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With barely a tug, the achiote roasted pork, wearing a cape of luscious mole verde, sliced easily and slid effortlessly onto our forks. Empanadas were the perfect specimens — light and crusty and appropriately flaky. A flight of guacamole, served with round, crispy housemade tostadas, came decorated with colorful pickled vegetables and smeared with bacon jam.
When you dine at Tinie’s Mexican Cuisine, new in the South Main Village, it won’t take long for you to realize this is not Taco Heads 2.0. Sarah Castillo, who developed the Taco Heads truck, then restaurants, is front and center as one of Tinie’s three founders. But this entirely new concept bears little resemblance to her popular taco joints.
The atmosphere is a dead giveaway. In the dining room, comfy banquettes and attractive wood tables sit against a backdrop of exposed brick walls and wood ceilings. A second-story bar, modeled after the dark mezcal halls of Mexico City, offers craft cocktails, plush seating, and stunning views of downtown.
“We really wanted to go in a completely different direction than Taco Heads,” she says. “I wanted Tinie’s to have more of a warm, family touch.”
Opened March 10, Tinie’s (pronounced thee-nees) offers chef-inspired takes on Mexican home cooking. In hammering out the concept, Castillo drew from two sources of inspiration: her mother, whose playful nickname, “Tinie,” gave the restaurant its moniker, and Castillo and executive chef/co-owner Christian Lehrmann’s travels to Mexico City, where the two soaked up the flavors of local and regional cuisines.
Their original concept was that of a fast-casual Mexican rotisserie. Over time and the pair’s travels, the concept changed until it evolved into what they saw as an unfilled niche.
“There are a lot of great Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants in Fort Worth,” Castillo says. “But we saw a demand for chef-driven, high-end Mexican cuisine.” Carried out by Lehrmann, a veteran of Fort Worth-Dallas restaurants such as Brownstone, CBD Provisions, and Wheelhouse, the menu is short and concise, with an obvious focus on Mexico City-inspired dishes.
For entrées, there’s slow-braised goat; rotisserie chicken; a Veracruz-style fish served whole; achiote roasted pork; and bone-in strip with chimichurri sauce. All entrées are served family-style and come with picante beans, fresh tortillas, roasted peppers, pickled veggies, and house salsa.
Smaller dishes include the housemade empanadas, tuna tostadas, seasonal ceviche, and tamales. And, yes, there are tacos, too, made with fresh corn tortillas. Sides include roasted carrots with goat cheese crema and cactus dusted with chamoy.
The two-story restaurant is housed in the historic W.A. Powers Company building, built in 1939. On the bottom floor is the dining room. The second floor is home to Escondite (the hideaway), a dimly lit mezcaleria that pays tribute to similar bars in Mexico City, as well as Fort Worth’s much-missed J & J’s Hideaway.
Co-owner Glen Keely, long immersed in the Fort Worth bar scene as the operator of Thompson’s bar and Poag Mahone’s Irish Pub, came up with the cocktail menu and sources wines from Latin America.
“The point isn’t to get as many people in and out as possible,” Keely said at the restaurant recently, in between making drinks. “We want people to spend some time here — make a night of it. Experience different courses and different flavors. Try something you haven’t tried before, a new dish, a new drink.”
Originally, the restaurant was slated to open in 2018. But there were multiple problems with construction, pushing the opening back time and time again.
“The funny thing is, we signed the lease three years ago before the area took off,” Castillo says. “A lot of people said we were crazy for picking that building and that area. But the timing actually worked out really well. The area is packed now with Fort Worth businesses, and it’s just getting bigger and better.”
The three restaurateurs have formed a restaurant group called Neon Light District and are already at work on another project: Sidesaddle Saloon, a bar and Texas tapas spot, located in the Stockyards’ Mule Alley development. Castillo says it should be open by this summer or fall.
