This past Wednesday night at Arnaldo Richards’ Picos, in a candlelit private room, a group of Houston’s print and television media ate 15 courses of food in just three hours.
Chef/owner Arnaldo Richards and Monica Richards, his daughter and Picos’ beverage director, broke down the new menu items for us, course by course. While new menu items aren’t typically newsworthy, this dinner made a statement that reflects Houston’s abiding love affair with Mexican cuisine.
More than 30 years ago, Arnaldo Richards and wife Janice opened Pico’s Mex-Mex on Bellaire Boulevard. Pico’s was “Mex-Mex” by design, featuring a few Tex-Mex favorites that Houston already knew well in a palapa-casual setting, but mostly delivering authentic Mexican cuisine from all over Mexico. Back in the 1990s, who else in Houston served chiles en nogada or pibil-style cochinita?
In 2014, Pico’s moved to its current location at Kirby and Richmond and rebranded to Arnaldo Richards’ Picos Restaurant, with a high-end interior design and sexier feel. Two covered patios are decked out in leather equipal chairs, and a tequila room with customers’ own personal tequila storage was included at the new location. The majority of the employees remained, and the menu was redesigned with a Mexico City aesthetic: oversized single-sheet menus with dishes from the seven regions of Mexico were detailed and noted throughout. The beverage program was elevated, and the tequila selection jumped dramatically, while retaining the colorful and popular personal margarita shakers. (“Keep your finger on the top!”)
Across town, Tracy Vaught and Hugo Ortega were also deeply invested in the Mexican cuisine movement with Hugo’s and then Caracol. Today, restaurants like Picos, Hugo’s, Xochi, Caracol and Cuchara all seem to be thriving, with many regular customers, national awards and media honors … but it has not been without the constant re-teaching of what Mexican food is, versus Tex-Mex. It must be exhausting, but it seems to be worthwhile: Houstonians are slowly but surely learning the difference, and they like it.
Back in that candlelit room at Picos, Arnaldo explained that the new menu was representative of how far the Mexican-food movement has come in Houston. “I’ve had these as off-the-menu specials for years, and people love them. They sell out, and it was time to put them on the menu,” he told his guests. “What is on this menu is only about 20 percent of what I know, what I like to make that is Mexican food. When we opened Picos 30 years ago and were serving seafood, people would ask us ‘what is this?!’ and we had to explain to them and teach them.”
Mussels with chorizo, shallots and crema from Picos
“So you think they’re ready now to appreciate these dishes?” I asked.
“I know they’re ready, it’s different now,” Arnaldo told us. And, yes, it’s very different. Among the 15 dishes we tried, a few of our favorites included the ostiones Carlos Slim (a take on oysters Rockefeller, $14, photo at top), mejllones a la gallega (stuffed mussels, $10, photo above) served with chorizo, shallots, crema and bolillo rolls, and caracoles al ajillo (snails in marinated garlic and chiles, $18, photo below).
Caracoles al ajillo
Not to be missed is the three-chile ribeye ennegricedo served with blackened avocado ($32 for the 12 oz., $38 for the 16 oz. cut) or the two new pipianes that have joined the eight moles. You may be familiar with pipianes if you’ve traveled to Puebla, Oaxaca or Mexico City. Pipianes are similar to moles in the sense that they’re labor intensive and contain many diverse ingredients. The red or green sauces have a thick consistency and are made from the seeds of pumpkins and squash, which are known as pepitas in Spanish. The seeds and nuts are used to thicken the sauce instead of bread or flour.
The show stopper of the evening, however, was the pato en mole miahuateco ($29), one breast of a duck served with fried plantains (tostones) under a blanket of miuahuateco poblano mole and toasted sesame seeds. It was robust and succulent and so perfectly executed that you’d think the kitchen had been mastering mole poblano for years (which they have). When I asked why duck was the featured protein in the dish, Arnaldo reminded me that “before the Spanish came to Mexico, there were no hoofed animals. The people were eating duck, rabbit, venison and other wild game,” and you’ll see that the new menu offers the aforementioned items as well as quail.
So, is Arnaldo right? Is the city ready to appreciate these new dishes? We think so. Head on over to Picos and get a taste.
Arnaldo Richards’ Picos, 3601 Kirby at Richmond, 832-831-9940, picos.net
Hours: Mon. to Thurs. 11 am-10 pm, Fri. 11 am-11 pm, Sat. 9 am-11 pm, Sun. Breakfast 9 am-9 pm