenge places like Martina or Colita for those looking for a scene but it is a charming space. More importantly, the food is excellent, simultaneously modern and traditional in its approach to Mexican cuisine.

As you would expect, the menu is focused on corn. You can encounter it in many guises, over the different sections of the menu. There are tacos; there are a variety of chips in the botanas section; the masa section contains gorditas, quesadillas etc.; the larger plates likewise come with tortillas; you can even find it in the dessert section where the sorbet sits on a tostada. The corn may be the through line but everything else is pretty damned good too.

We were a party of four and our pleasant server recommended we get everything to share; which was good to hear as we were planning to do that anyway. We picked three items from the botanas section, two from the masa section and two from the platos section. We asked him if this would be enough for four adults, expecting he would suggest we get another couple of dishes, but he said that was just right. And he was right: portion sizes were quite generous.

What did we get?

From the botanas section we started with the Chips and Dips. This featured four large tostadas with salsa verde, salsa rojo and excellent sikil p’aak, the Yucatan dip centered on pepitas/pumpkin seeds pounded into a coarse puree with a bunch of other things. This was excellent all around. Also excellent were the Ceviche de Berenjena and the Tiradito de Lubina. The former featured eggplant, hearts of palm, sweet potatoes etc. in a tangy lime marinade, all of which could be scooped up with tostadas; the latter featured Pacific bass, avocado, apple, serrano peppers etc., also served with tostadas. A very good start.

Before we’d made very much headway into these first three dishes, the next lot began to arrive. From the masa section we’d ordered the Gorditas (two to an order and stuffed with chicharron prensado etc.) and the Tamal de Jabali, filled with wild boar etc. and sitting on a pool of mole de frutas. Both were very good indeed and the mole with the tamal was outstanding. My only criticism would be that neither the chicharron prensado in the gorditas nor the wild boar in the tamal registered very strongly and in both cases the meat was a little drier than I would have liked.

I had a similar reaction to the first of the larger plates which came with these two: the Enmoladas de Pato. The mole nixta that the enchiladas (three to the order) were sitting on was outstanding and the tortillas were excellent as well; however, the duck confit again seemed like it had dried out too much and didn’t really register very strongly as duck. The second large plate we got, on the recommendation of our server, was the Pescado a la Veracruzana, which featured black cod wrapped in hoja santa leaves on a pool of tomato fume with olives and potatoes. The fish was perfectly cooked and the dish came together very well. The plate was sitting on top of a piece of folded cloth which contained two warm tortillas.

And so to dessert. We were looking forward to trying their Flan de Mamey but, alas, they were out. To console ourselves we got one of each of all the others. The Tres Leches, with pineapple and coconut, was described by one of the party as tasting like a pina colada (this was not meant as a criticism). The Sondae, two large scoops of cactus sorbet in a crisp hibiscus tostada resting on cubed xoconostle, was even better. The pick of the round, however, was the audacious, unlikely and utterly delicious Mole, which is basically a dessert chile relleno. It features a roasted pasilla chile filled with chocolate mousse and topped with peanut brittle. It was served with slices of caramelized banana and the whole was just outstanding.

Oh yes, drinks. One of our friends tried and liked their horchata; the other got a beer. The missus and I got a cocktail each. Both her margarita and my Oaxacan Old Fashioned (with mezcal) were fine but nothing very special.

For a look at what we ate and drank, click on an image below to launch a larger slideshow. Scroll down for thoughts on service and to see how much it all cost.

Service was very friendly and very informative. However, the meal was not paced well. When we ordered, our server told us he would send out the three botanas as starters and then the four other dishes as a shareable main course once we were done. In practice, however, three of the larger plates showed up before we were even halfway into the botanas. This meant we had to first cram a lot of plates onto the not-very-large table and then finish some things in a hurry before the fourth larger plate showed up. And all of this happened in just about an hour. A more relaxed pace with better spacing would have made for an even better meal. Dessert came out quite quickly as well but then it took a really long time for the check to appear (after a lot of waiting we had to track our server down to ask for it).

No complaints about the price though. With drinks, tax and tip (there’s an automatic 18% service charge to which we added some more) the total came to just a bit short of $60/head. Which is just a screaming deal for the quality of the food. We’d been thinking about trying Colita again this winter before leaving on our next round of travels but now we can’t think of why we would ever go to Colita over Oro.  We liked both our meals at Petite Leon a lot (here and here) but Oro is much more directly centered in Mexican cuisine than Petite Leon, which seems more Mexican-inspired by comparison. But the two make a good one-two punch. And with Popol Vuh now just a memory, it is good to see Mexican chefs helming high(er) end Mexican restaurants in the Twin Cities.

Oro was full when we were there—reservations are recommended though they do still take walk-ins on a first-come, first-served basis—and I can only hope this popularity will continue. The food deserves it and hopefully the Twin Cities food scene will support it. We were told the menu turns over every couple of months or so. Alas, this means the next major change will be in January when we’ll be gone; otherwise, there’s a good chance we’d have gone back as early as December. But we’ll be there again in April for sure, when we’re back in Minnesota.

Okay, what next on the restaurant report front? You may have noticed that I had no Ireland and Italy reports last week/weekend. Things got a little harried at work. I’m hoping to get back to those reports this week. I’m not sure yet where our Twin Cities eating out will take us this weekend but I hope to have another Twin Cities report next Tuesday—perhaps from St. Paul.