Maya Café, the beloved Mexican restaurant at 2726 Sutton in downtown Maplewood, served margaritas, street tacos, and an ever-changing selection of inventive entrée specials for almost two decades. Then, in December 2019, Maya Café shuttered when owner Jay Schober retired. The space remained vacant for months, with the restaurant’s famous full-size wood boat permanently docked on the back deck.
Finally, last month, the doors reopened with a new tenant: Casa Maya. Though the former restaurant’s name is still painted in luminous gold leaf on the windows, the new restaurant has completely different ownership and no association with the previous tenant.
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Chef and partner Juan Gutierrez, who comes from a family of restaurateurs, has created an extensive menu that includes a combination of classic Mexican specialties and the dishes that he loved eating while growing up in Mexico. The menu is loaded with familiar Mexican fare—for instance, fajitas, quesadillas, burritos, enchiladas, tacos, and nachos—as well as soups and salads.
Start with chips (thin, crispy) and dip (a bowl of mild pico de gallo and a salsa verde with an appealing creaminess). As our server suggested, however, yo can (and should) request the spicier salsa roja, a smokey, fragrant deep-red salsa. The texture is like the juicy pulp of a ripe tomato crushed by hand and with enough heat to make you reach for your margarita after a few bites. It is phenomenally good.
For an entrée, consider one of the dozen specialties. Chili Colorado is offered with a choice of chicken, beef, or pork tips enrobed in a vermillion red chili sauce and served with rice and beans. Traditional taquitos, chile relleños, tamales, and flautas are all specialties, as well as the stunning Molcajete Casa Maya—a composed dish combining grilled chicken, steak, shrimp, peppers, and onions, sauced with tomatillo salsa and served in a traditional Mexican stone bowl. It’s served with a guacamole salad, flour tortillas, and rice and beans.
Six “ranchero specials” are offered, each prepared with a different protein or vegetable. The generously sized Ranchero Desoto (pictured above) is the king of all the rancheros. It arrives as a layered treasure trove of grilled chicken, steak, bacon and shrimp, served on a bed of Spanish rice, perfectly sautéed peppers, onion, and tomatoes topped with Casa Maya’s special queso. It’s rich, filling, delicious.
Casa Maya also offers a short dessert menu and serves both Mexican and domestic beers, house-made margaritas, and wine.
The footprint of the space has remained the same. There are three dining rooms with high embossed-tin ceilings and with large windows offering views of Sutton Boulevard. A lengthy wood bar occupies much of the largest dining room. And there’s outdoor seating on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, as well as on the back deck, where you can still find that buoyant blue boat.
