Creating a menu seems like such a simple process: amass a list of your best dishes, work out how to prepare them, have a successful restaurant.

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.

Another version of the scallop seviche comes out with seared scallops. "I don't like that seared at all. I don't like the texture," Overbeck says.

Next up, the crab cakes with a mango-jicama slaw, the same slaw that has been giving the kitchen staff fits. Overbeck was not pleased with the last version, which he says had too much jalapeño. Because the crab cakes are served with a spicy chipotle mayonnaise, he says, you have to give diners something on the plate to cool their mouths.

This latest version -- without mint or jalapeño -- isn't cutting it, either.

"I think I like the other slaw better," Overbeck says.

Dorrance disagrees. "I like this one. It's giving you the coolness."

Stumb asks Overbeck, "Do you miss the mint?"

"I'd like to try the other slaw again with the mint but without the jalapeño," he says.

Back to the drawing board on the slaw.

The critics move on to the chiles rellenos, a poblano pepper stuffed with rice, vegetables, almonds, raisins and Chihuahua cheese topped with an almond cream sauce. Neither Dorrance nor Overbeck is pleased: too heavy, not enough flavor.

Next, roasted chicken. They debate whether the chicken is overcooked. They loved the black bean chilaquiles on the side.

And finally, the churros. They are light and airy, not the leaden deep-fried dough served too often at Mexican restaurants. They come with a cup of Mexican hot chocolate. They are a hit.

"That's really good," Overbeck declares.

Anticipating the demand

In 1986, members of The Chapel Hill Restaurant Group opened Squid's Restaurant, Market and Oyster Bar in a spot along U.S. 15-501 that hadn't been kind to prior restaurant tenants. The partners have built a successful restaurant chain by, in part, having a knack for opening businesses in what would become booming locales. In 1992, when the western end of Franklin Street was deserted, they opened 411 West Italian Cafe. In 1998, they repeated the concept with 518 West in Glenwood South before that area became the center of Raleigh's bar scene.

Mez will be off Interstate 40 on Page Road in Research Triangle Park, another area whose potential only they may recognize. "We're a little ahead of the curve out there," Overbeck concedes.

But the partners predict that both RTP and the migration of subdivisions closer to the park will make Mez a success.

Almost three years ago, these business partners decided that their next venture would be a modern Mexican restaurant, something more sophisticated than chips and salsa and cheese-laden enchiladas. The group's research began by eating at one of the country's best Mexican restaurants: Rick Bayless' Frontera Grill in Chicago.

When Overbeck, Dorrance and Ewell traveled to Chicago, they also discovered the Adobo Grill, a restaurant they thought could be a model for their restaurant, as opposed to the high-end Frontera Grill. They befriended the owners and sent Stumb to work in the kitchen at Adobo Grill. Then they hired Peraza, who used to own a contemporary Mexican restaurant in Florida.

The partners decided on a Mexican restaurant for their next venture before the owners of the local El Rodeo chain opened Jibarra, a Mexican fine dining establishment in North Raleigh, in late 2005.

But Overbeck says Mez isn't aiming as high. In the same vein as their other restaurants, Overbeck says, they want to offer "casual fine dining." Mez will offer regional Mexican cuisine made with local ingredients, with entrees ranging from $9 to $24.

As the days count down to the restaurant's opening, the tastings continue. The deadline may be influencing the feedback, Peraza says. "They're getting a little tougher as the date comes closer to opening," he says.

Even when they settle on a menu for the first night, it will still be a work in progress. Both Overbeck and Dorrance say the making of their menu is likely to continue for weeks and months to come.

That's the right idea, says Diane Morgan, a restaurant consultant and cookbook author based in Portland, Ore.

"If you are smart, it's ongoing," she says. "You can see the ones that have the huge dollars to advertise: Applebee's, Olive Garden. They are forever changing something. You have to."