Hugo Ortega’s Latest Is a California Mexican Restaurant That Makes Seafood Sing — Zaranda Takes Root By Discovery Green

For the last two decades, the Ortega family has educated Houston diners about the depth and breadth of Mexican cuisine. Now they’re taking everyone back in time to the early 1500s, when Spanish colonists made their way to Baja California before heading north to colonize what was known for centuries as Alta California. At the family’s newest restaurant Zaranda, James Beard Award-winning chef Hugo Ortega and his brother, pastry chef Ruben Ortega, conjure up dishes inspired by the foodstuffs grown and raised on this swath of verdant land, from present-day Northern California to Cabo San Lucas.

The region is an agricultural bounty of foodstuffs, from produce such as fennel, artichokes, olives, eggplant, lettuces and nuts to rich wine-growing regions, livestock raised on rambling ranches and the pristine waters to the south rife with seafood.

All these things inspire Zaranda’s menu, which explores the food of Las Californias. “Early on we decided that the cuisine would not be a fusion of Mexican and Californian cuisines,” Hugo Ortega says. “But our conceptualization of what it might have looked like if those two halves had stayed as one.”

Situated downtown, steps away from Discovery Green on the ground floor of the 28-story Norton Rose Fulbright Tower, Zaranda’s 7,000-square-foot, two-story space was designed by Christina Wilburn of Gin Design Group. The interiors channel the warmth of Baja with wide-plank oak flooring and sculpted wood baffles that echo the movement of gentle ocean waves. Custom touches include a hand-finished mural of the Pacific coastline and banquettes upholstered in sun-washed terracotta and azure-blue hues.

Owners Hugo Ortega and his wife Tracy Vaught lured their longtime H-Town Restaurant Group collaborators/chefs Adrian Caballero and Paula Gutierrez to helm the kitchen at their newest restaurant. Zaranda is named after the traditional wire basket used to cook seafood over a live fire — a 500-year-old technique that still remains popular in Baja. Not surprisingly, the zarandeado technique plays a starring role here.

Diving Into the Zaranda Menu

During my visit, the daily catch was branzino — butterflied, seared and napped in an adobo zarandeado made with guajillo pepper, costeño Amarillo peppers, chile de árbol and roasted red bell peppers (market price). Other alluring seafood options cooked in the zarandeado technique include whole octopus marinated in a red-herb oil ($38), butterflied lobster (market price) and grilled shrimp ($39).

Zaranda also features menu items — many meant to be shared — inspired by dishes the Ortegas have sampled throughout the region, from paella-like arroces to Del Rancho, premium cuts of beef and lamb, either grilled or slow-cooked and topped with a dollop of bone-marrow butter ($32 to $125). The ensalada Caesar was inspired by one of Mexico’s most famous experts. Legend says it was created on the fly with scarce ingredients that Italian-American restaurateur Caesar Cardini had on hand in his Tijuana restaurant.

At Zaranda, it’s replicated tableside with spears of hearts of romaine, anchovies and a shower of shaved Italian Parmigiano Reggiano ($15/$29). Tipping their toque to the olives grown and olive oil produced in California (in this case, a spiced variety from Casa Magoni), the olive bread baked by Magnol arrives warm with a dollop of herb-infused butter and olive oil for dipping ($9). Conchas include ostiones suaves, or soft-shell oysters, a dish of the Ortegas’ own making where a deep-fried Gulf oyster devoid of its outer shell is swaddled in a custom-molded edible shell with a bed of coleslaw, smoked oyster aioli and glowing orange trout roe ($16).

The Spaniards, of course, were hardly the first to discover California. Some of the earliest settlers were adventurous Asians who crossed the Bering Strait to Alaska thousands of years ago, when a warmer climate and a now-vanished land bridge made that travel possible. In honor of those explorers, you’ll see Asian ingredients melded into several dishes, such as ostiones en su concha — raw oysters with a green ponzu sauce ($22/$44) — and tostada de tiradito, a crisp tortilla elegantly layered with hamachi, shitake mushrooms, furikake seasoning and ponzu ($17).

Sophia Ortega inspired her dad’s Valencia bomba rice entree, pato y Conejo ($67).

“My dad and I love to go out for Peking duck, and I thought, ‘Could you play with the concept of Peking duck but with a Mexican influence?’ ” she says. “Basically, it’s built on a bed of toasted Spanish short-grained rice cooked with sofrito, white wine, before it’s topped with a duck leg where the skin is compressed and crisped like a chicharron, and instead of hoisin for dipping and pancakes to wrap up each bite, we have a sweet mole made with dates and a large flour tortilla.”

Sommelier Elvis Espionza (Xochi, Caracol) compiled the wine selections, where varietals grown in the Alta and Baja regions play a starring role. Order the Las Californias wine tasting flight (three-ounce pour, $18), where wines from Mexico go head-to-head against noteworthy blends from California. For those who prefer to quaff a spirited option, beverage director Carlos Serrano has shaken and stirred up some compelling options, from sakura maya made with a raspberry and saffron-infused sake, pulque (the fermented sap of the agave) and pisco ($17) to a half-dozen alluring margarita selections ($14 to $34).

Dessert is where Ruben Ortega shines. He head-huddled with lead pastry chef Roxy Puga to create sweets such as Dólar de Arena, a white chocolate sand dollar poised atop a creamy coconut mousse with almond praline and candied strips of nori ($16) to the exotic Erizo del Mar, a spiked chocolate shell resembling a sea urchin filled with lemon verbena cream, hibiscus gel, a passion-fruit sponge cake and a hibiscus-laced caramel ($18).

Zaranda is located at 1550 Lamar. It is open Mondays through Thursdays from 11 am to 10 pm, and Fridays and Saturdays from 11 am to 11 pm.