Dinner at Javier and Amelia Corona’s home in Mexico City was never just a meal; it was an event. Hours were spent preparing their renowned creations from confidential recipes, never repeated twice for guests. Their table was always impeccably set and the food they served was always fresh from the market, never frozen. Wolfing down food prepared with such care would have been an insult. No, this was a meal meant to savor.

See, the Coronas took food very seriously. Amelia and Javier traveled extensively, sampling the world’s finest cuisines and incorporating the best elements into their interior Mexico dishes, born from the unique marriage between Amelia’s culinary skills and Javier’s finely-tuned palette.

Luckily for Austin food lovers, Javier and Amelia’s celebrated recipes have been recreated at their daughter MariCarmen Dale’s Las Palomas.

In 1982, Javier Corona was ready to retire in Mexico when–in appreciation for Javier’s many years of service as an Ambassador to the United States–he and his family were awarded visas to live in America. Tragically, however, when the Mexican government nationalized Mexico’s banks and devaluated the peso, the Coronas were left stranded in their new Austin home with no money. It was a make-or-break moment for the family.

“My father was the most positive person I have ever met. I never saw him worry,” Dale avers. “He was the captain of the ship, and I never felt unsafe.”

Javier Corona had the innovative idea to utilize his family's treasured recipes by opening a restaurant, and so Las Palomas was born.

And at the beginning, there were lots of tears and falling down. None of the Coronas had ever worked in a restaurant before, and although the family knew a little English, they could not understand regional Texas slang, and communication was difficult.

“We were crying in the back,” Dale confesses. “Everything took over an hour to get served. We'd be coming back with tears, saying, 'is everything ok?' But people would say, 'you know, it was not bad service. It was weird, but it was worth the wait.'

“My mother and father were perfectionists. I could never work with my mother in the kitchen because the sour cream had to be like that, the shrimp had to be like this, the parsley had to be like that. Our cook was trained for ten years before my mother left, and do you know why my mother left the kitchen? Because I threatened to quit if she didn't.”

MariCarmen integrated her University of Texas business training with her mother's perfectionist ways, successfully taking the reins and taming the raging Las Palomas with her mother and father as supervisors.

“I had the two best mentors anyone could ever have,” she says. “My parents have a lot of common sense.”

Javier Corona passed away in 2003, but his presence resonates within the walls of Las Palomas, from the seductive décor of the restaurant where his artwork hangs to the personal touch he insisted on when greeting his patrons.

“He is the soul of the restaurant,” Dale flatly states. “He was a gentleman.”

Javier taught his family respect for themselves and their customers. He wanted everyone who walked through the door to feel like a guest in his home, and achieved this by talking to all his customers and making them feel welcome, making loads of friends in the process.

And Javier's eternal respect for people extended to respect for the tradition of the recipes of his and Amelia's families. “We still use all of those recipes,” Dale notes. “Our menu is representative of the interior of Mexico–from Puebla the Mole Poblano, from Vera Cruz the Pescado Veracruzana–so we chose the key dishes from each state.”

I enjoyed the combination plate consisting of a mole enchilada, a verde sauce enchilada, an interior pork dish with guacamole, sautéed red onions and sides of refritos and white rice cooked in chicken broth, and I was thrilled both by the striking presentation and the mouth-watering taste of enchiladas filled to the breaking point.

Unlike a lot of Tex-Mex, there was no grease, and limitless fascinating flavors leaping from the food. Whereas border Tex-Mex food uses cumin generously, interior Mexican dishes instead use garlic, cilantro and fresh vegetables for their distinctive and delicious flavor.

Why limit yourself to food from the Mexican border when you can dine all across Mexico in one spot? And be sure to take your time… the food at Las Palomas is meant to be savored.