Olōyō: Dallas’s Most Anticipated Mexican Restaurant

Chef Olivia López and Jonathan Percival spent four years building a James Beard-recognized cult following with no brick-and-mortar. This spring, their first restaurant lands at 4422 Gaston Avenue and changes the game for Mexican fine dining in Dallas.

Some restaurant openings are buzzy because of money. Some are buzzy because of celebrity. Molino Olōyō is buzzy because Dallas’s chef community, food critics, and farmers have been quietly waiting on this for four years. The pop-up that started by hand-delivering tamales and heirloom corn tortillas to people’s doorsteps is finally getting its first home.

The team is calling the brick-and-mortar concept simply Olōyō, and it lands at 4422 Gaston Avenue in East Dallas in the first half of 2026, taking over the space that used to be the beloved Cry Wolf along with the adjacent units. After years of pop-ups, private dinners, taco residencies at Wayward Coffee, and a James Beard semifinalist nod, Chef Olivia López and her partner Jonathan Percival are about to give Dallas the modern Mexican restaurant the city has been begging them to build.

Who’s In the Kitchen

Olivia López’s path through Dallas kitchens reads like a tour of the city’s most ambitious restaurants. She started at Craft Dallas at the W Hotel, then moved through Charlie Palmer’s, CBD Provisions, Mirador, and Americana before going independent. In 2021, she co-founded Molino Olōyō with Jonathan Percival out of a commercial kitchen, hand-delivering heirloom Mexican corn tortillas and tamales to homes across Dallas.

The recognition came fast. CultureMap Tastemaker Awards nominated her for Rising Star Chef in 2021. Texas Monthly named her wagyu suadero taco one of the 50 best tacos in Texas in 2024. The James Beard Foundation named her a semifinalist for Best Chef: Texas in 2023. And just this month, CultureMap named her one of the 10 best chefs in Dallas for 2026 as part of the Tastemaker Awards Chef of the Year nominations. All of this without a permanent restaurant. That’s how rare what López is doing actually is.

Percival, her co-founder, has been the quiet operations and storytelling backbone. He has talked about Molino’s growth as a slow, intentional process: “We’ve built Molino slowly and intentionally by focusing on one tortilla, one story at a time.”

Why the Wait Was So Long

López and Percival could have opened a restaurant years ago. They chose not to. Instead, they spent four years building relationships with family corn farmers in Mexico, sourcing heirloom corn varietals, partnering with Pequeño Farms in South Dallas to grow their own ingredients, and refining the menu through hundreds of pop-ups and home tasting dinners.

That obsessive sourcing process is what makes Olōyō different. Most modern Mexican restaurants in the United States buy masa from a supplier. Olōyō makes it from heirloom corn cultivated through regenerative farming, then nixtamalized in-house. Every tortilla, every tamal, every chip carries that lineage. When López talks about her food being “a tribute to what’s possible when we trust the ingredients, the land, and the people who grow with you,” she means it literally.

The Three Concepts Under One Roof

Olōyō is structured as a multi-faceted operation that lets the team show every side of what they do. Three distinct experiences will live inside the same Gaston Avenue compound.

The tasting room is the showpiece. An intimate multi-course experience serving López’s most refined work: pescado con moles, cacao nicatole con fresa y bisito colamote, bay scallop aguachile, and a rotating roster of dishes that change with the seasons and the harvest. This is where the chef-driven, James Beard-caliber cooking lives. Reservations will be the hardest get in town.

The fonda is the casual, walk-in side. Inspired by the team’s pop-up days, the fonda serves street-style fare including the Texas Monthly-recognized wagyu suadero taco that built their reputation, plus churros with toasted corn ice cream and the rotating taco lineup that drew lines at Wayward Coffee every weekend. As López put it: “You can’t have Mexican food without tacos, even though I enjoy showcasing the refined elements of our gastronomy. I still wanted to build a place where you can come by any day and enjoy a taco or two.”

The mezcalería rounds out the experience. Spirit-forward agave cocktails, a curated wine program, and botanas designed to bridge the casual and the refined sides of the operation. This is the room where you start your night before the tasting room, or end it after the fonda.

The Design and the Team Behind It

The interior is being designed by acclaimed Dallas designer Hatsumi Kuzuu, whose previous work includes Tei-An, one of the most respected Japanese restaurants in the city. Branding comes from boutique New York agency Memo NYC. Restaurant consultant Leslie Brenner is also involved. This is not a budget operation. The team is treating every visual and operational detail with the same care López puts into her masa.

Getting There and Around

4422 Gaston Avenue sits in Old East Dallas, a neighborhood that’s been quietly building one of the most interesting independent dining scenes in the city. The corner has long been a destination for Cry Wolf fans, and Olōyō takes over not just that footprint but the adjacent units, expanding the space significantly. Free street parking is available throughout the area. Rideshare drops directly at the front. The Lakewood neighborhood, Greenville Avenue, and Lower Greenville are all minutes away, which makes Olōyō an easy stop for a full East Dallas dinner-and-drinks night.

How to Show Up

When the reservation system goes live, lock in your tasting room date through their official channels. This will be the hardest reservation in Dallas in 2026, and opening month is going to book out fast. Follow @oloyo_dtx on Instagram for the official opening date and reservation drop.

If you can’t get a tasting room seat right away, the fonda is the play. Walk in for the wagyu suadero taco that put them on the Texas Monthly map, sit at the bar in the mezcalería, and order an agave cocktail. You’ll be eating the same masa that comes out of the tasting room kitchen, just in a different format.

For groups, anniversaries, or special celebrations, the multi-course tasting room is going to be the most ambitious Mexican fine dining experience in Dallas. Plan for a multi-hour evening, lean into the wine and mezcal pairings, and trust the chef.

Don’t Sleep On It

Dallas has been slow to build a true modern Mexican fine dining scene. Plenty of casual concepts. Plenty of clubstaurants serving fajitas with bottle service. But the kind of chef-driven, ingredient-obsessed, ancestral-but-progressive Mexican cooking that San Francisco, New York, and Mexico City have been celebrating for years has never quite landed here. Olōyō changes that. With López’s James Beard recognition, four years of community-built anticipation, and a team that has been refining every tortilla since 2021, this is not a restaurant opening. This is a moment.

If you only book one Dallas reservation in 2026, make it this one. While you’re mapping out your East Dallas dining plans, don’t miss our complete look at the hidden surge in $15 lunches across DFW right now, the most useful guide to eating well across the Metroplex on any budget.

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