Sara and Martin Stayer have quietly reopened their intimate mezcal bar. After a couple of weeks of soft opening, Quiote will officially return to service this Thursday, March 21.

Located inside The Toasted Coconut, the couple’s tiki-inspired restaurant and bar, Quiote is an intimate, 14-seat room with a semi-hidden entrance. Once inside the candlelit space, diners find a seat at the counter where they’re presented with a list of (mostly) agave-based cocktails and a tidy menu of creative bar food.

This version is Quiote 3.0. It originally opened for six weeks in 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic closed dining rooms and made small spaces non-viable. It reopened in 2022 but closed when the couple needed to focus their attention on Nonno’s Family Pizza Tavern, the Chicago-inspired pizzeria that’s a nominee for Best New Restaurant in the 2024 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards. Around the time Nonno's opened, the space briefly hosted Saint Julian's Social Club, a carnival and circus-themed pop-up bar. With Nonno’s flying high after Esquire magazine named it Pizza Joint of the Year, Stayer turned his attention to reopening the bar.

“Quiote is a pretty fun project. It’s had a few hiccups here and there, but we’re ready to keep it going for awhile now," Stayer tells CultureMap. "I think Houston needs to have an agave bar. There’s not a lot of places focused on that these days."

To lead the bar, the Stayers hired Pastry War veteran Joe Becerra as lead bartender and manager. “He’s been a great fit for us. He’s managing the room, comes up with creative cocktails — just super friendly vibes in there,” Stayer says about Becerra.

He’s joined by bartender Kimberly Salinas, whom Stayer describes as having a passion for agave spirits.

“I met Kimberly Salinas at a mezcal tasting she was doing. She had lived in Oaxaca for sometime and worked at bars down there,” he says. “In talking to her, she just wants to delve into agave spirits and learn and expand her palate.”

Working together, Becerra and Salinas created a cocktail menu that starts with a classic margarita (available with tequila or mezcal) as well as the Baja Breeze, a mezcal-based riff on a paloma. Those who want to dive more deeply into Mexican spirits will find options that include the PonCheese — made with Mexican rum, sherry, ponche, and goat cheese — as well as the Solita that combines sotol with mango and pepita orgeat.

“I think it’s a great gateway drink for sotol,” Stayer says. “It plays well with the grassy, barnyard flavor that sotol is known for.”

Stayer is having as much fun with the food as the bartenders are with the drinks. In Quiote’s first iteration, the food stayed focused on traditionally Mexican dishes such as aguachile and pozole. In the second iteration, Stayer added some Peruvian and Japanese influences. Now, he’s casting aside tradition and exploring the similarities between Mexican and French cuisine, which results in dishes such as confit duck tacos, beef Bourguignon with mole, and a haricot vert tostada with goat cheese.

Yes, those are green beans on the tostada.Photo by Vivian Leba

“It’s been a fun project. I’ve been reading all these old school French classic cookbooks and at the same time Diana Kennedy’s books and beef bourguignon recipes and mole recipes and seeing all these cool similarities,” Stayer says.

“I feel like Burgundy and Oaxaca are two peas in a pod. The way they treat the culture of food and drink, there’s so many similarities. It made sense to mash them up a bit.”

Since Quiote doesn’t have a vent hood, all of the food is designed to be prepared in a toaster oven or served raw. A cook from Toasted Coconut has been moved into the space to execute the menu. Whereas the offerings at the Stayers' other concepts — Toasted, Nonno’s, and Nobie’s — have to appeal to a wide of tastes, Stayer says Quiote’s small footprint and limited menu have allowed him to be more focused on serving whatever he’s most excited about.

“There’s a little of something for everyone, but that’s not the primary focus,” he explains. “It’s to make it good and make the vibes good. For people to feel special when they’re in there. You walk through the plant door, and it does transport you.”

Quiote is open Thursday-Saturday from 5 pm-12 am and Sunday from 5-10 pm.