More Tex-Mex cuisine has moseyed into to Northern Virginia in the form of Ometeo, the latest restaurant from Long Shot Hospitality.

The huge restaurant, which opened Dec. 6 in Tysons near the Capital One headquarters, seats 240 guests on two levels. An outdoor bar area seats 75 more. Ometeo replaces City Works, which closed in June 2020.

Long Shot Hospitality is the group behind the District’s New Orleans-inspired Dauphine’s, and The Salt Line, a seafood restaurant with locations in D.C., Bethesda, and Ballston. They also manage The Dubliner near Union Station and The Lost Fox in Ashburn.

The name Ometeo combines two words in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs who ruled and inhabited Mexico between the 14th and 16th centuries. In that language, ōme means “two” and teōtl means God. The name references the restaurant’s inspiration from two sources: Mexico and Texas.

Chef-partners Kyle Bailey and Gabe Erales, the winner of Top Chef season 18, helm the kitchen — Erales was the first Mexican American chef to win Bravo’s cooking competition reality show. The El Paso, Texas native lives in Austin where he runs two other restaurants; he’ll fly into the D.C. area once a month for Ometeo. When he isn’t there, executive chef Manuel Perez, an alum of Quadrant Bar & Lounge and José Andrés’ Oyamel Cocina Mexicana, will run the kitchen’s day-to-day operations.

At Ometeo, the meal may start with a drink; expect margaritas, the carajillo al chapulín — Ometeo’s house espresso martini — and frozen aguas frescas from Donato Alvarez, the group’s beverage director. As for the food, everything starts with the tortilla, Erales says. They anchor tacos and accompany all of the five of the fajitas, the sopa Azteca chicken, the beef cheek barbacoa and the Gulf snapper known as huachinago frito. To honor the ubiquitous flatbread and give the restaurant a little bit more energy, guests can watch staffers make corn and flour tortillas in an open part of the kitchen.

The restaurant also aims to build on what people traditionally think of as Tex-Mex cuisine by using a lot of fresh seafood and higher-end ingredients, but also making the food approachable, fun, whimsical and delicious, Erales says.

For example, Erales riffed on The Salt Line’s popular clam stuffie to create a stuffie tamale, a quahog clam stuffed with heirloom corn, chorizo verde, and manchego, topped with crushed corn nuts. Other appetizers include venison carne Apache ($18) and calabacitas, a dish of squash, sofrito, chile guajillo, queso fresco, and pumpkin seeds ($14).

There are also classic Tex-Mex dishes such as steak fajitas, chips and salsa and queso. In keeping with a steakhouse feel, the fajita platters go the extra mile: the beef offers skirt steak ($34), New York strip steak, or bone-in short rib ($78). The chicken breast platter ($27) has optional stuffed quail and chicken thigh add-ons for $45. And the basic seafood fajita platter with shrimp ($29) can be upgrading with lobster, scallops, and squid ($68).

“There’s a lot of variety and it feels much more extravagant than just rolling into like an Uncle Julio’s and having your standard platter,” Erales says.

For more budget-conscious diners, the restaurant offers several dishes, that start at $15 or under, like the chile con queso ($12) and beef picadillo tacos ($14).

“So, you can go and have a drink, have a meal and get out of there for less than $50,” Erales says.

For dessert, there’s a molten chocolate tamal, a coconut sorbet with candied spiced pecans and coconut cajeta, ($16),  and campfire s’more flambeado made with fried toasted marshmallow ice cream, ancho chocolate ganache and cinnamon meringue ($15), as well as classic flan and tres leches cake ($12 each).

Erales takes on this new responsibility at Ometeo as he reckons with the past.

After Erales’ Top Chef win in 2020, news reports surfaced that Comedor, the Austin restaurant where he was working as executive chef, fired him following misconduct allegations. Erales admitted in a now-deleted Instagram apology that he had a consensual relationship with an employee and later reduced her hours, leading to his termination after he finished filming the reality show, the Today Show reported.

“In that unfortunate situation where I made a poor leadership decision and had a relationship with an employee, that was where I failed as a leader,” Erales tells DCist. “And that was really the point of origin for all of my current growth and looking at where I can be a better leader, a better chef, in many aspects … not just in the business, but also as a husband, as a father.”

Since then, Erales completed one of MAD Academy’s five-day core courses on leadership and business in Copenhagen. The academy is from the foundation launched by René Redzepi, chef-owner of now-shuttered Noma, long considered one of the world’s best restaurants. The curriculum is designed to help attendees become more effective leaders of socially and financially sustainable restaurants, according to a MAD spokesperson.

Erales says he also earned a human resources certification from the University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Professional Education, where studied human resources legalities and leadership guidelines.

Ometeo’s leadership has regular check-ins with all staff members, says Erales. The restaurant group has a human resources director and an area director, creating more channels for staff members to raise things for discussion, says Jeremy Carman, one of the group’s partners.

Erales has been involved in Ometeo since day one, from the design of the space to the menu, Carman says. The partners met Erales socially before the pandemic and were talking to him about Ometeo while his season of Top Chef was airing, Carman says. They and the rest of the staff are aware of what happened with Erales’ previous employer.

“We just felt that he obviously made a bad decision — I think he would be the first person to tell you that he made a bad decision — but we didn’t feel as though it was something we couldn’t work through, given some conversation and some growth,” Carman says.

Ometeo offers multiple dining areas, a large bar outside, and a second-floor mezzanine lounge that can be used for private dining. The partners were going for a consistent look that transports you to Texas. Think terra cotta floors, cactus, pottery bowls, leather couches, real and fake bull heads, a portrait of three cowboys, a painting of a Mexican man playing a guitar, as well as vintage advertisements for Levi’s jeans and Stetson cowboy hats.

On the stereo, expect to hear a playlist from Chris Stiles, a DJ for NASCAR, the Washington Nationals, and D.C. United. Stiles created a soundtrack spanning several genres, including Mexican pop, outlaw country, pop country, rock, and blues.

“It’s like a combination of, you know, expected and unexpected Mexican and music that is indicative of Texas and the South,” Carman says.

Ometeo is located at 1640 Capital One Drive North in Tysons. It is open Sunday-Wednesday from 4 p.m.- 9 p.m., with the bar closing at 11 p.m., and Thursday-Saturday from 4 p.m.-9:30 p.m., with the bar closing at midnight.