Neza couldn’t be a more unassuming restaurant: It sits on Warwick Avenue next to an eBay pickup shop where you’d expect to find Catherine Keener sitting behind the counter, bantering about sparkly, Kiss-inspired platform boots. The front door to Neza is actually in the back parking lot and, once inside, the fifty-person restaurant gives very little away. Decor is minimal, as are windows, and the vibe leans more toward a weekend party in the basement than an exploration of culture. And yet.

The staff is the first indicator that there’s a pulsating life force within these walls. The few servers greet people with Julie McCoy-level enthusiasm because they know what customers are walking into. And though it’s true that people in the States enter each day with unbridled affection for Mexican food, our lexicon tends to center on portable dishes or street food. No real surprise there; people all over the United States love a dish on the go, particularly if it’s wrapped in its own carrying case (tortillas have long fit that bill). 

Neza certainly offers those familiar options that need very little transliteration, even in New England. As an understanding nod to Americanized appetites, the menu offers a California burrito which, in addition to rice, beans and pico de gallo, carries a bundle of french fries in its pouch. In this vein, Neza’s obviously in a cross-cultural conversation with an audience that’s already on board. 

But to sit in this small restaurant with the goal of traversing Mexican geography and history is to find Neza’s formidable strength. There may be an LED strip changing colors on the wall, but the Warwick backdrop falls away the minute servers begin to lay plates on the table. 

Tequila cocktails come out in terra cotta cups rimmed with spicy salt and loaded with lemons and grapefruit juice. The clay soaks up moisture like an adobe dwelling, growing cooler as the drink diminishes. It may be a funny little bar with a dancing cactus perched on top and a slushy machine making frozen margaritas, but the drinks don’t cave to the continental demand for sugar. They veer toward smoky, tart and savory — each concoction a small sip of distant agave fields. It also doesn’t hurt the mood that servers will refill water glasses with a wink and a whisper that they won’t tell the boss that it’s free-flowing tequila. “Oh they’ll know,” laughed one wide-eyed woman, “because I’d be lying on the floor if it were true.” 

But the real draw here is in the dishes that demand your attention, as well as a knife and fork. Camarones puercos ($14) is obligatory: Three massive shrimp coated in crushed chicharron and sitting on guacamole are a study in opposing flavors — both the optimistic brightness and the edifying intensity of Mexico. The guacamole ($10) itself also deserves some attention. Ubiquitous though it may be, Neza’s version — sublimely tart with crisp bites of jalapeno and onion — is served in a molcajete. It doesn’t offer anything unexpected but it’s as good a version as you’ll find anywhere, particularly with the thick housemade chips that keep coming out until you cry uncle. Disagree with your table about whether salsa should be fresh and mild or smoky and full of fire? Not an issue, as it’s brought in individual crocks for each person. (A lot of effort for the kitchen but a boon to this viral-focused world.)

There’s a lot of joy to find in the contrasting textures of flautas or tacos (which Neza does plain or birria-style) but it’s the extensively stewed dishes that manifest the agricultural and cultural richness of Mexico. Chile enogada ($18) — a poblano pepper stuffed with picadillo — manages to do it all, and with a humility that pervades the space. The interior is subtle, the ground meat sweetened with a panoply of fruit while the exterior is covered in a thick walnut sauce punctuated with pomegranate seeds. There’s no spice at all; instead, it’s comfort fully encased in heritage. There’s a reason heat-seekers flock to Mexican food, but this plate tells an entirely different story of the country — one that’s steeped in the perfume of cooking rather than its passion.  

On the other side of the spectrum is the mole de Guerrero ($15). Served with chicken, it delivers one of the world’s most intense and multidimensional culinary stories — and perhaps the one most revered in Mexican cooking. The amalgam of chiles, tomatoes, pepitas and corn is impossible to deconstruct once the sauce is finished but, as with any great mole, the sum far exceeds the individual parts. To experience it here, in this decidedly humble space, is both rewarding and a reminder that design becomes far less consequential when juxtaposed with food that’s doing double-duty as a cultural conversation.   

But the ultimate braise belongs to the cochinita pibil ($18), slow-cooked in anchiote and served with soft tortillas. It’s a progenitor to the barbecue of Southern states, and while there may be very little flash to the presentation, it does what every low-and-slow meat does: proves to the diner that someone spent most of their day coaxing meat off the bone so that the whole thing would seem effortless on the plate. 

It only makes sense that dessert would follow the same seemingly simplistic suit. Options include a fully soaked tres leches cake, a barely solid flan, and, best of all, a plate of thick, hot churros ($8). They’re served with a dense scoop of ice cream which dissolves languidly under the heat of several cinnamon-dusted doughnut sticks. 

There’s not one flashy component in this easy-to-miss eatery, but it accomplishes what good kitchens always set out to do: tell a detailed and deeply impactful story — one that walks through time, space and identity — without speaking a single word.

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NEZA MEXICAN RESTAURANT

465 Warwick Ave., Warwick, nezarestaurant.com

Open for lunch and dinner seven days a week. 

Wheelchair accessible. Lot parking.  

CUISINE: Traditional and contemporary Mexican.

CAPACITY: Fifty, plus the bar.  

VIBE: Slightly subterranean.

PRICES: Appetizers: $7-$14; entrees: $14-$30; dessert: $8.

KAREN’S PICKS: Camarones puercos, chile enogada, cochinita pibil, tacos and tequila.