Some of the Best Chefs Are Opening a Downtown Austin Mexican Restaurant

A trio of highly acclaimed Mexican chefs are opening a new restaurant in downtown Austin this year. Mexta Restaurant will open at 106 East Sixth Street, Suite 110 — taking over the former Simi Estiatorio space — sometime this year.

Mexta’s website describes the menu as higher-end Mexican fusion cuisine with Austin takes. Behind the restaurant are the three co-founders of the Culinary Institute by Southwest University in El Paso, Texas: Carlos Gaytán, Jonatan Gómez Luna Torres, and Mikel Alonso Garcia.

Gaytán grew up in Huitzuco, Guerrero, Mexico, where he learned to cook with his mother. He worked his way through restaurants and apprenticed at now-closed Chicago French restaurant Bistro Margot. He became the first Mexican-born chef whose restaurant earned a Michelin star in 2013, of the now-closed Mexican French restaurant Mixque. And he still runs two Chicago Mexican restaurants, Tzuco and Tales of Carlos Gaytán. He also competed in season 11 of Top Chef in New Orleans and developed the menu of Hotel Xcaret restaurant Hà in the Riviera Maya.

Tzuco

Culinary Institute by Southwest University

Culinary Institute by Southwest University

Torres, who is from Mexico City, studied at the Centro Culinario Ambrosia. From there, he had worked at various high-end restaurants and then opened Le Chique, a restaurant within the Riviera Maya region’s Azul Sensatori resort in 2008, which is on the Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurant list

And finally, Garcia is from southwestern France and studied chemical engineering at Spain’s University of Basque Country. He realized he’d rather cook and then switched to study at the Escuela de Cocina Luis Irizar. He moved to Mexico City where he worked at various restaurants. He also opened his own restaurant, the now-closed Basque-style Biko, with co-owner Bruno Oteiza, which had made the World’s 50 Best Restaurants and the Latin America lists in 2016. The duo also developed Grand Velas Riviera Maya resort restaurant Cocina de Autor.

The three opened their Texas culinary school in November 2023.

Mexta’s predecessor at the Littlefield building was Greek restaurant Simi Estiatorio — even though it is is using a technically different address than Simi. The restaurant had closed without any notice in March 2022 after less a year of being open amid alleged missing worker paychecks and getting evicted from the space. Before that, the space was home to pizzeria Due Forni, which also closed suddenly, citing increased rent, after three years of service.

When Mexta opens, its hours will be from 4 to 10 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and Sunday, and then from 4 p.m. to midnight Thursday through Saturday.