Omar Flores has another one coming. Maroma, the latest project from Big Dill Hospitality and the Marshi family, opens Monday, May 4 in the Design District at 1333 Oak Lawn Avenue, on the ground floor of the new Thirteen Thirty Three Building. The premise is coastal Mexican cooking — ceviches, aguachiles, raw bar, mesquite-grilled meats — done with the kind of restraint Flores has been known for since his Driftwood and Whistle Britches years.
This makes four restaurants for Big Dill, alongside Casa Brasa, Even Coast, and Muchacho. Each one runs on its own logic, but Maroma is the most ambitious yet. The name comes from the Yucatán coast. The cooking comes from everywhere along Mexico’s two coastlines. The space, about 3,800 square feet with seating for 150 between the dining room and the patio, is built to shift in mood across the day — bright and social at lunch, dimmer and more intimate after sundown.
The menu is where the room earns its premise. The cold bar is the opening move, and the smart play is to start with a half-dozen mercado oysters with chiltepin mignonette and a side of salsa marisquera. The spot prawn aguachile verde, in a serrano-cucumber broth with avocado and pickled red onion, is the dish that will probably end up on every table. For a group, the Marisco Tower piles chilled oysters, lobster, red snapper ceviche, poached shrimp, and montaditos onto one platter and lets the table fight over the best bites.
From the warm side, the little neck clams chori-papa, simmered with Mexican chorizo, fingerling potatoes, fennel confit, and a chipotle-white wine broth, sound like the kind of dish that ruins your willingness to order anything else. The chargrilled oysters get chile toreado, garlic herb butter, lime, and grilled baguette to soak it all up. The smoked beef cheek barbacoa sopes are the unfussy gut-check option for somebody at the table who is not in the mood for seafood.
Off the wood-fired and charcoal grill, the jumbo prawns get a gochujang adobo, chile butter sauce, rancho gordo corona beans, and mojo verde — a dish that pulls Korean and Mexican vocabulary into the same plate without making a fuss about it. The sea bream a la talla comes with salsa, black beans, arroz verde, dressed slaw, and warm corn tortillas to pull the fish apart and wrap it up. The Spanish octopus a la brava and the whole red snapper are the dishes you order if you want to slow the dinner down. The tacos dorado gobernado are the dish you order if you do not.
The drink program leans toward agave but does not get stuck there. The Peeled Proof, with Old Forester bourbon, banana liqueur, walnut bitters, and demerara, is built for people who do not drink mezcal. The Corona y Caña stacks Planteray pineapple rum, Diplomático Reserva, lime, and honey, finished with a sugar rim and a tuft of piña colada candy floss — silly on paper, but the kind of drink that ends up on every Instagram story by 9 p.m. The Maroma Paloma is the agave version of itself, with Mi Campo blanco, grapefruit, lime, and prosecco, available spirit-free if you want it that way. The shareable Cazuela, with Hennessy VS, white peach, Cocchi vermouth, lime, honey, and prosecco, is for the table that has decided this is the kind of night it is.
1333 Oak Lawn Avenue. Open Sunday through Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Thursday through Saturday until midnight. Reservations at 214-644-7662 or through the website. Doors open Monday, May 4.
