Noche Woodfire Grill & Agave Bar
110 N Elgin Ave., Suite 140
Fun but focused, Noche Woodfire Grill & Agave Bar feels happening. Each side of the divided dining room is awash in red and blue jewel tones with cheeky neon signage. FLOUR POWER, reads one. ¡SALUD! reads another. The visual impact makes what the restaurant is trying to be immediately clear: vibrant, approachable but with a few signature twists. The menu, a medium-deep dive into the cuisine of Mexico, doubles down on that intent.
On my first visit, my partner and I sat at the bar for cocktails ahead of a dinner reservation and tried the Noche Classic Margarita, one of four margarita options. It was well-made, normal, and just a little bit special, frothy from egg white and garnished with a slice of dried lime. We were served a small bite with our drinks: a handful of totopos—tortilla chips—with black bean dip topped with a tiny bit of chile salsa. We were served this small bite again when we moved to our table, and I did not tell them we’d already had some because I wanted more of Noche’s chips, super sturdy and salty, obviously made in-house, and worth a small lie—or omission—to get a few extra.
To start, we ordered the salsa trio—more chips!!—and Hazel’s Crushed Tamale Queso, so-named for the recipe used by chef Sheamus Feeley’s mother. The cantina and avocado tomatillo options were as expected, but the morita (think chipotle) salsa was a little powerhouse, sweet, spicy, and dense. The queso was queso like you want if you’re in Oklahoma, but the addition of crushed tamales, which are nowhere else on the menu, made it taste like a decadent corn dip. Normal queso, but a little bit special. It also came with a couple of Noche’s signature Sonoran-style sour flour tortillas, a wheat flour tortilla common in northwestern Mexico, made with a touch of sourdough. Soft, fresh, chewy, and apt to ruin your appetite for the entree if they gave you more than two.
For my entree, I chose the plancha-seared shrimp fajitas, which came heavily charred with soft onions and a whole roasted jalapeno in a cast iron bowl, along with cute stacked trays of flour tortillas and typical fajita condiments (sides are separate). These were tasty if not over-the-top remarkable and in a diminutive quantity that worked well only because I had just eaten my weight in tortilla chips. My partner ordered the Yucatan-style pork shoulder, inspired by the cuisine clear across Mexico from the Sonoran Desert. It was a huge portion of fork-cuttable shoulder, heavily spiced and smothered in green salsa, served with rice and beans. It was all tasty if you like warm spices in savory foods, but my favorite thing on his plate was the golden rice. I desperately want to know how they fit that much flavor into what just looks like rice.
On the ambience: it’s a beautiful space, but when it’s full, the bar (blue) side of the restaurant is dark and incredibly loud with ambient noise. It was hard to hear our bartender and then hard to hear our server throughout the meal. For our second visit, we were seated on the red side, and it was early in the night and less than half full. This is a much more spacious, less rowdy experience overall.
The salsa trio is non-negotiable, so we ordered that again … and also the queso again. I’m sure the other appetizers are great. For our entrees, this time we tried two meals that each centered something I almost never order: the leanest cut of meat on the animal.
The chicken fajitas were a far more generous portion than the shrimp, and while the smoky flavor was great, they read just a tiny bit dry. Even with a marinade, I feel this is the cost of doing business with chicken breasts, and people who prefer white meat chicken would probably have no complaints. We also had the tampiqueña, here an end cut of a beef tenderloin served with golden rice and a single cheese enchilada. The steak was steak, and the rice was as good as last time. The cheese enchilada is where the plate veers off road.
If you’re a cheese pull enthusiast, Noche’s enchiladas won’t scratch that itch because the filling is based on a wildly unexpected parmesan crema—nutty, fruity … a little Italian-feeling?—and elicits more of a cheese pour, staying liquid throughout the entirety of the meal. On sight, I thought one enchilada was a measly accompaniment to a steak, but it’s so rich that it actually aligned just right. Both the steak (cooked perfectly and topped with flaky salt) and the enchilada needed the accompanying guajillo-ancho sauce, for opposite reasons. I am a cheese hedonist and will order the cheese enchiladas as my entree next time. If you get overwhelmed by dairy, this is not for you.
All in all, Noche is deferential to its cuisine, experimental but only just, enough to draw in people timid about new foods and satisfy the kind of person who knows what Rancho Gordo beans are. The restaurant opened for dinner only at first—“Noche,” after all, means nighttime—but recently expanded to include brunch and lunch options. Both have similar menus to dinner service with, you guessed it, a few new things added in.
The Pickup's reviews are published with support from The Online Journalism Project.
