Prior to Fonda San Miguel’s opening in 1975, Austin’s Mexican restaurant scene had a distinctly Texas twang. This was particularly true in the ’50s and ’60s, when Cisco’s, Tamale House, and Matt’s El Rancho helped refine our definition of Tex-Mex, the rustic, comfort-laden fusion born before Texas’ statehood. When Fonda co-founders Tom Gilliland and the late chef Miguel Ravago opened their restaurant on North Loop Boulevard, it wasn’t a rebuke of our unique regional cuisine, but simply a desire to look beyond the blended borders and faithfully reproduce foods specific to the Mexican states of Oaxaca, Puebla, Yucatan, and Veracruz.

At the time, it was a revelation. Diana Kennedy had only published The Cuisines of Mexico three years earlier—for many, the first introduction to the culinary diversity of our southern neighbor. Even still, says Gilliland, few had any idea what “interior Mexican” actually meant.

These days, ingredients like chipotle and masa are part of common parlance, and Fonda is far from the only spot to offer an “authentic” taste of Mexico in town. Austin has at least five major restaurants (Comedor, Nixta Taqueria, etc.) that are nixtamalizing heirloom corn and transforming it into house-forged masa. So, what’s the appeal of Fonda San Miguel 45 years into its existence? Is it purely nostalgia for all those hacienda brunches and its picturesque backdrop for birthdays and weddings? Or is it something more?

There’s no denying Fonda delivers a singularly transportive setting. Even before you step foot into the interior courtyard, awash in terracotta and a profusion of plants, the formidable carved wooden doors signal Fonda’s commitment to delivering a unique Mexican experience. I’ve heard some describe the restaurant as “fusty” or “hotel-like,” but I disagree. From its hacienda style to its formal approach to service, Fonda has always had an old-world air. The staff is still as warm and professional as ever, and Gilliland’s museum-worthy collection of Mexican art keeps the atmosphere vibrant.

Yes, much of the core menu remains true to the original one Ravago introduced years ago. A regular who’s been frequenting for decades will almost assuredly recognize the tender cochinita pibil, its succulent smokiness lifted by the earthy-tart combination of achiote and bitter orange. Or they might also gravitate to the profoundly murky mole poblano that I first tried in the early aughts, and which consistently tests my decorum. The sauce’s nutty cocoa alchemy still had me reaching for extra handmade tortillas in order to sop up every last drop.

To keep the restaurant from stagnating, current chef Caesar Ortiz and general manager Danny Herrera regularly travel to Mexico for continuing study. They host special events with visiting chefs from interior Mexico, such as María Elidé Castillo and Delfina Castillo Tzab of Semilla de Dioses, who visted as part of the 2019 All-Women Guest Chef dinner series. And Ortiz regularly introduces new regional specialties, such as a Yucatecan relleno negro, a celebratory dish that relies on turkey and pork-stuffed chiles bathed in an inky sauce colored by a recado negro, a charred spice blend of garlic, chiles, cloves, and more.

Fonda’s lavish hacienda brunch mixes some of these specialties with the classics:

nopales salad, eggs baked in a tangy salsa verde, camarones en crema (briny Gulf shrimp covered in a smoky chipotle cream sauce), and its signature cochinita and mole. I rarely have the appetite to justify the brunch’s $42.95 flat cost (not including beverages), but it is a good excuse to get a broader perspective on the restaurant’s ideology. The dessert table alone is often enough to sway me out of bed on Sundays with its rounds of tres leche cake oozing sweetened milk, little pig-shaped gingerbread marranitos, and diminutive Mexican wedding cookies heaped with confectioners’ sugar.

Perhaps if Fonda San Miguel opened today, its menu would tout its relationship with local purveyors and more vociferously publicize the organic garden they’ve been maintaining for 15 years, a necessity at the time, when herbs such as epazote proved more difficult to find. Though Fonda technically hews to the same farm-to-table ethos we expect of restaurants today, it takes a quiet pride in not trumpeting the fact. For Caesar Ortiz, like his trailblazing predecessors, it’s simply the proper way to execute one of the world’s most challenging cuisines. In a lot of ways, it’s emblematic of the niche they continue to hold in the market: mature, graceful, and never one to disappoint.