Mole Mania Turns Houston’s Nearly 40-Year Mexican Staple Restaurant Into a Holiday Blast — Picos Embraces Tradition

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true food love gave to me — mole, mole, and more mole. In fact, 12 exquisite moles, each prepared by the talented chefs at Pico’s Restaurant on Kirby Drive. A complete mole novice I swung by recently to learn how these complicated sauces are made with a lesson from Picos chef Arnaldo Richards himself.

For nearly 40 years, the chef/owner of Picos has been cooking at his Houston based-restaurant. A third generation restauranteur, Richards was first inspired to step behind the range by his grandmother and aunt. Raised in Monterrey, Mexico, Richards made his way to the states and the prestigious Conrad Hilton School of Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Houston.

This holiday season, he’s continuing a tradition he and his wife Janice started many years ago, creating 12 distinctly different, deeply flavored moles every day for the first 12 days of December, many of which represent the seven significant regions of Mexico and its cuisine that round out the menu at Picos.

Today, Richard’s daughter Monica is the fourth generation carrying on the family tradition at Picos, a restaurant originally established in the 1980s in Bellaire before moving to its current Houston locale eight years ago. In a tradition that began on November 30th and lasts until next Saturday, December 11, Richards and his chefs prepare a different traditional mole each day and add it to their menu.

The first day brought the mole negro — an Oaxacan mole served over a braised short rib. The most popular of Picos’ moles, it’s a charred, deep, dark rich sauce which like most on the menu here, requires more than two dozen ingredients and hours to simmer and meld those distinct flavors as one.

That first day is followed by 11 varied mole sauces from a light mole verde served with chicken to a pink-hued mole rosa paired with turkey to a vegetarian Atapakua with squash as Picos’ mole offerings grow exponentially. That is until the late morning of the 13th day — next Sunday, December 12 — when a gran posada, if you will, is presented at a buffet brunch where all 12 moles are served along with what Monica Richards estimates as a feast with more than 74 dishes overall. (The Sunday Molada and Tamalada brunch is $42 per person and reservations are suggested.)

Making preparations weeks in advance, Chef Richards insists that regardless of the type of mole, it should never possess the taste of any of the individual ingredients assembled, but evoke its own whole, deeply complex flavor. Made with roasted and ground ingredients from chiles to nuts to spices to fruit and leaves (think nopales and avocado), mole is distinct.

“A good mole will always have a rough texture, no matter how much you grind it,” Arnaldo Richards says. “Moles are always best served the following day. We never make and serve mole made on the same day.

“All the enzymes should gather and work in your favor to round out the flavors.”

The result of a marriage of different cultures in Mexico from the natives to the ruling Spaniards to the European influences that worked their way throughout the country from the 17th century onward, the traditional cuisine there, as well as in the kitchen of Picos, employs French techniques like braising and the simmering of rich bone broths, stocks and fish fumes. Picos’ talented chefs Sergio Ledesma and Atzin Santos even borrow a popular Chinese method used in the preparation of Peking duck.

Here the chef hangs his ducks to dry for 21 days before the magret (duck breast) is seared skin side down to render its fat and crisp its skin before it’s sliced and served over a pool of mole Almendrado, an earthy ancho and guajillo pepper, sesame seed and almond-studded mole.

Picos’ Tamale Stand

Of course, Picos does more than mole. For many families throughout Texas and beyond, it isn’t Christmas without tamales on the table. From mid-November thru January 8 (9 am. to 9 pm), Richards runs his famed tamale stand in the restaurant’s parking lot.

You can pick up his banana leaf-wrapped tamales Oaxaquenos filled with chicken, pork, shrimp, turkey or vegetables ($21 for a dozen, or $10.50 for a half dozen) and his corn husk-wrapped tamales Nortenos filled with pork, cheese, chicken, black beans, or even a sweet variety stuffed with pineapple, raisins and coconut ($42 a dozen, $21 a half-dozen).

Each is a gluten-free holiday side dish that can take center stage even at dessert with a new chocolate tamal and tamal de elote, the latter a sweet corn tamale enriched with butter, cinnamon and vanilla. If you can’t make it in to dine on your favorite moles, with 24-hours-notice you can pick any of those listed below at the stand, too. (Along with drinks like Mexican hot chocolate and batched cocktails like holiday sangria, margaritas and spiked cider.)

Out of state? Much of the Picos menu is available by mail order the food-centric website Goldbelly. Last November, Picos edged out more than 140 restaurant vying for one of only seven available spots on the popular juried site. Today through Goldbelly, Picos sends out its chile con queso, Menudo stew, guacamole and salsa plus tamales, moles and more nearly anywhere overnight via UPS all year long.

Picos’ Holiday Mole Schedule

1. Tuesday, November 30: Mole Negro/Short Rib

2. Wednesday, December 1: Mole Poblano/Chicken

3. Thursday, December 2: Mole Verde/Chicken

4. Friday, December 3: Mole Rosa/Turkey

5. Saturday, December 4: Mole de Olla/Beef, Chiles & Vegetables

6. Sunday, December 5: Pipian Rojo/Catch of the day fish

7. Monday, December 6: Manchamanteles/Lamb

8. Tuesday, December 7: Mole Amarillo/Pork Ribs

9. Wednesday, December 8: Atapakua/Squash

10. Thursday, December 9: Mole Almendrado/Duck

11. Friday, December 10: Mole de Novia/Quail

12. Saturday, December 11: Mole Chichillo/Wild Boar

13. Sunday, December 12: Sunday Brunch with all 12 moles served