A new Mexican restaurant on the plaza wants to bring soul back to downtown Fort Worth
June 16,2021
See full Fort Worth Star-Telegram article by Bud Kennedy here.
Gino Rojas returns to Fort Worth this week as Texas’ taco champion, smarter by four years and ready to help reshape Sundance Square Plaza.
Revolver Taco, 156 W. Fourth St., serves the kind of ambitious contemporary Mexico menu not seen here since — well, since Revolver moved in 2017, after five years of cutting-edge Michoacán cooking, often by Rojas’ own family flying in on weekends.
The new menu includes pheasant in mole sauce ($28), barracuda flown daily from Tokyo, langoustines in green mole ($35) and the goat birria tacos Rojas made for the Travel Channel ($10).
Don’t sweat the prices. It’s the kind of place where you share several small plates like a duck taco, salad or soup, and maybe one or two entrees.
“It’s meant for people to pick several items, share and enjoy,” said Rojas, in his 10th year as owner-chef in a career that took him to the James Beard House in New York as one of the region’s best chefs.
When Revolver debuted in 2012 on West Seventh Street, the genuine Michoacán-style cooking and fusion Mexico-Japan cuisine drew so much attention that it moved up to a better location on Forest Park Boulevard, then to fame as a Dallas restaurant with a chef’s tasting room named La Resistencia.
The new location joins what has become Rojas’ taco empire.
“I’m coming back eager to show what I have learned,” Rojas said on opening night. “I want people to taste what chefs are doing in modern Mexico and enjoy it here.”
He recommended the two mole dishes, along with the scallops and fish.
Don’t skip the soup (on opening night it was rabbit meatball) or the salad, and if it all sounds too far-out, the wagyu carne asada is a standby ($4.75 tacos, $48 platter).
The service on opening night was Revolver-quirky. The doors opened late after a search for the key, making change was slow, and there wasn’t a dessert menu yet.
But be patient. Everything at Revolver is made carefully and preciously by hand.
Rojas is well aware that his restaurant is an anchor of the next generation of Sundance Square Plaza — focusing more on unique local chef- and owner-run restaurants and shops with more sincerity and personal appeal.
“Sundance needs more soul — we are bringing soul,” Rojas said.
“It’s that feeling you get when you go somewhere with your family and enjoy the music and the atmosphere. .... I want tourists to come to Fort Worth and remember how much they enjoyed the unique restaurants.”
Sundance Square owners Ed and Sasha C. Bass, back in control since November, “are going to bring soul to the Plaza,” he said. “They are going to return it to the people.”
Parking is easy in the free garages and on lots nights and weekends, and spots on the street are fairly easy.
(If you quit coming downtown because valet parking now costs up to $21, think of it as going to the store. You can park free in a garage or lot three short blocks away. That’s no farther than you would walk at a big-box superstore.)
Revolver Taco is open for dinner at 5 nightly and Rojas hopes to open for lunch soon; reservations on Resy.com or at 682-224-6133.
Location Mentioned: Sundance Square Plaza