Fort Worth diners will soon be able to book one of just 10 seats at a kitchen counter for a seven-course taco tasting menu built around Siberian caviar, beer-tempura lobster and dry-aged beef. Dos Mares, the coastal Mexican restaurant in the Cultural District, will launch its taco omakase on September 16 for $99 per person, seating guests directly in front of the kitchen for a format that borrows its structure from Japanese omakase dining and applies it to Mexican taco tradition.
Culinary director Rodrigo Cárdenas is leading the new menu, and according to The Dallas Morning News, he said Dos Mares is bringing the omakase tradition to the restaurant. The seven-course progression opens with a grilled oyster amuse-bouche topped with foie gras foam and Siberian caviar, and it closes with escondido de chocolate, a bitter chocolate cake with sesame ganache, berry ancho coulis and cocoa powder, the outlet reports. In between, the menu moves through a crudo de hamachi with yellowtail, coconut-mango leche de tigre, basil and parsley oil and black salt, along with a dragon fruit and mint sorbet meant to cleanse the palate before the entrees arrive.
A Tuna Tostada and Two Signature Tacos Anchor the Tasting
Among the tasting's centerpiece dishes is the tostada de atun, made with yellowtail No. 1 tuna cured in-house for 15 days, avocado, crispy leek and house anchovy sauce, per the same account. The pescado zarandeado features Texas red snapper in zarandeado adobo, black bean puree, garlic white rice, avocado crème fraîche and caviar, served on a house-made nixtamalized white corn tortilla made with corn from Tlaxcala, Mexico. The Rosarito taco, served on a house-made butter flour tortilla, layers beer-tempura lobster with black bean puree, macha mayonnaise, shaved cabbage, pineapple pico and ikura.
The tasting also includes the Gaonera de Texas Rosewood dry-aged striploin, dressed with Chihuahua and mozzarella cheeses, avocado-cilantro sauce, caramelized onions and avocado mousse. The menu is designed to change based on seasonal ingredients and availability, the report notes, meaning the specific lineup could shift week to week. Diners can add a three-wine pairing for an additional $45 per person, with all taco omakase prices subject to tax and a 20 percent gratuity.
Shared Kitchen With Don Artemio, Booked by Reservation Only
Dos Mares uses masa prepared from nixtamalized corn ground in the kitchen of its neighboring sister restaurant, Don Artemio, a detail that underscores how closely the two concepts are intertwined despite their different menus. Don Artemio, opened in Saltillo, Mexico, in 2007 by Chef Juan Ramón Cárdenas before expanding to Fort Worth, was named a national finalist for Best New Restaurant at the 2023 James Beard Foundation Awards. Rodrigo Cárdenas co-founded Dos Mares with his father, and his own résumé includes a degree in Food Industry Engineering from Tecnológico de Monterrey, culinary arts training at the International Culinary Center in New York, and stints at Daniel Boulud's Dinex Group and Restaurante Nicos in Mexico City, according to the Don Artemio website.
The taco omakase is available by reservation only and will run weekly at Dos Mares, with seatings on Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. beginning September 16 before expanding to Wednesdays and Thursdays starting October 1. Ahead of the public debut, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram gave local readers a preview of the intimate chef-counter setup, which places diners a few feet from the kitchen line at 3260 W. 7th St.
Coastal Concept Grew Out of the Family's Desert Cuisine Roots
Dos Mares opened in November 2025 in the space next to Don Artemio, with an interior of overhead wooden beams, fishing nets and teal tiles designed by Luis González de León and Javier Lucio, according to PaperCity Magazine. Its name translates to “Two Seas,” an homage to Mexico's Pacific and Atlantic coasts that marks an expansion beyond the arid desert cuisine of Coahuila found at Don Artemio, 360 West Magazine reports. Before the taco omakase, Dos Mares had already built a regular menu of roughly 32 Mexican coastal dishes, cocktails and coastal wines, including a signature red snapper zarandeado grilled over open fire.
The restaurant's arrival adds to what CandysDirt.com describes as an ongoing dining boom along West 7th Street in Fort Worth's Cultural District, where high-end, chef-driven concepts have increasingly clustered around the city's major art museums. The taco omakase format itself has roots that stretch well beyond Fort Worth: Chef Enrique Olvera popularized bar-seated taco tastings at Pujol in Mexico City, where a 10-seat counter experience runs 4,500 Mexican pesos, or roughly $220, as of 2026. Hoodline has previously reported that similar high-end taco tasting concepts have surfaced in cities like Chicago, part of a national shift toward tasting-menu tacos now reaching Fort Worth's Cultural District.
