Luna Roja opened on April 2 in downtown Dallas, and it hit the ground doing something nobody else in the AT&T Discovery District was doing. The restaurant sits at 1525 Elm Street inside the Hilton Garden Inn — with a separate entrance off the street so you’d never know it was a hotel restaurant unless someone told you — and the room bears that out. Murals by FGIII Fine Art Productions cover the walls. Textured stone, saturated color, a full bar with over 50 tequila labels running from blancos to extra añejos, mezcal, and sotol. It looks like someone actually thought about it.
The chef is Omar Larson, who came up through Kessaku and Monarch — two of the more serious kitchens Dallas has produced — and brought that fine-dining discipline to a menu built around communal dining and regional Mexican flavors. The taqueria runs heirloom corn masa tortillas filled with Al Pastor, Guajillo Shrimp, and Wild Mushrooms with huitlacoche and herb requeson. The Shrimp and Scallop Aguachile comes with cucumber-radish salad and avocado purée. Street Corn Croquettes arrive with cotija, jalapeño, and TajÃn. The Torta Luna — slow-cooked citrus pork on a bolillo with salsa verde and avocado — is what you order at lunch when you want to eat well without slowing down the afternoon. The monthly TacoKase experience, a chef-led omakase-style progression of tacos and complementary flavors, is the kind of thing that keeps regulars coming back.
On Cinco de Mayo, they’re doing it right. The restaurant runs an all-day celebration from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. with tequila brand activations from Lunazul, Tequila Ocho, Herradura, El Jimador, and Milagro — serious labels, not filler — with samples and guest giveaways throughout the day. A live DJ runs from 3 to 9 p.m. to carry the afternoon into evening without losing momentum.
The food specials are $5 tacos all day: Short Rib, Pork Belly Al Pastor, and Sweet Potato Taquitos. House margaritas are $8. Beer and blanco combos are running throughout. It’s the kind of pricing that makes a long afternoon at the bar feel like a reasonable decision.
For anyone who works downtown and hasn’t made it in yet, Cinco de Mayo is a decent excuse to fix that. For everyone else, it’s just a good day to be at a restaurant that takes both the food and the tequila seriously. Luna Roja is open all day Monday from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Reservations at lunarojadallas.com or through OpenTable.
