Tino’s Southwest Kitchen in south Fort Myers wows

Name: Tino’s Southwest Kitchen in south Fort Myers wows
Item: Tino’s Southwest Kitchen
Author: Jean Le Boeuf

by Jean Le Boeuf

July 6, 2019

12:00 AM

Every now and then I just know I’m going to love a place.

Walking into Tino’s Southwest Kitchen and perusing its unique Tex-Mex fusion menu, I could feel it in my gut. I mean, chili Colorado with wine-braised short ribs, quesadillas crafted from house chorizo, sautéed mushrooms and blistered corn — what’s not to love?

It helps that Tino’s owners, Alison and Blaine Dry, also own another of my favorite restaurants, Cip’s Place on Sanibel. It helps that the decor of this formerly humble taqueria is now sleek, cool and desert-chic, lined with cacti, white-brick wallpaper and a long banquette wrapped in faux snake skin.

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Tino’s makes a great first impression.

Its second, third and fourth ones are even better.

The Drys opened Tino’s in late January, taking over the short-lived and very different Tino’s space in this narrow, center unit of the Publix-anchored plaza at the corner of Summerlin and Winkler roads in south Fort Myers.

My first food impression of this new Tino’s involved a bowl of ceviche piled with thick bits of shrimp and fat scallops in a marinade bright with lime andjalapeno. It came with a side of chips still warm from the fryer.

“We make the tortillas ourselves,” the server told me.

My heart fluttered even faster.

Like those chips, Tino’s salsa comes out warm and thrumming with smoky chipotles. Its guacamole is simple, velvety and unmistakably fresh. Much of this menu is filled with Tex-Mex standards, simple-sounding stuff like chimichangas, tacos and chicken tortilla soup.

But simple isn’t in Tino’s lexicon.

I mean, that soup. When’s the last time anyone’s been excited by chicken tortilla soup? I’ve eaten plenty, and at most it’s elicited a slight smile. But Tino’s tortilla soup, rich yet light and tingling with the happiest amount of spice, had me raving. So much so, the neighboring table took note. I offered them a bite. They ordered a bowl of their own.

Tino’s tacos come on the springy house-made tortillas my server had so rightly bragged about. My “pineapple pork” ones ate like the heartiest, homiest, most soulful version of al pastor I’d had in years. It wasn’t taqueria-style al pastor, it was chunkier and more nuanced. It was Tino’s al pastor — and, man, now I’m craving it again.

Tino’s makes vegetarian tacos, house-smoked brisket tacos, grilled-snapper tacos thick with sweet fillets of fish and avocado crema. I could eat nothing but tacos here for a year and be happy.

But there’s so much more to this little place.

The quinoa-kale salad is a marvel of flavors and textures: radish, cucumber, sweet peppers, orange segments, pickled onions, candied walnuts, all tossed with ribbons of tender kale and nutty grains of quinoa in a citrus vinaigrette that I’m still trying to work out in my head (Was that honey? Kumquat?).

What are we up to, my eighth or ninth great impression?

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Jean Le Boeuf, or JLB, is the pseudonym used by the restaurant critic for The News-Press and Naples Daily News.

I’ve got another one, that chili Colorado, the most impressive dish yet. The red-wine braise on these short ribs and the slow caramelization of the onions are two classically French techniques. Yet the chilies, the queso blanco, the crumbly cotija — all thoroughly Mexican. The result is something I’d never tasted before; a joining of two disparate worlds in a way that so deliciously made sense.

I could go on, about the Grand Marnier-infused flan, the cumin-scented black beans, the efficiency of this kitchen, the fact no entree is more than $14.

But I think you get the picture.

Every now and then I just know I’m going to love a place. And, every now and then, I am so, so right.

Jean Le Boeuf is the pseudonym used by a local food lover who dines at restaurants anonymously and without warning, with meals paid for by The News-Press and Naples Daily News. Follow the critic at facebook.com/jeanleboeufswfl or @JeanLeBoeuf on Twitter and Instagram.