Restaurants & Chefs
Will the real Javier's salsa please stand up?
By ELLISE PIERCE / Cowgirl Chef
I'm as guilty as the rest of the gringos: I am absolutely mad for Javier's Gourmet Mexicano's warm salsa verde and salsa roja, served with freshly made, perfectly thin tortilla chips and — drum roll, please — butter.
The Cowgirl Chef visits Javier Gutierrez in the kitchen to find out how his restaurant makes its fiery habanero salsa.
You probably wouldn't find anything like it in Mexico, which makes sense since both salsas were developed by (you may want to close your eyes now) a Spanish chef with French training. But, oh, the things we overlook when it comes to what we love.
Originally from Mexico City, Javier Gutierrez, the owner of the Dallas landmark restaurant for 32 years, relocated to Dallas with his family when he was 12. After he graduated from college, he opened the restaurant with a couple of friends with the idea of focusing on the kind of cuisine he remembered from home. (The flan recipe is from his mom.)
That's why the menu, called "gourmet Mexicano," is filled with snapper, beef tenderloin, and shrimp rather than enchiladas, burritos, and chimichangas. And it's why Javier's sauces are more subtle than four-alarm.
There is one exception, however: The habanero salsa, developed by the kitchen staff a few years ago and made with chiles grown on Gutierrez's farm in East Texas, is now on the menu — served with grilled quail and cabrito (watch Javier make it in the video above).
Like the habanero itself, the salsa is a beautiful bright yellow-orange color. And the heat? Let's just say you'd better have a margarita, or two, nearby to put out the fire.
• Javier's Gourmet Mexicano: 4912 Cole Ave., Dallas, 214-521-4211, www.javiers.net
