Walking into LaPez Mod Mex (398 N. Euclid), a new concept from Adam and Jason Tilford in the former Session Taco space in the Central West End, customers may notice how the off-kilter, check-mark shape of the bar replicates the building itself, jutting out at a sharp angle toward Euclid. It’s a felicitous detail, an indicator of the dimensions into which this new place is hoisting Mexican cuisine: with some intriguing options that are nothing short of wonderful.
But how do you choose between duck taquitos or lobster tacos? Ponder it over a bowl of tortilla soup that’s actually a substantial, luscious stew, an aromatic chile broth thickened with chicken slivers, avocado slices, fideos, shreds of dry tortilla and Chihuahua cheese squiggles, spiked with cilantro sprigs. It’s perfect for sharing.
Find the best food in St. Louis
Subscribe to the St. Louis Dining In and Dining Out newsletters to stay up-to-date on the local restaurant and culinary scene.
The splendid guacamole is an avocado-ized cloud of the buttery smashed fruit, smooth and cool, laced with sea salt, smoked blue cheese, chipotle oil, and bacon crumbles. And those taquito starters? Slices of duck confit, caramelized onions, and Chihuahua cheese are wrapped in crunchy tortilla flutes with a rich, dark tamarind-ancho sauce that tastes like a Yucatan sunset. The tacos are less appetizer and more an edible, tortilla-encased Burning Man festival. A stunningly extravagant filling of lobster nibbles are fried in bacon fat, paired with a tarragon aioli, a salsa of smoked pineapple, pickled shallots, and tiny greens. It leaves your palate with a What just happened? sensation that demands more.
Among main dishes, you can pick from four enchilada varieties. Of course, your first choice will be the one stuffed with wild mushrooms simply because it sounds so intriguing. And it is, full of grilled mushrooms and goat cheese with a creamy poblano sauce.
A standout among the platos is the dorado Veracruzana. It’s a fish usually used in tacos. Here, a chunk of the sweet white meat is pan roasted, the skin crispy, the flesh shiny with its own juices, roasted perfectly, sitting on a bright green bed of garlic wilted arugula that provides an earthy counterpart to the fish. Chubby wedges of pasilla potatoes pair nicely. A chunky, happily tangy Veracruz salsa spooned on top of the dorado is fine but really adds nothing to the preparation. An order of tortilla chips for dipping in the plate’s salsa would be a far better use for it.
Chile relleno is one of those dishes that can either glow with a prickly, tingly spark or droop flaccidly in a greasy pool. LaPez gets it right. The plump, roasted poblano keeps all of its vegetal texture—and a considerable fire. Oaxaca cheese is soft and has a satisfying, stretchy snap. The zigzag drizzle of a chipotle sherry sauce adds much; so too does a sprinkle of huitlacoche, which is a far classier way of describing “corn smut.” You’ve had it—a powdery inky smear that has its own smoky, mushroomy savor and suggests rather than dominates the pepper. (If you’ve got a deseo for smut, try LaPez’s extravagant corn masa quesadilla stuffed with the stuff along with Chihuahua cheese, grilled mushrooms, and roasted corn.)
While wine pairs with Mexican fare like violas go with drag racing, the list here is adequate. It’s far better to go with one of more than a dozen cocktails. The ingredients here are dazzling: tequila, mezcal, cachaça, a honey-anise liqueur D’aristi Xtabentun… Seriously, LaPez is one of those places worthy of regular visits just to work through this list.
LaPez’s tables and booths are comfortable; getting to them is like wandering in a maze of angles that lend a pleasant sense of space and privacy. The place seems to have been laid out like a Boston street map. Try for one of the seats that affords a view of the streets. (The restrooms are tiled in a beautiful periwinkle in the shape of, we think, a dodecahedron.) For decades, the CWE has defined cool urbanity, and the passing scene here is engaging.
The décor is attractive; lighting shines from those perforated tin stars that must come from some warehouse in Tijuana because every Mexican joint now has them. And speaking of clichés, can we please have a pause on the whole Day of the Dead motif? A billboard-size wall at LaPez is garishly adorned in that tired “street” graffiti style, with a pair of embracing skeletons of the sort that now seem mandatory at Mexican restaurants. We long for a return of the little sombrero-topped guy dozing beneath a cactus.
A couple of quibbles. We were seated in perhaps the only table that didn’t have a view of the Olympic curling that was on TV, but that slight may have been accidental. The length of time between botanos and platos, however, was simply too long.
We assumed, incidentally, that LaPez was named after the Mayan god of dispensable sweets, but our server confessed that the owners just made up the name. We like our version better.
Lapez Mod Mex
📍398 N. Euclid, CWE
📞314-930-2955
⏰Sun, Tue-Thu: 4 p.m. – 9 p.m.; Fri-Sat: 4 p.m. – 10 p.m.
