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The Red Iguana

 "Home Of Killer Mexican Food"

736 West North Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84116

PHONE: 801-322-1489

FAX: 801-322-4834.

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reviews

Celebrating 20 Years!


New! from Catalyst Magazine...

 

"Red Iguana Mole"

Cacao Bean Mole is the richest, most sensuously satisfying Mexican specialty I have ever tasted. The complex sauce is traditionally made with dried chiles, nuts, seeds, vegetables, spices and chocolate (preferably ground, toasted cacao beans) but it varies from town to town and family to family. The Cardenas family, owners of Red Iguana, make some of the best mole you’ll find anywhere. My personal faves include mole negro, a rich, dark chocolate-like concoction, and the red pipian, a slightly tangy and spicy mole with chiles, pumpkin seeds and peanuts. I have only one caution: Please don’t overeat; a little goes a long way. I suggest ordering several moles at your table, and sharing with friends."

MARCH 2007

Red Iguana featured as one of Salt Lake City's
top attractions on Delta Siteseer

 

 

Best Mexican 2007

  BEST MEXICAN
 Red Iguana


You just have to see the crowd waiting outside for a seat to know this perennial favorite doesn’t disappoint its legion of fans. Inside, the conversations are loud and the décor is bright, but it’s the food that’s the draw. Nachos, chili verde burritos and moles too numerous to mention are all stand-out menu items, as are the margaritas. When they’re in town, Tex-Mex band Los Lobos eats there. If that isn’t a recommendation, what is?

736 W. North Temple, 322-1489, RedIguana.com
Read More...

 

Best of Utah 2006!

  BEST MEXICAN
 Red Iguana


The Cardenas dynasty lives on. With the passing of her mother and brother, Lucy Cardenas came to Utah two years ago to carry on a four-decade run of second-to-none Mexican food. Trading on the family’s stockpile of distinctive mole recipes, Red Iguana would have to start serving Chalupas to fall from its lofty perch. And if you ever wondered why God found swine fit for this earth, just try the carnitas.( City Weekly )

 
Imogen Heap Singer Imogen Heap: "Music has been a great ride for Heap, but it's not the whole enchilada"


When British indie pop princess Imogen Heap isn't recording, writing or performing, she's thinking about bike riding, Wikipedia and Salt Lake's own Red Iguana.

Tonight's show won't be Heap's first trip to Utah. A particular Salt Lake eatery left a spicy stamp on her memory: The Red Iguana. It's such a good place!" she says. "Every time I'm in Salt Lake, I stop there. We get cabs and haul our luggage and everything; the whole crew." Salt Lake Tribune, 12/07/2006 (Read More)

The Red Iguana: A Utah Tradition.
Congratulations to the Winners.
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Every big city has a few well-established restaurants where the locals love to eat. These are places that aren't fancy or trendy, but which have outstanding food that people come back for time and again. In Salt Lake City the restaurant I've loved the most for the longest would have to be the Red Iguana. Known as "the home of killer Mexican food" and open since 1985, the Red Iguana is a Utah tradition. (Read More)

USA TODAY REVIEWS THE RED IGUANA

Say mole, salivate and open your mouth to the tastiest Mexican fare in town. At Red Iguana (736 W. North Temple St.; 801-322-5418), bring your bumper sticker to add to the front door, dress down (or up if you’d really like) and join the vivacious diners at this hole-in-the-wall restaurant west of downtown. Inspired by their Aztec roots, founders Maria and Ramon Cardenas have relied on generations of carefully guarded family recipes to turn this lively authentic Mexican venue into a 40-year success story.

Choose from seven different mole sauces or the yummy chile verde and chile Colorado entrees. Huge meals can be had for about $10. No reservations necessary. Though only a mile from Temple Square, walking isn’t recommended. USA Today, March 2007

TWENTY BUCKS A DAY

IN WHICH THE PROTAGONIST CHRONICLES HIS ADVENTURES IN TRYING TO EAT AT EVERY RESTAURANT ON THE 2005 VILLAGE VOICE CHEAP CHOW NOW LIST AND THE 2005 NEW YORK METRO "THE CHEAP LIST," AND SOMETIMES POSTS OTHER FOOD-RELATED MUSINGS.

HIS BUDGET: $20 A DAY:

Montezuma's table discovered seven blocks from Temple Square.

   Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Salt Lake City literally has just about as many Mexican restaurants as New York has pizza joints.  Between local chains like Taco Time, national chains like Del Taco and Taco Bell, and plenty of ma and pa places (like the afore-reviewed Lone Star Taqueria, also a big hit with my friends) scattered throughout the valley, Utahns are nuts for Mexican and Tex-Mex food.

It’s only this kind of market saturation that can produce a restaurant of true excellence – Darwinian forces combined with enough popular enthusiasm have produced a restaurant that professes to specialize in “pre-Hispanic food, imperial Aztec cuisine, and Montezuma’s table.”  Best of all, for the tourists out there?  It’s located at 736 West North Temple Street, about five easy minutes from SLC International Airport... (Read More)

BLOG REVIEW

July 14, 2005


Mexican cuisine? In Salt Lake City?, you ask. Well let I SEE HAWKS IN L.A. tell you, this is Mexican food to rival, L.A., San Antonio, Santa Fe, and any other Mexican food stronghold you can think of. The Red Iguana got us started with fine margaritas, made with Cazadores tequila, for only a few cents more than the regular tequila you'd just put in a Paul Marshall. Three on ice, two of them with salt, and I'll have one blended without salt, thank you very much. Simple, elegant margaritas that taste clean and great. We're on our way. Now here comes a heaping bowl of fresh, crisp tortilla chips, and if their homemade salsa wasn't enough, we get a plate with five (count 'em) different kinds of mole, to sample with the chips. There's a dark brown, familiar, chocolatey mole. There's one a shade lighter with more heat. There's a delicious green one. And our helpful waitress describes each one and its ingredients in loving detail, which unfortunately, I can't quite follow, but PL is clearly committing each recipe to memory...(Read More)

 

Food & Wine
Restaurant Review
Red Iguana
by Vanessa Chang vanessa@slmetro.com
Read More...

Salt Lake Metro

Utahs Most Fabulous for 2005

Best Mexican

Red Iguana
322-1489| 736 W North Temple, SLC


An overwhelming favorite in the community, the lively atmosphere and South-of-the-border specialties have made many Metro readers exclaim “¡Ay, papi!” Our favorite thing about Red Iguana is that while the regional dishes are definitely tasty, the food presentation is also a feast for the eyes in reds, green, yellows and blacks. We’re also relieved that our readers clearly have sophisticated tastes, as Taco Bell received very few nominations in this category.           


What stands out about Red Iguana is more than fabulous food or kitschy ambiance; it's family. The small, brightly painted restaurant is filled with the photographs, bumper stickers and memorabilia of its owners, the Cardenas family. Hanging from the orange wall are photos of Ramon Cardenas, Jr. -- Red Iguana's notoriously talented chef whose tragic death in 2004 from an aneurysm left many in the community reeling. On the green wall is a portrait of a smiling couple, Ramon and Marie Cardenas who came to Salt Lake from San Francisco in 1965 to open the Casa Grande restaurant, and then, 20 years later, the Red Iguana. There is a photo of Lucy Cardenas, now the owner of Red Iguana, smiling with her father and brother.

This is the core of RI's great Mexican cooking. When you enjoy a bite of mole negro with chicken, you are enjoying a taste of family history. Recipes passed down from generations of talented chefs. Essentially, Red Iguana is a living history of the Cardenas family.

The Catalyst Magazine

 


NEW!

West Side's Red Iguana Considered

"Best Mexican Restaurant in Utah!"

 


April 14, 2005


Holy Mole!

"Ramon Cardenas Jr. may be gone, but Red Iguana remains heavenly and deliciously dangerous."
Read More...

by Ted Scheffler, Salt Lake City Weekly

salt lake weekly - best mexican
red iguana
Salt Lake City Weekly, April 2005


Whether by drive-thru, street stand or sit-down meal, Mexican food is so omnipresent, we take it for granted. For most Mexican-food regulars, that standard acceptance usually turns into enthusiastic appreciation the minute one of Red Iguana's plates sits before them. This west-side--and proud of it, by the way--institution has all the accoutrements of any great East L.A. restaurant even twice its size: homey and colorful decor, practical dining ware that lets you know immediately that the true emphasis is on food, and easily some of the most sensational, satisfying dishes you're likely to find from any Salt Lake City restaurant, Mexican or not. Take a bow to the late, great Ramon Cardenas Jr. on your way out (or in, for that matter) and dig all the famous autographs on the wall.

best mexican 2005
the red iguana

 

 

 

 

 


New York has nothing on Salt Lake when it comes to Mexican cuisine. The Red Iguana is the real deal. Chock full of bold, traditional dishes like fajitqas, flautas, and chile verde, the menu has no room for Spanglicized interpretations. The flair extends from the retina-burning decor to the savvy servers. Note to mole novices: expect a sampling of house made sauces that dress turkey, pork, and enmoladas. Executive Chef Luis Heredia had big shoes to fill with the untimely passing of Ramon Cardenas, Jr., but take one bite of the mole negro and you know he's walking tall. - Salt Lake Magazine
 

© 2007 Red Iguana.