People from other parts of the country come to Texas and order Tex-Mex expecting Mexican food. That confusion is understandable and also wrong, and it matters because once you understand the difference you stop ordering the wrong things and start eating a lot better.
Tex-Mex is its own cuisine. It developed along the Texas-Mexico border in the 19th century when Mexican cooks working in Texas began adapting their recipes to the ingredients available on this side — beef over pork, yellow cheese instead of the white fresh cheeses of interior Mexico, wheat flour tortillas alongside corn, canned tomatoes and chiles because the fresh ones weren’t always around. The result was something new: heartier, richer, built around melted cheese and beef and lard in ways that traditional Mexican cooking from Oaxaca or Veracruz or Mexico City simply isn’t.
The dishes most Americans associate with Mexican food — combo plates, beef enchiladas with chili gravy, refried beans cooked with lard, hard-shell tacos, nachos, chili con queso — are almost entirely Tex-Mex. They are not inauthentic. They are authentically Texan.
In the United States beyond Texas, Tex-Mex often gets diluted into a kind of generic “Mexican restaurant” format with a chain sensibility — endless chips and salsa, fajitas that sizzle purely for theater, margaritas made from a pre-mix. That version exists in Dallas too, unfortunately. But Dallas also has the real thing: family-run rooms that have been cooking the same recipes for thirty and forty years, where the chile gravy on the enchiladas is made from scratch, the tortillas are pressed by hand, and the queso is not something that came out of a commercial bucket. That’s what you’re looking for. Here is where to find it.
Mia’s Tex-Mex
4334 Lemmon Avenue | Open daily from 11 a.m.
Butch Enriquez opened Mia’s on Lemmon Avenue in 1981 and built it into one of the most beloved Tex-Mex restaurants in Dallas on the back of a dish that nobody else in the city was doing: brisket tacos. The idea of serving smoked brisket — the cut that defines Texas barbecue — inside a flour tortilla with a small cup of au jus on the side was Butch’s invention. Now every Tex-Mex restaurant in Dallas has a version. Mia’s still has the original. Order the brisket tacos — there is no reason to overthink it. The homemade chile rellenos, available on Tuesdays, are the second thing worth planning around. Everything is made from family recipes that have not changed in four decades. The room is warm, the service is fast, and there is usually a line on weekends. Phone: (214) 576-1212.
Herrera’s Oak Cliff
2853 W. Illinois Avenue, Oak Cliff | Open Wednesday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
Amelia Herrera opened this restaurant in 1983 and her family has been using the same recipes ever since. The building is small, the room is warm, and the food is the Tex-Mex that reminds you why the cuisine developed in the first place — nothing complicated, nothing trying to be something it isn’t, just good cooking made from scratch. You get a complimentary bowl of warm beans when you sit down, which is either the most hospitable thing a restaurant can do or the most dangerous, depending on how much room you have left. The con queso dip is the one to order first. The Herrera’s fajitas, the enchiladas, and whatever the kitchen is doing that day with the guacamole are what regulars argue about. Nobody leaves hungry. Closed Monday and Tuesday — plan accordingly. Phone: (214) 330-6426.
E Bar Tex-Mex
1901 N. Haskell Avenue, Suite 120 | Open daily 11 a.m. to midnight.
Eddie Cervantes has been feeding Dallas Tex-Mex since 1981 — first at Primo’s on McKinney Avenue, which he opened before Uptown was Uptown and ran until it became a Dallas institution, and then here at E Bar on Haskell when Primo’s closed. He has since opened Eddie’s Tex-Mex Cocina on Greenville and another location on Lemmon Avenue, but E Bar is the original and still the one his regulars show up at. The room is modest and usually full. The long bar is the move if you want to eat alone without eating alone. The queso is made right — silky, properly caramelized, not oversweetened. The tacos de carnitas, cheese enchiladas, and crispy flautas are what people come for at dinner. The huevos con chorizo at lunch are worth knowing about. The Meltdown Margarita — strong, cold, and exactly the right amount of everything — has followed Cervantes from restaurant to restaurant since the Primo’s days. We wrote about him here. Open until midnight every night of the week. Phone: (214) 824-3227.
El Ranchito
610 W. Jefferson Boulevard, Oak Cliff | Open daily from 10 a.m.
Oscar and Laura Sanchez opened El Ranchito in 1983, after the success of their restaurant La Calle Doce, because Oscar wanted to cook the food he grew up eating in Monterrey — comida norteña, the cuisine of northern Mexico, which is not the same thing as interior Mexican food and not quite Tex-Mex either but sits somewhere between them in a way that Oak Cliff has been embracing for over 40 years. Mariachis play daily and on weekends, which either adds to the experience or makes you a little nervous depending on your tolerance for being serenaded. The dish to order is the cabrito de horno — kid goat, slow-roasted in the oven the way they do it in Nuevo León. If that’s too much of a commitment, the asado de puerco is a slow-cooked pork stew built on dried chiles that is rich enough to make you rethink everything you thought you knew about pork. The enchiladas and fajitas are the Tex-Mex anchors for the less adventurous table. Phone: (214) 946-4238.
Muchacho Tex-Mex
4011 Villanova Street, Preston Center | Open daily from 11 a.m.
Chef Omar Flores has four Dallas Morning News stars to his name, five James Beard nominations, and a string of restaurants that includes Even Coast and Casa Brasa. Muchacho is where he does Tex-Mex — the version he grew up eating in El Paso, which sits closer to the border and carries different influences than Dallas Tex-Mex. The tortillas are made by hand, the queso is built on Akaushi brisket, and the menu does things with seafood that most Tex-Mex restaurants don’t attempt. The queso Muchacho with brisket is the opening move — it has been called one of the best cheese dips in the city by people who have tried most of the competition. The octopus fajitas with mesquite-grilled mojo octopus and housemade tortillas are the dish that tells you you’re somewhere different. The brisket sopes are the one to order if you want something that bridges the El Paso influence and the Dallas tradition. Phone: (214) 890-7999.
Las Palmas Tex-Mex
2708 Routh Street, Uptown | Open daily from 11 a.m.
Las Palmas is the Tex-Mex room for the evening when you want the full production: stone walls, burgundy booths, iron railings, cowboy hat decor, a bar built under Spanish tile that runs a tajín-rimmed margarita during happy hour. It is, as one Dallas writer put it, Tex-Mex with a Fendi bag. The queso blanco with slivers of garlic and fresh herbs is the benchmark queso in Uptown and possibly in Dallas. Start there. The shrimp and lobster enchiladas with tomato, guajillo, asadero, and cheddar cheese and sour cream sauce are the reason to come for dinner. The hickory Wagyu fajitas are the move for a table that wants to split something large and good. The room fills up on weekends and the bar runs until the kitchen closes. Phone: (214) 647-1232.
One last note on the queso debate, which is a real debate in Texas: queso — chile con queso, melted cheese with peppers — is not a Mexican dish. You will not find it in Mexico City or Oaxaca or anywhere that people call “authentic Mexican food.” It is a Texas invention, developed sometime in the early 20th century, and it is among the best things Texas has contributed to the American table. Ordering it first at any of the five places above is never wrong.
