Gloria and Jose Fuentes took over a small Salvadoran restaurant in Oak Cliff in April 1986. It belonged to Gloria’s sister, who was done with it. Old gas station on West Davis Street, one window unit, tight quarters. Nine months later a food critic stumbled in and wrote it up, and Dallas has been going back ever since.
Forty years in, Gloria’s Latin Cuisine has 23 locations across Texas. That original Oak Cliff spot moved into a 1910 firehouse at 600 N. Bishop Ave. in 2011 — the firefighter’s pole is still there. Gloria and Jose’s daughters Glenda and Nancy run the day-to-day now, using recipes that go back to Gloria’s mother and grandmother in El Salvador.
Nobody orders the black bean dip because it just shows up, thick and smoky, before you’ve looked at the menu. The family has always said that recipe was never written down. In 2010 they sued a former manager who opened a competing restaurant, claiming he’d walked out with that recipe and their orange roughy ceviche. A Dallas County judge threw it out. Both restaurants kept cooking.
What keeps people coming is the Salvadoran side of the menu — hand-pressed Pupusas stuffed with cheese and pork, soft and blistered from the griddle, with curtido and salsa adobada; Tamales steamed in banana leaves instead of corn husks, the masa almost creamy around chicken and potatoes; fried Platano Frito caramelized dark and sweet alongside black beans and sour cream; Yuca Salvadoreña in garlic butter, a dish Dallas was eating here before it appeared anywhere else in town. And Ceviche — gulf shrimp, avocado, mango, cucumber, pico — cold and citrus-bright, the other recipe someone once tried to take to court.
The Mariscada is a seafood soup, shrimp and scallops and red snapper and mussels and lobster in a broth worth the trip on its own. Texas Governor Bill Clements found his way in through some Highland Park friends in the late 1980s, had the soup, and came back. The margaritas — frozen or rocks, more orange than most — have won enough awards that the family stopped counting.
Bishop Arts is at 600 N. Bishop Ave., open Sunday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday until 10:30. All 23 locations are at gloriascuisine.com.
