Maroma in the Design District is the latest restaurant from Omar Flores, who ‘The Dallas Morning News’ called one of Dallas’ best chefs several years in a row.
Samantha Marie
Maroma wants to take Dallasites on a trip to Mexico.
Trip is the key word: The new restaurant in the Dallas Design District “is a destination,” said Grace Marshi, director of marketing. Her family owns Park Cities newcomer Casa Brasa, Tex-Mex spot Muchacho, Far North Dallas restaurant Even Coast and Plano and Southlake comfort food kitchens Whistle Britches with Dallas chef Omar Flores.
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Maroma might be a drive for the company’s core clientele in the Park Cities and in the Dallas suburbs. Maroma sits near Interstate 35E and Oak Lawn Avenue, down the street from Italian restaurant Carbone and near a development called The Seam, where Mediterranean restaurant Aba and NYC bakery Maman will open.
To turn a trip to the Design District into a vacation, Maroma offers a covered, air-conditioned patio that keeps out the noise but feels like a little urban escape. Lush Bird of Paradise plants between banquettes in coral and seafoam green make the patio a pretty place for cocktails and coastal Mexican food.
Maroma’s patio is temperature controlled, an important detail for Texas diners who can’t stand the heat.
Samantha Marie
Chef Flores’ food is grilled and raw seafood with personality.
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The menu will dare you to order the seafood tower. An illustration takes up half the page, showing three tiers of oysters, lobster and ceviche as one way to start dinner with a group, if you’re willing to shell out $150. Other starters are Maroma’s aguachiles and ceviches. The $26 red snapper ceviche is a punch of sweet and sour, with charred pineapple and serrano chile swimming in a bright yellow aji amarillo leche de tigre.
Chefs recommend the tostadas. Options are crab, bluefin tuna or caviar atop a house-made fried corn tortilla. The $19 tuna tostada — the least expensive of the three — includes hunks of tuna with house-made peanut salsa matcha, serranos, avocado and smears of chipotle mayo.
“We’re taking the classics and elevating them to where you haven’t seen them like that before,” said Alexander Urrunaga, chief operating officer of the Marshis’ company, Big Dill Hospitality.
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Tacos, priced $25 to $27, are served with fried halibut, rib-eye or shrimp.
Entrées like sea bream build-your-own tacos, $54, and grilled Spanish octopus with smoked potato purée and saffron aioli, $44, keep up the seafood theme.
The Peeled Proof is a play on an Old Fashioned. The glassware unstacks so the drink can be poured into the cup below.
Samantha Marie
Those who would rather have beef can opt for mesquite-grilled skirt steak, $51, or a 16-ounce rib-eye, $68. Or, there’s a $25 green chile cheeseburger. It’s a surprise at a seafood restaurant, but the operators feel confident someone at the table wants it. (And this is Texas: They might be right.) As Marshi said, “We love a juicy burger.”
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Three themes bind Maroma with sibling spots Muchacho and Casa Brasa: sophisticated design, wood-fired cooking and one beloved margarita. The Muchacho margarita was added to Maroma’s menu because they’d “be crazy not to,” as Urrunaga said.
The interior of Maroma in Dallas is a sophisticated mix of neutral colors and bold prints. The best seat in the house, in the foreground, is a circular table that seats eight.
Samantha Marie
After Muchacho opened in late 2019 in University Park, the restaurant’s to-go margarita sales skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic, bolstering the restaurant during tough times. The marg remains the company’s signature cocktail as the company plans an expansion for Muchacho to Frisco and Dallas’ Lakewood. Any new restaurant in the Big Dill family, including Maroma, gets the Muchacho Margarita.
Illustrations on Maroma’s menu show diners the glassware for each cocktail, a fashionable hint into how showy the drink will or will not be.
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Peeled Proof, Maroma’s Old Fashioned with a brûléed banana for $19, comes in a carafe atop an empty glass so the drinker can pour more. The Maroma Paloma, $18, is served in a homey clay mug with a big slice of grapefruit on top. It’s the Cazuela, $76, that brings the drama. This four-person shared cocktail is served in a large Mexican bean pot with a lid. Long straws poking out of the drink won’t make diners reach as they sip white sangria with colorful wedges of fruit.
Get a seat on the temperature-controlled patio, and that bowl of booze fits right in; it’s beachy, but the thermostat is set to 70 degrees year-round.
Maroma is at 1333 Oak Lawn Ave., Dallas. It is expected to open May 4, 2026.
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Get out your phones! A $76 cocktail that can be shared between four people will be a talker at Maroma in the Dallas Design District.
Samantha Marie