Of course, it's not that simple.

The menu for Mez, a Durham restaurant slated to open in mid-March, began taking shape more than two years ago. During the past year, members of the kitchen staff have been researching recipes and bringing their ideas to the owner. Aaron Stumb, a chef with 11 years of experience, estimates that the cooks and owners have considered 80 different recipes for each dish that might appear on the menu. His days for the past several months have gone something like this: Wake up. Find the best supplier for tortillas, peppers, Mexican cheeses. Cook test recipes. Serve dishes to critics. Have dishes criticized. Rework recipes and plan to cook dishes again.

Among the critics are Greg Overbeck and Pete Dorrance, two of the four partners in the Chapel Hill Restaurant Group, which is backing Mez. The group also owns Spanky's, Squid's, 411 West in Chapel Hill and 518 West in Raleigh.

Early on, Stumb says, he and his staff, chef de cuisine David Peraza and chef Jeff Robinson, were still learning their way around Squid's kitchen, where they have been while waiting for Mez's kitchen to be finished. As a result, dishes weren't turning out right and the feedback was negative.

"It kind of hurts your ego because you're back there making that stuff. You think, 'We've been cooking for years and years, and we know what we're doing.' You prepare all this food, and people are like, 'This sucks,' " he says.

These lunchtime tastings have included a debate about how much garlic to add to the guacamole. Does their lunch crowd, primarily workers from Research Triangle Park, want to return to work with garlic breath?

Surprising problems have arisen, including struggling with what would seem to be the easiest dishes on the menu. Queso Flameado is a Mexican grilled-cheese sandwich, but Mexican cheeses don't melt like American cheeses. The owners thought a Yucatecan coleslaw had too much mint one time, too much jalapeño the next.

While eating your way through a menu several times over might sound like fun, Overbeck says it's not.

"It's serious stuff," he says. "You are looking at three guys who have been working hard and you say, 'This doesn't work.' It's never pleasant to share criticism."

As his team improved in the kitchen, Stumb says, the critiques became more positive and the criticisms didn't hurt as much. "The feedback, we take it so much better now," Stumb says.

Ultimately, even if Stumb and his team please the tasting panel, the customers will have the final say.

With every bite, a lesson

On a recent Friday, the tasting menu included the house salad, a shrimp seviche, a scallop seviche prepared two ways, crab cakes, chiles rellenos, half a roasted chicken and churros.

Peraza would bring several plates of each dish out to the bar. The panel, consisting of seven people on this day, gathered at the bar armed with appetizer plates, forks and glasses of water.

With each bite, the comments fly.

The house salad earns words of caution from Ben Robinson, the chef at Squid's: The toasted pumpkin seeds were a bit overdone.

The scallop seviche with a lime, lemon, grapefruit and Valencia orange infusion, served with chips, guacamole and a cilantro-pepper salad, is next. Overbeck is pleased with the flavor balance but wants one change.

"I'm enjoying it the most when I get more grapefruit," he says.

A shrimp seviche with avocado, red onion, chives, cilantro and scallions gets positive reviews. "It jumps out on your palate. It's really fresh," says Jamie LaForce, Mez's general manager.

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