This week, a longtime goal finally came to fruition for Jason Tilford.
Jason Tilford has enjoyed being in the kitchen for four decades or so, and he’s got about a dozen restaurants under his belt as an owner (and another 12 that he’s consulted). So the food world is by no means new to him.
But for roughly the past couple of decades, he said, the concept for his new Leawood restaurant has been in the back of his mind. This week, after several months of experimenting with different recipes, that idea is finally being realized.
He and his brother, Adam Tilford, officially opened LaPez Mod Mex — a new upscale Mexican restaurant — in Leawood on Wednesday.
LaPez opened at 11563 Ash St.
- The restaurant took over a space at the Park Place shopping center in Leawood, next to Panache Chocolatier.
- Session Taco, another concept by the Tilford brothers, occupied that space for about two years before closing earlier this year.
- For now, LaPez is open for happy hour from 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, and then for dinner from 5 to 10 p.m.
LaPez Mod Mex serves Mexican cuisine with a “modern” twist
At LaPez, Jason Tilford said some of the menu’s standout dishes include the shrimp and grits (topped with chorizo, roasted corn, green chile grits and smoked pineapple pico) and the grilled salmon (which comes wrapped in a banana leaf, with chile mashed potatoes, chayote squash, tamarind ancho sauce and mango salsa).
Other menu highlights include chile-braised short ribs, carne asada with street corn and chile smashed potatoes, and chicken mole with roasted poblano polenta and chayote squash.
Right now, the focus will be on dinner and happy hour (with smaller plates for happy hour, like oysters and shrimp tacos). But later on, Jason Tilford said the restaurant will begin serving lunch as well.
It’s a range of Mexican dishes with Spanish influences, which Tilford said he’s always wanted to execute.
“This type of food has always just been my love,” Jason Tilford said. “Just the flavors and the dried chiles and the fresh produce and seafood. It’s just been a long time coming.”
On the libation side, LaPez offers a range of craft cocktails — such as margaritas, mezcal old-fashioneds with chile-infused tequila and charred pineapple syrup, and gin and tonics with J. Rieger gin and house-made tonic syrup.
The restaurant will also offer a wine list with bottles from Spain, South America, France and Italy.
Josh Laney, director of operations at LaPez, said that with the restaurant’s bar program, he hoped to create drinks that were traditional, but had a little splash of innovation.
“I wanted to create something that leaned into what this concept was,” Laney said. “The clientele out here wants something that’s approachable enough, but they want to taste something a little bit different. So that’s really what I was going for.”
The Tilfords owned the space’s previous occupant too
Before LaPez Mod Mex opened in the Leawood space, it was formerly home to Session Taco, a more “Southern California-inspired” spot that focused on more casual fare.
But even before that, the Tilford brothers also owned a restaurant called Milagro Modern Mexican — a “higher-end” concept in St. Louis that was similar to the new Leawood spot.
That restaurant closed in the spring of 2018, but before that, Jason Tilford said the concept landed with a splash in its community. After running into some issues with the space itself, he said he’d originally hoped to relocate the restaurant instead of close it — but that idea never came to fruition.
Seven years later, Jason Tilford said there’s already a buzz in LaPez’s new community. Before the grand opening on Wednesday, word had gotten out, with many passersby at Park Place inquiring about the restaurant’s opening.
“The excitement is there, definitely,” he said. “A lot of people are saying this is just what (Park Place) needs, that there’s nothing like this around.”
Tilford himself can relate to that enthusiasm. After all, he said, he’s waited a long time for this. Even longer than those first customers have.
“We’ve been planning it for decades,” he said. “This has been a lot of work, so to just see it all finally happen, it’s pretty exciting.”
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