MEXTA Mexican Restaurant
The tetela arrives under a mole manchamanteles built on plantain and pineapple, topped with slow-cooked pork belly.
Why go
The kitchen belongs to two chefs with real rooms behind them: Jonatan Gomez Luna Torres, who runs Le Chique in Cancun, and Mikel Alonso, who built Biko in Mexico City before it closed.3 The MICHELIN inspector reads the sauces as the thing that carries the cooking, and also rates the ceviches and aguachiles on the quality of the seafood in them.2 The bar is Mica Rousseau's, and the Mole Old Fashioned is built on more than fifty Mexican spices.3 The room is 4,632 square feet in the Littlefield Building, designed by Carlos Castroparedes, and it opened on 22 March 2024.3
Order this / avoid
- Order: the tetela under mole manchamanteles, which is the dish the inspector singles out and the one that shows most clearly what this kitchen can do.2
- And: the cocktails. Nicolai McCrary, who did not like the food, calls the drinks creative and tasty and says sitting at the bar is honestly the best way to experience the place.1
- Dessert: the three-cheese cheesecake, baked to order.2
- Avoid: the heirloom tomato and hamachi salad. McCrary describes a good tomato and burrata salad with raw fish dropped on top like someone lost a bet.1
- Avoid: the zarandeado. The catch came out more burnt than charred and dry on his last two visits.1
What locals & experts say
- MICHELIN Guide inspector:
Sauces especially impress, as in the case of a complex, layered mole manchamanteles made with plantain and pineapple, paired with a masa-based tetela topped with unctuous bites of slow-cooked pork belly.
2 - Nicolai McCrary, The Infatuation Austin, rating it 5.4:
The menu reads well and looks the part, but Mexta’s execution misses the mark more often than not. Dishes sometimes arrive burnt, aggressively salted, or clumsily assembled.
1 - On the theater, same review: he writes that the tableside sauce pours and smoke-filled cloches favor your camera over your taste buds.1
- Where they agree: both reads put the cocktails ahead of most of the plates.
- Standing: the venue holds a MICHELIN Guide Texas listing with no star and no Bib Gourmand, on a guide page dated 28 October 2025.2
Good to know
- Hygiene, and this one is a finding. Austin Public Health scored the kitchen 67 on 25 April 2026, filed as
MEXTA
. The city's failing threshold is 70, so that is a failed inspection, and it is rare: fewer than half a percent of all inspections in the register fall below 70. A follow-up on 19 May 2026 scored 87, which clears it. The record before that reads 90 in August 2025, 82 in February 2025 and 90 in October 2024. It is the first sub-70 in the rolling three-year window, so none of the city's escalation ladder applies.4 - Hours: 5pm to 10pm Monday to Wednesday, 5pm to 10:30pm Thursday to Saturday, closed Sunday, per the guide's own listing.2
- Price register: guacamole was $19 and the cocktails around $20 when the Infatuation reviewed.1
- Booking: reservations run through OpenTable, with valet Thursday to Saturday.3
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "New place".
Verdict
could-visit — A downtown Mexican room in the Littlefield Building from two chefs with real records, Jonatan Gomez Luna Torres of Le Chique in Cancun and Mikel Alonso of the closed Biko in Mexico City, with cocktails by Mica Rousseau. The MICHELIN inspector writes that the sauces are what work, naming a layered mole manchamanteles of plantain and pineapple over a masa tetela with slow-cooked pork belly. The Infatuation's Nicolai McCrary disagrees hard, scoring it 5.4 in May 2025 and calling the execution off more often than not, with burnt fish across two visits. Both are true at once often enough: order the sauce dishes and the cocktails, skip the raw-fish salad and the zarandeado. Disclose the safety line with any recommendation, because Austin Public Health scored the premises 67 on 25 April 2026, below the city's 70 failing threshold, cleared by an 87 follow-up on 19 May 2026.