Meza supplies savory and saucy

Photo by Clara Ganey

Meza, the cozy Latin tapas restaurant tucked away on 14th Avenue, hasn’t even celebrated its first birthday, and it’s already teaching other neighborhood restaurants a bold lesson: savory authentic dishes taste even better when customers can afford them.

For less than $10 at Meza—which opened in late August and fuses cuisine from Venezuela, Cuba and Spain—you can get a small plate of well-seasoned grub. The eatery’s offerings are perfect for a light lunch or hearty snack on the way home from the bar (the place is open until 3 a.m. weekend nights).

The Toke de Pollo tapa is a staple. The $6 dish offers just enough generously marinated braised chicken atop caramelized onion to satisfy—but not enough to share.

Just $1 to $3 more will get you a Cuban or Spanish sandwich on thick, floury slabs of Macrina Bakery’s Guiseppe toast. One whiff of the Havana ($9)—a piping-hot Cuban pork sandwich garnished with banana peppers, melted cheese and a thin layer of shaved ham—and Meza’s attention to detail and flavor pairing becomes clear.

“I just want people to come and get something different that is affordable,” says owner Alex Meza. “It’s a kind of a little hole in the wall, but it’s good food.”

Though it’s hard to spot from the single sandwich board announcing its presence on 14th Avenue, Meza is hardly a hole in the wall. A handsome black chandelier hangs over a rustic table carved out of oak and smooth jazz notes join the aromas of sizzling meat drifting through the air. A maroon wall with smart black trim flaunts two illuminated photography collages.

On the other wall, a gaudy silver-framed mirror complements work from local artists, which Meza rotates every three months. Currently gracing the walls are David Vanhook and Alemendra Sandoval Enriquez’s oil paintings.

Nearly everything else in the restaurant—from the fresh aioli dipping sauce accompanying each sandwich to the recycled wood bar stools—Meza created himself.

It took him just two and a half weeks to build the bar, he says, which now holds standard liquors as well as homemade novelties like cucumber-infused vodka ($2 for a shot) and homemade sangrias ($6 for a glass or $25 for a pitcher).

Meza’s Arepitas, a Venezuelan street food, are also restaurant exclusives. Flaky toasted corncake pockets stuffed with tender chunks of slow-cooked meat blanketed in mozzarella or Swiss cheese, Arepitas also go for $6. Both the basic braised pork Pernil and the tomato-based Vegetariana pack plenty of flavor.

“Cooking, you know, it’s my thing,” says Meza, who’s culinary influences range from Spain to a tiny mountainous village nestled in Venezuela’s El Ávila National Park.

Meza admits the recipe for his $4 chantilly cream flan, however—a caramel-drizzled dessert Seattle Magazine recently praised—belongs to his grandmother.

One of the few drawbacks to Meza is time you’ll spend waiting outside with a watering mouth before you can get in. The eatery fills up quick some dinner hours. Expect a line of patrons if you’re coming in past 6 p.m. on a weekend night.

This article was originally published in Seattle University's Spectator.