Last I talked with Genaro Silva, the restauranteur behind the new Genaro’s location at Abrams-Mockingbird, the building looked pretty unimpressive. And it looked that way for a very, very long time. Now, finally, things are moving forward, and it’s full speed ahead for the restaurant.
Before, Silva said he wasn’t quite ready to reveal what sort of food and experience we could expect at the location. Actually, at the time Silva hadn’t quite “buttoned down” what he wanted to do. “I’ve got it nice and buttoned down now,” Silva assured me yesterday.
I dropped by to snap some pictures of the progress and happened to run into Silva at the construction site. We sat down for a drink at Lakewood’s 1st & 10, where Silva apparently knows the entire staff, for an off-the-cuff convo/interview. He ended up talking for over an hour about how excited he is about the new restaurant. And — in concept, at the very least — there’s plenty to be excited about.
The first thing you should know is that this isn’t Silva’s first rodeo. Some will recognize him from years past, from Monctezuma’s Cocina & Cantina on McKinney Avenue, as well as Genaro’s Tropical Mexican Restaurant in the Skillman-La Vista shopping center, and Garmos on Henderson. “Back then (in the 80s) we owned Dallas in terms of Mexican food,” he claims. “We were serious about it.”
But his new restaurant, Genaro’s (just Genaro’s, no “Cuisine” or “Restaurant.” Unlike its predecessors, this restaurant is taking after the likes of Cher and Madonna, and sticking to one name — Genaro’s.) is only kind of Mexican. It’s Mexican-ish.
“It’s a lot of Mexican influence, but it’s also a lot of Brazilian, a lot of Yucatan, a lot of Caribbean… we’re taking ideas from Italian, we’re taking ideas from everywhere,” Silva says. “I’m bringing in cooks and chefs from all different backgrounds, and we’re going to create.”
Basically he doesn’t want to label it. His main problem when trying to nail down a concept was just that: he didn’t want to be nailed down.
“About three months into the project, I’d be working on the menu and I’d tear up the sheet, then work on another one and tear up the sheet, and I thought ‘This is not what I want to do,’ so I decided, I wanted a restaurant where I love the dishes that are on the menu,” he explains.
“I think Dallas is ready for it. I think Dallas’ palette has grown so much in the last 20 years, and that’s one reason I want to get back in the business, because I think Dallas is ready for what I want to do.”
There are three things you won’t see at Genaro’s when it opens: obnoxious colors, old-school ranchera music, sombreros.
Things you will find in Genaro’s: a patio that seats about 120, a full bar, “young, modern” music, and lots of little black dresses.
“It’s going to be sexy,” Silva says.
He’s definitely setting the bar high before the grand opening — which he’s hoping will happen before the end of October —Â but he says that doesn’t make him the least bit nervous.
“I want East Dallas to be so proud of this,” he says. “I’ve been in East Dallas since I was 14, and I want this to be a place that East Dallas looks at as the kind of place it wants to project to the rest of Dallas — it’s eclectic, it’s fun. It’s not stuffy or stagnant.”
Of course, whether or not Silva actually delivers on his promises is ultimately up to you. Guess we’ll see in a few weeks.
