Magdalena’s Supper Club, 502 Grand Av, Fort Worth. 817-740-8085. Check website for seating dates and times.
Around twice a month, give or take, groups of about 100 diners each descend on a nondescript building facing Oakwood Cemetery on the North Side’s Grand Avenue. Many are likely foodies anticipating an Instagram-worthy fine-dining experience as close as Funkytown gets to a Michelin-star meal. Others may be celebrating birthdays or anniversaries.
Last month, the special occasion was the meal itself — the 10th anniversary of celebrated local Chef Juan Rodriguez’s Supper Club, known as Magdalena’s.
“For those who don’t know, my Grandma Magdalena was really big on community,” said Rodriguez as he led a toast at the start of the meal. “She always wanted people to leave her house with una barriga llena y corazón contento — a full belly and a happy heart.”
This “first rule of Supper Club” was evident in the atmosphere two Fridays ago at one of the anniversary meals. My husband and I were excited to attend one of the four seatings because we have been going to Supper Club since not long after it began. I remember the first time we went. We were in our early 30s, and the meal felt too good to be true for the price point of around $50 for five or six courses. (That unbelievable price has since almost doubled over the last decade along with pretty much everything else in our lives, but it’s still comparable to other area fine-dining hot spots). We’ve happily returned at least once a year over the past decade, usually for our anniversary but also just when the menu (posted in advance on the website) looks particularly interesting.
Photo by Emmy Smith
When the Weekly first covered Magdalena’s in 2017 (“Buenos Dias, Magdalena’s,” Nov 2017), the author remarked about how the club felt a bit like joining a secret society, with people touting their reservations with pride and comparing how long each waited to get a seat. As the hype has worn down over the years, it’s not as difficult to score a reservation — in fact, it’s harder to keep track of which months and weekends the supper club is even open — but the hype has given way to a familial atmosphere of repeat customers, eager as ever to see what Chef Juan and his team have cooked up and often bringing along first-timers to join in on the fun.
The theme of the 10-year anniversary dinner was to highlight some of the best dishes from supper clubs past, and, since it’s always encouraged, we brought a couple of friends along. As the supper club has always been BYOB, we each brought a bottle of wine from our collections to share.
Over complimentary welcome cocktails of mezcal, cold brew coffee, and various spices, we introduced ourselves to our tablemates and took in the décor. Huge floral bouquets bisected the long tables, in which sat printed menus with each dish accompanied by the year of its inception, along with several enamel pins in the shape of Mexican pottery or a paella pan — souvenirs for guests to take home.
Because Magdalena’s is a catering business at its heart, Rodriguez and his team have perfected the art of serving a large number of people simultaneously. A jolt of excitement hit the room as the staff filed in and unanimously set the first plates in front of us. The stuffed arepa with pork belly carnitas and Salvadoran cheese was the perfect start to a meal to remember. Chef Juan had given away that the accompanying salsa de chicatana contained ants — a not uncommon ingredient in Mexican cooking — which likely put some people off, but the sauce provided a nuttiness that helped cut through the richness of the pork and cheese, along with a topping of escabeche (pickled vegetables).
The second course was lightly breaded and fried snapper inside a nixtamal corn tortilla. To amp up the chefiness of the humble taco, the chefs had pressed margiolds and shiso leaves into the tortillas that added noticeable floral and citrus notes that complemented the fish.
Probably the most famous dish in Magdalena’s lore is the ever-popular seafood paella cooked in two enormous paella pans. The Spanish-style rice dish stuffed with lobster, octopus, clams, and shrimp and topped with a lemon aioli has been made by the Magdalena’s team more than 500 times, and it never disappoints.
“It’s what we’re known for,” Rodriguez said.
Finally, pillowy potato gnocchi topped with slow-cooked barbacoa gnocchi rounded out the savory portion of the meal. While rich and delicious in its own right, the paella was just too tough an act to follow for it to be memorable, and the gnocchi was a touch mushy.
For dessert, the chefs wanted to pull out all the stops and showcase three of their proudest Supper Club moments in miniature form in a dish they called “Desserts Worth Framing.” A quenelle of foie gras pistachio ice cream (enough said), a scoop of arroz con leche flavored with matcha, and a mole-flavored truffle adorned each diner’s dainty plate, and accompanying the elegant bites was an edible gold picture frame made of tempered South American chocolate. Real Michelin-worthy stuff.
It’s been well-documented how notorious Fort Worth is for not being able to keep restaurants open — not just fine dining ones but all kinds. While Magdalena’s is not technically a restaurant, it’s still worth celebrating that such a unique dining experience has made it to this milestone.
“We created a supper club because I missed the restaurant field and wanted to create my grandmother’s dining room to bring people together,” Rodriguez said. “For the past 10 years, from our returning guests to our first-timers, you’ve kept the dream alive. Hopefully, we’ll make it another 10 years.”
For information on future Magdalena’s Supper Club seatings, visit MagdalenasTX.com and get on the mailing list.
Photo by Emmy Smith
Photo by Emmy Smith
