New Dallas restaurant AvoEatery makes everything with avocados

Avocados are always in season at a new restaurant that opens today in Trinity Groves.

The trade and marketing group Avocados from Mexico has partnered with Trinity Groves to open AvoEatery, a unique restaurant that specializes in all things avocado.  It occupies the former Casa Rubio space in Trinity Groves.

Avocados from Mexico CEO Alvaro Luque says it’s the only restaurant of its kind. It will function not only as a full-service restaurant but also as a test kitchen to develop recipes for the food service industry and chefs. The 2,500-square-foot AvoEatery features a menu with 29 items and 10 cocktails. 

“We aren’t restaurant people; we are marketing people,” Luque said. “We’ll create the menu then let Trinity Groves operate the restaurant. Our goal here is to have an American restaurant where everything has an avocado twist. It’s the food you’re used to eating but we incorporate avocados into everything.”

Every dish on the one page menu – from cocktails to main courses, small plates and desserts – includes avocados as at least one of its ingredients. Some cocktails are sweetened with avocado honey and include frozen avocado ice cubes. The sipping straws will soon be avocado-based. Even iced tea gets an avocado kick from steeping the dried leaves of the plant. The weird thing? Every one of the dozen or so dishes I tried at a recent preview was not only delicious but reasonably priced. 

Prices range from $6 for appetizers to $22 for a 16-ounce New York strip steak topped with avocado-chimichurri sauce (that price makes it a real ba) rgain.Avocado cocktails run $9 to $12.

A goal of AvoEatery is to promote the use of Avocados grown in Mexico. Two billion pounds of Mexican avocados are exported the U.S. each year, Luque said, yet the average household only consumes three avocados per month. “You can’t even make a good guacamole with just that,” Luque said.

An average restaurant that buys avocados orders two or three cases per week; AvoEatery general manager James Hamos said he expects to use between 50 and 100 cases a week, “and I have every vendor in town standing by in case we run short.”

And yes, Avo Eatery serves excellent guacamole and even avocado fries, two of the best uses ever for fruits grown on trees. (You knew that avocados were a fruit, right?)