The Meza Family’s Newest Venture

Note: This story was produced for our spring 2020 issue before the COVID-19 crisis. Please see end of article for business updates.

Dolores Introduces Authentic Regional Cooking of Oaxaca and Puebla

From the time of the 19th century Mexican-American War (or even earlier), there have surely been crossovers from Mexican cuisine into American cooking. The 20th century cemented the popularity of Cal-Mex and Tex-Mex with chain restaurants serving billions of burritos and trillions of tacos.

But it’s only in the 21st century, after the regional cooking of Italy and of France had ascended, that regional cooking from Mexico began to come to the fore. Certainly localized cuisines had been appreciated in California and New York but, according to Joaquin and Maria Meza, that trend has been very quiet in New England. Until recently.

Thanksgiving Eve 2019: The late Dolores Meza’s family, who have run the very successful El Rancho Grande for 12 years, opened a restaurant in her honor—named Dolores—and in honor of her daughter-in-law Maria Meza’s two regional homelands: Oaxaca and Puebla.

Joaquin Jr. has been an integral partner with his parents since the beginning of El Rancho, specializing in the beverage side of the restaurant (mezcals, tequilas, et al), while his father, Joaquin Sr., has kept a low profile, helping out whenever and wherever he could. Nowadays, he’s doing a lot more, and his son wanted to recognize that by naming this new endeavor after his father’s mother.

When Joaquin Jr. found the Hope Street location, El Rancho customers Heather and Kelly Fowler decided to invest in the property and be the Mezas’ landlord.

“They like our food and they like what we do,” Joaquin explains. “And this was always going to be different from Rancho. Twelve years ago, our menu was what people understood Mexican food to be. But we realized that was not an accurate depiction of where we come from.”

“People have changed, and it was time to cook what I knew from my childhood,” adds Chef Maria. “This is more from scratch, using ingredients from Mexico and grinding corn to make hand-pressed tortillas every day.”

“We have a saying in our country, ‘Without maize, no country,’” Joaquin says, with a smile. “When we visited, we were always making tortillas.”

Maria, who moved from Oaxaca to Puebla when she was 5, recalls that her father had a molina, a mill for grinding corn, for his family and neighbors. She also remembers that her Oaxacan mother cooked sweet and savory, often using fresh fruits in her sauces and often making stews that fostered more communal-style meals.

Thus, a guisado de pollo, a main entrée at Dolores, combines chicken, plantains and fresh pineapple in a tomato stew; and huarache de lengua, as a starter, is a slow-roasted beef tongue and tomato stew.

Though the chicken at Dolores comes from Baffoni’s Poultry Farm, and the seafood and veggies are sourced locally, the Mezas order heirloom maize, plus special herbs and cheeses, directly from Oaxaca.

“We want to retrain people’s perception— that tacos should not be the only thing they focus on,” Joaquin says. “Some people see the salsas like ketchup and think all moles have chocolate. We’re out to change that.”

They currently have three moles on the menu: one with a tasty beef brisket barbacoa (mole de pasilla); one with tomatillos, nuts and raisins (mole negro); and one with chocolate, peanuts and sesame seeds (mole poblano).

The seven-salsa sampler is a spicy smorgasbord: verde raw (tomatillos); verde roasted; salsa de molcajete (with roasted tomatoes, it’s the hottest of these seven); tomatillo arbol, garlic costeño, tomatillo chipotle and mango habanero (the latter four name the specific pepper that makes each so distinctive). And each salsa is used to spark the flavors of certain starters and entrées, such as goat cheese/jalapeño-filled tortillas with garlic costeño, already a customer favorite.

Sometimes Maria reproduces Joaquin’s ideas in her recipes—”He’ll tell me what he’s thinking, and then I take two fingers of this and a handful of that,” she says.

“But if we want to grow, we have to set standards and numbers,” Joaquin puts in firmly.

“I count bay leaves, and he weighs them,” Maria says with a laugh.

As for the bar side of the restaurant, Joaquin gives kudos to his team for putting together an “awesome wine list,” along with local craft beers and agave-based craft cocktails such as the Dolores Daquiri and Beso de

Tequila. He also gives high praise to his wife, Kim, who has been “absolutely instrumental” in launching the restaurant. The decor at Dolores is quite a change from El Rancho— “You wouldn’t see sombreros and piñatas hanging in our homes,” notes

Joaquin. “The pieces here showcase Mexican art—it’s a way of telling our stories.” Joaquin scouted Mexican museums and markets to find local craftspeople to represent little-known aspects of Mexican culture: wood-carved winged dogs and rabbits brighten one corner; vivid surrealistic paintings of children, representing the power and freedom of music, dominate two other spaces; and delicately crafted hummingbirds adorn the bar.

But it is the large fabric lampshades, covered with the embroidery of the indigenous Otomi people, that are the most striking. Colorful birds and flowers in numerous incarnations are set onto a broad cylindrical frame (assembled by Kreatelier, in Providence).

“I think of Dolores as a stage,” Joaquin reflects. “Rancho was like a street musician, but here we have created a stage. Yet how do we keep the homey feeling? How do we keep it not stuffy, not uptight? We want to grow in the right way.”

If the restaurant’s popularity, from both neighborhood folks and El Rancho customers, continues to build, Joaquin and Maria will know they are doing just that. And a sneak peak through the kitchen door at Joaquin, in baseball hat, soccer shirt and apron, a grin lighting up his entire face, certainly indicates that he’s having fun in this new venture.

Dolores
100 Hope St., Providence
401.409.2075; DoloresPVD.com

Updated April 9, 2020: Open for takeout with adjusted menu. See website for hours and online ordering or call 401.409.2075. http://dolorespvd.com