I was perched at the bar at Xochi, polishing off the last bits of my memelita, when it happened. I had been marveling over the conjunction of toasty little masa-dough boats filled with chicken in pitch-dark mole negro, balanced on a fine edge of sweet and salty and tart, one of the stirring dishes from Oaxaca state that animate chef Hugo Ortega's new downtown restaurant.

I had been marveling over the memelita's 7-buck price, too, and thinking that this must be the finest happy hour in the city, if not the entire Western world.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed four staffers in black shirts scrolled with discreet gold embroidery taking their places at the four corners of a table. In unison, they each raised a gleaming cocktail shaker aloft and let the ice cubes fly, so that their chilly music set up a festive tune.

Heads turned. Smiles broke out. Suddenly the long, angular, earth-toned room felt like a party was about to start.

The quartet of guys at the center of the ritual gazed up expectantly, looking as if their margarita orders had taken on an unexpected life of their own. In their polo shirts and checked short sleeves, they might have just breezed in from a meeting in one of the upstairs venues here at the perpetually bustling new Marriott Marquis.

I wondered if they had any idea they were about to dine at one of the very best restaurants in Houston - let alone one that could make some waves in any of the world's great dining capitals.

More Information Xochi Four stars 1777 Walker (inside Marriott Marquis) 713-400-3330 Hours: L&D daily: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Fridays & Saturdays; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sundays Credit cards: all major Prices: starters $10-$14; small-plate moles $11-$15; entrees $22-$37; desserts $10-$18 Must-orders: pick-4 mole tasting with tortillas; wood-roasted oysters with mole amarillo; tacos del Carmen; house-made quesillo stuffed with huauzontle greens; tlayudas (lunch only); mushrooms with mole amarillo and masa dumplings; huitlasquites (corn soup with huitlacoche); barbacoa de res de Zaachila; Texas black-foot chicken in mole negro: pork shank with Istmeño peppers and roasted pineapple; Origen cocktail; tableside hot chocolate with churros Reservations: suggested. Walk-ins welcome. Bar seating. Noise level: moderate Parking: hotel valet; two hours for $6 with validation Website: xochihouston.com Four stars: superlative; can hold its own on a national stage. Three stars: excellent; one of the best restaurants in the city. Two stars: very good; one of the best restaurants of its kind. One star: a good restaurant that we recommend. No stars: restaurant cannot be recommended at this time.

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Because that is the level of achievement chef Hugo Ortega and company have reached at their latest venture. The talents of H-Town Restaurant Group - which counts Hugo's, Caracol, Backstreet and more among its flock - have coalesced to produce their best effort yet.

Co-owner Tracy Vaught, Hugo's wife, has brought her superb organizational skills to bear at the front of the house, which hums along with intelligence and unassuming polish, as ready to deliver a cocktail with flourish as to decipher the ins and out of the lesser-known ingredients on the Oaxacan menu.

The couple's longtime drinks wizard, Sean Beck, has outdone himself once again on a short but relevant wine list and a cocktail roster that makes the most of the agave spirits - particularly mezcal - for which Oaxaca state is known.

Ruben Ortega, chef Hugo's brother, is spinning out chocolate fantasias as part of a dessert menu that reminds me why chocolate was used as currency in pre-Columbian Mexico. H-Town's corporate chef, Betty Martines - a Guadalajara native and Art Institute of Houston grad picked by the Roca brothers to intern at Celler de Can Roca in Spain - is frequently in the kitchen dotting i's and crossing t's.

Even the understated room beguiles. Designed by Looney & Associates (the Dallas firm that did the hotel interiors) with input from Vaught, its quiet neutrals seem corporate until the many textural details kick in. Rough rope coils climb big square columns; pale woven leather covers the comfortable high-top seats; monumental wooden timbers hang from metal cages, high above.

This is a backdrop in which Hugo Ortega's painstakingly authentic and fascinating Oaxacan cuisine can shine as the brightest element. From the toasted masa specialties to the house-made cheeses to the complex blends of chiles, nuts and seeds known as moles, this food sings as happily as those shaker-spun ice cubes.

Dive in with a short-course tasting that allows you to pick four of the seven-plus moles on offer, served only with the fragrant house-made tortillas, the better to appreciate each on its own terms. My current favorites include the smooth, sable brown mole pasilla, with the barest trace of sweetness underlying its rich, roasty flavor.

But then there's the gripping chilhuacle mole with its deep charry tones; and the sesame-spangled mole negro, black as night with mellow cacao undertones and a slow-growing, subtle heat. Not to mention the mesmerizing chicatana mole, in which dried flying ants - stay with me here - lend a wild, funky edge to the reddish-brown potion. It's the perfect entry-level dish for diners who think they can't enjoy eating insects. Trust me.

Beyond the pick-four tasting, Xochi's moles grace all manner of proteins and even vegetables. Roasted wild mushrooms, for instance, are laced with crunchy green beans and tuffets of masa dumpling in a delicate golden mole amarillo. The same yellow mole splashes half-shell oysters roasted in the wood oven, in full view of the long bar, and livened with sharp cotija cheese crumbles and singed bread crumbs.

That seductive mole negro may find its highest and best use on a Tejas Heritage Farm black-footed chicken, impeccably cooked and served not only with its famous foot but with a timbale that tastes like a very happy marriage of creamed corn and rice pudding.

That gripping ant mole? It embellishes the ultimate macho steak, a grilled Prime rib-eye with a black bean tamal. Dare you, tough guys.

Most large plates are priced in the $20s, and not all of them involve mole. Barbacoa de res de Zaachila - braised skirt steak pinwheeled up with dusky hoja santa leaf - gets a brilliant scarlet sauce of guajillo puya and costeño chiles that leaps with fruit and heat. In a world of disappointing main dishes, this one rules.

So does a mighty pork shank braised with peppers and roasted pineapple; its name, Cochito Istmeño, refers to Oaxaca's tropical Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where fruits are favored ingredients.

One of the user-friendly aspects of Xochi's menu is the way small plates of antojitos and more diminutive moles can be combined to make a meal. You could start off with the oval masa cakes called molotes, piled with a mix of potato and the spicy chorizo from the isthmus, plus a small riot of avocado, crema, queso fresco and pops of the rare chile de onza from Oaxaca. Thrilling in themselves, even more satisfying followed up with tender beef cheeks in mole pasilla, say, or heads-on shrimp in a brothy, herbal mole verde.

Lunchtime holds its own exclusive joys. Little black-masa Tacos de Carmen, named after one of the chef's favorite street vendors in Oaxaca city, clasp the small, fruity chiles de agua that are much-loved in the region. The chiles are filled with spicy shredded chicken, and watch out: Depending on the day, they can be mildly or scorchingly hot.

Noon, too, is when the plate-size tlayudas come flying out of the wood oven: brittle blue-black masa crisps spread with a variety of toppings and housed on their own special ceramic platters handmade by local potter Steve Campbell. (He also designed the magisterial pitchers used to froth hot chocolate tableside, as a dessert with churros.)

Tlayudas resemble pizzas or low-profile tostadas writ large, except the masa disk is toasted, Oaxaca style, rather than fried. They are particularly appealing when spangled with the stretchy white Oaxacan cheese, quesillo, which is made in-house. I love the stuff - whether on a tlayuda; or tucked into a triangular toasted blue masa envelope with a deeply scented hoja santa leaf; or served round and stuffed, as a simple summer salad, with the nubby florets of huauzontle greens inside, and crackly toasted amaranth grains for texture.

Ortega and company make a crumbly rancho-style cheese, too, and you'll earn bragging rights by ordering it with its crisp adornments of grasshoppers, flying ants and maguey worms. Just think of these toasty and curiously delicious bugs as Oaxacan trail mix and you'll be fine.

I am somewhat astonished to report that over a half-dozen visits to Xochi (which is pronounced so-chee, in case you're wondering), I had but two complaints. One was that my second tetela arrived with a too scant portion of my beloved quesilla. That left it tasting flat. A small plate of marvelous crisp-skinned duck came in a tomato-almond mole that was similarly underwhelming. Oh, and on one visit a waiter brought the wrong salad. It turned out to be so good my guests and I ate it happily.

You will want one of the many sophisticated mezcal and margarita cocktails from the menu's back page. (My current favorites are the magenta-flushed Origen and the drolly named Late Check Out.)

You will need chocolate in some form, all of it roasted and ground on the premises, to finish: perhaps as a simple, profound hot beverage; or in Ruben Ortega's tour de force, a big white-chocolate cocoa pod lavished with many-textured chocolate foams and crumbles and soils and poufs and festal whatnots. It's a delightful clown car of a dessert that feeds a small crowd for $18.

Less of a splurge, and more tightly focused, is a wood-roasted plantain clad in a wispy, kataifi-style jacket, with suave chocolate ganache at its foot. The shimmer of surprise? An oval of ice cream made from poleo, a supremely delicate wild Oaxacan mint.

But my favorite dessert of all is to stroll forth from Xochi, past the restaurant's covered dining terrace and the never-ending human pageant at the Marriott Marquis entrance, into the new vortex of downtown Houston. Remote-controlled boats bob on the reflecting pool of Discovery Green, children dart, a band plays, adults dance, water and colored lights pulse in front of the convention center, on the urban paseo that is Avenida Houston.

That Houston's finest new restaurant sits at the heart of this vibrant scene seems only fitting.

***

Xochi

Four stars

1777 Walker (inside Marriott Marquis)

713-400-3330

Hours: L&D daily: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays; 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Fridays & Saturdays; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sundays

Credit cards: all major

Prices: starters $10-$14; small-plate moles $11-$15; entrees $22-$37; desserts $10-$18

Must-orders: pick-4 mole tasting with tortillas; wood-roasted oysters with mole amarillo; tacos del Carmen; house-made quesillo stuffed with huauzontle greens; tlayudas (lunch only); mushrooms with mole amarillo and masa dumplings; huitlasquites (corn soup with huitlacoche); barbacoa de res de Zaachila; Texas black-foot chicken in mole negro: pork shank with Istmeño peppers and roasted pineapple; Origen cocktail; tableside hot chocolate with churros

Reservations: suggested. Walk-ins welcome. Bar seating.

Noise level: moderate

Parking: hotel valet; two hours for $6 with validation

Website: xochihouston.com

Four stars: superlative; can hold its own on a national stage. Three stars: excellent; one of the best restaurants in the city. Two stars: very good; one of the best restaurants of its kind. One star: a good restaurant that we recommend. No stars: restaurant cannot be recommended at this time.