James Beard semifinalist opens a much-anticipated new Durham restaurant

Chef Oscar Diaz is a restless spirit.

If you ask him about the here and now, say the new Durham restaurant Little Bull he’s opening this week, the answer is the sum of everywhere he’s ever worked, from the kitchens of Las Vegas and Chicago where he grew up, to the acclaimed Cortez in Raleigh where he danced with fire and got his first taste of national renown.

“It was time to start growing in general,” Diaz said. “I’m always searching to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations. Comfort is the cousin of complacency. I wanted to stir it up a little bit.”

This week Diaz opens the first restaurant of his own, Little Bull in Durham’s Old Five Points neighborhood near downtown. The space was formerly the short-lived coffee shop Jet Plane and will reopen June 7 as one of the summer’s most anticipated restaurants.

The black-painted building sits on one-way Durham thoroughfare Mangum Street heading straight into downtown. A side patio has been built with a few outdoor tables out front.

“Durham is an awesome food city, I think we have kind of a captive audience there and a great opportunity to add our art to it,” Diaz said. “It’s part of a neighborhood and I want it to feel like a real chill place in your neighborhood.”

Diaz is up front about what Little Bull is not — which is Tex-Mex, the popular and Americanized cuisine of saucy burritos and nachos. Instead, he says it’s a more personal reflection on his life in food.

Within that journey is the balancing act of expectations for a Mexican-American chef and Diaz’s own reality growing up with Americanized tastes and pop culture.

The result is what he refers to as “pocho cuisine,” which Diaz describes as the melting pot of his eating and cooking experiences.

As the chef at The Cortez, Diaz earned two James Beard semifinalist mentions for Best Chef: Southeast. Amid the nightlife bustle on Glenwood South, Cortez serves a seafood-centric menu built around a makeshift wood-burning grill, turning out largely coastal Mexican dishes made with North Carolina ingredients. It’s famous for octopus grilled until it’s charred, roasted oysters with seaweed butter and more recently a surprise hit in the form of a triple smashburger.

Despite the new venture, Diaz said he will remain the chef and a partner in The Cortez, which is owned by Charlie and Hector Ibarra.

Little Bull is backed by the Mezcalito Group, which owns a string of popular Mexican restaurants throughout North Carolina, including a location in Durham.

First solo venture

Diaz has called North Carolina home for nearly 13 years and at 41 said he saw now as the moment to distill his career in kitchens into a distinctive kind of restaurant.

“I’m getting older but I have the energy and I have the vision,” Diaz said. “Cooking helped me get my life together. To me, food is not about trying to mimic something, it’s not trying to replicate what already exists. It’s discovery.”

“The word ‘Pocho’ was to single you out if you’re a Mexican born in the States,” Diaz said. “It was supposed to make you feel bad. I remember being called that, but I think that’s what this cuisine is....Fusion became the bad word, maybe fusion is a bad word. I think that’s what this cuisine is, maybe ‘melting pot’ is a better way of saying ‘fusion.’”

The menu at Little Bull

The Little Bull menu will change seasonally, Diaz said, but have a few staples. There will always be a ceviche, often blending Mexican and Peruvian styles. There will be a version of the fried plantain and yucca dish alcapurria, but here topped with chilled North Carolina crab salad. There will be grilled duck hearts and an embrace of some non-traditional cuts of meat, like cheeks and tongue and goat.

“I know it sounds wild but it’s delicious,” Diaz said. “It’ll be grilled medium rare, not fried. I want you to see the little heart and eat it.”

One playful dish, called “Tongue and Cheek” will be exactly that, including rich bone marrow, beef cheek barabacoa and nixtamalized tortillas. There will be Peruvian style chicken, a large ribeye steak salad dressed with Thai herbs and sauces and even a new take from Diaz on the smashburger.

Seasonality will continue to drive the menu and the wine list, which for now is an array of roses and bright cocktails and in the winter will be built around whiskey and red wine.

Diaz said the story of his journey as a chef is still evolving and expects the menus to continue reflecting a mashup of Mexican heritage and the embrace of his Southern home.

“I think cactus and okra are cousins and they don’t even know it,” Diaz said.