Meg Roussos / The BulletinInside the dining room of Diegos Spirited Kitchen in Redmond.

Don’t go to Diego’s Spirited Kitchen, in the heart of downtown Redmond, expecting it to be a Mexican restaurant.

Not that you won’t get sensational south-of-the-border cuisine there. You will. But you may be startled to also find everything from pasta to hamburgers sharing the menu.

“We think of our restaurant as American Latin cucina,” said co-owner Pablo Peña.

Not a lot has changed since Diego’s opened in early 2009. Peña and partner Juvenal Santana, who heads up the kitchen operation, have created a product that draws a faithful clientele from throughout north Deschutes County, so there’s been no need to mix things up.

The “spirited” label in the restaurant’s name has nothing to do with ghosts in the building, at least not to my knowledge. Rather it speaks to the enthusiasm of Diego’s outstanding service staff, which I have found to be consistently prompt, polite and attentive. And no doubt it applies as well to the well-stocked bar, which is the first thing visitors see when they walk through Diego’s doors.

There are 10 tall chairs at the bar, whose L shape directs the flow of patrons into the main section of the restaurant.

A couple of smaller tables seat diners in street-side window wells, but most of the seating for 56 guests extends down one side of a corridor leading toward a seasonal back-of-the-house patio.

The mood at Diego’s is one of serenity. Minimal decor interrupts the rust-red walls, providing a dusky transition from the ochre-tiled floor to the black ceiling.

Lunchtime

Diego’s cuisine is creatively prepared, verging on gourmet. Many dishes have a Southwestern flair, such as osso buco, a slow-cooked pork shank served with three kinds of mushrooms and black truffle oil on buttermilk mashed potatoes. Another example is chicken in green mole, a version of the Mexican favorite with a sauce of tomatillos, pumpkin seeds and spices.

But when my dining companion and I visited for lunch one day recently, she was in the mood for more traditional Mexican mole. Her chicken mole enchiladas were served in a sauce whose main ingredients were semi-sweet chocolate and red chilies, along with some pumpkin seeds and peanuts.

She found the dish to be rich and delicious, especially when accompanied with black beans and “green” rice, a house specialty of long-grained rice cooked in chicken broth with spinach and mild green chilies.

My meal choice was pork carnitas raviolis, at a crossroads between traditional Mexican and Italian foods. Seasoned pork was ground with finely diced peppers before being used to fill five saucer-shaped ravioli pockets (the dinner entree offers eight).

Plated with a sprinkle of cilantro, fried chilies and Romano cheese, the dish was ladled with a thin but spicy chipotle-lime cream sauce and served with a slice of cheesy grilled bread — perfect for sopping up the rest of the sauce when the raviolis were gone.

Dinner for two

We returned several days later for dinner and started with margaritas — specifically, with Diego’s “No Rules ’Rita,” which allows patrons to create their own tequila recipe. I’m not a big fan of pre-made margarita mixes, so for me, this was a perfect solution.

We shared an appetizer and a salad before our entrees were delivered. The starter was another of Diego’s creative and delicious plates: Creole barbecued shrimp. Several Pacific prawns from Mexico were simmered in New Orleans-style spices with garlic, black pepper and Worcestershire sauce, and served with a three-pepper salsa and buttermilk biscuits — again, as with my lunchtime ravioli, perfect for finishing the sauce.

Our fresh “field greens” salad incorporated cherry tomatoes, dried cranberries, candied pecans and croutons. It was served with a house-made chipotle ranch dressing, at once smoky and spicy.

But we didn’t love our entrees as much as we had our previous Diego’s dishes. My companion was disappointed that her seafood chili relleno was “pasty tasting,” perhaps because the creamy sauce wasn’t a good match for the lobster, shrimp and Dungeness crab that filled an overly roasted poblano pepper.

My Texas-style brisket steak, smoked and grilled, wasn’t as tender to my fork’s touch as I have come to expect with good brisket. But the bourbon-rich jus that covered the meat and whipped potatoes — more a gravy than a barbecue sauce — helped to compensate. Fried onions topped the dish, which was also served with green chilies, cheddar cheese, black beans and tasty coleslaw.

— Reporter: janderson@bendbulletin.com