Growing up in Ashland, Kansas, a small town about three hours north of Oklahoma City, Chef James Fox said visits to Oklahoma during summer breaks in middle and high school made the neighboring state feel almost like home. Fox’s visits to OKC as an adult have inspired him to be part of its evolution.
“I feel like Oklahoma City is really up and coming,” Fox said. “There’s a lot of cool stuff happening, and I’m excited to be on the forefront of that.”
Fox, a James Beard Award nominee based in Phoenix, has partnered with Oklahoma-based restaurant group Provision Concepts to bring Fox’s modern American Latin-inspired Vecina to Oklahoma City. The recently opened restaurant is Fox’s third collaboration with Provision Concepts and a twin to his Vecina restaurant in Phoenix.
Medallion Group owner Dan Ward scouted Fox after Fox’s original Vecina opened in Phoenix. The Medallion Group is the land developer for the spaces where Provision Concepts restaurants are located, and Ward had a home near the Vecina location in Phoenix. Fox said Ward visited his restaurant soon after it opened.
“In our very, very early heyday, he would come in and loved everything we were doing there,” Fox said. “I was in the back, cooking. My wife was the front-of-house person, manager, expo, all the things.”
Fox said Ward then introduced the couple to Jeff Dixon, founder and CEO of Provision Concepts. The group includes Hatch, Broadway 10 Bar & Chophouse, Bibi’s Craft Ice Cream, Sidecar Barley & Wine Bar, Birra Birra Craft Pizzeria, Chicken Foot and two other restaurants helmed by Chef Fox: Culprits and Riserva.
“Jeff and I started talking, and I did a wine dinner at Broadway 10 that was kind of an interviewy, see-how-it-works situation,” Fox said. “That went super well. It was with Titus Vineyards, and then the rest is kind of history.”
Another collaboration with Fox, Culprits, located in the Renaissance Oklahoma City Downtown Bricktown Hotel, is open 6 a.m.-11 p.m. with offerings such as a kitchen sink omelette with cheddar, ham, hash browns, peppers, onions and choice of side (breakfast, $14); sushi rolls ranging from $17 to $23 available at lunch and dinner; and steak frites, an 8-ounce hanger steak with a creamy peppery miso sauce, citrus aioli and French fries (dinner, $37). Fox said that Dixon was almost ready to open Culprits when the two met.
“He was already in the process of working on Culprits, so that venue was pretty much done,” he said, “but I added a little bit of my own flair to it.”
Fox and Provision Concepts collaborated to open Riserva in Chisholm Creek just one year later. Riserva offers Mediterranean-inspired Spanish dishes, such as a poblano pepper stuffed with lamb sausage, feta, scrambled eggs, avocado cream and Anaheim pepper salsa (brunch, $15) and the grilled Spanish octopus with roasted red pepper dip, fingerling potatoes and a parsley-lemon zest-garlic sauce (dinner, $23). Riserva’s 10-page beverage menu covers a wide range of beers, wines, cocktails and alcohol-free options and includes a handy “Wine By Characteristic” chart to help you choose your perfect drink.
Modern American
Many of Chef Fox’s menus offer fusion recipes inspired by cuisine from around the world. He presents Vecina as Modern American Latin-inspired dishes, but you won’t find meatloaf or hot dogs on Vecina’s table. For the definition of Modern American, Fox invites patrons to rethink their idea of American food.
“There isn’t any stipulation on Modern American,” Fox said. “Modern American is anything under the sun, because America is a melting pot of every culture and cuisine that there is.”
Vecina’s fare is Latin-inspired, but that doesn’t mean enchiladas and refried beans. Exploring various Latin regions for culinary influence allows Fox to create his menus so they aren’t pigeonholed into one simple description.
“We’re not Southwest, we’re not Mexican, we’re not Peruvian, we’re not Spanish,” Fox said. “Any part of Latin America that there is, we can pull from that and utilize that in our cuisine. We’re just trying to make cool, fun, interesting, different food.”
Unfamiliar-sounding ingredients such as aji amarillo, karaage and togarashi might scare some less adventurous eaters away from the Modern American experience, so Fox said the key to helping restaurant-goers tap into their bold side is to educate his staff.
“We want to make sure our staff is very knowledgeable,” Fox said, “so that they can answer those questions and tamper back those fears from ordering something and be like, ‘Trust me. You want to order this. I’ll explain every single pepper and everything that’s in it. Nothing has too much heat. It’s all pretty balanced.’ Just having those types of conversations with people is why I think Vecina will be successful.”
To save the staff some time, aji amarillo is a sweet Peruvian yellow pepper with medium heat, and togarashi is a Japanese mix of spices that includes ginger, chili powder and white sesame. These come together in the shareable karaage appetizer. Similar to tempura in that items are battered and fried, karaage involves tossing items in dry coatings before frying as opposed to the wetter batter of tempura. The appetizer plate of aji amarillo peppers are karaage fried and served with a sweet and sour citrus-based sauce and lime ($20).
Home-cooked meal
As its name implies, Fox wants a visit to Vecina to feel like you’re at a neighbor’s place for a home-cooked meal.
“Vecina means neighbor, and we want it to feel like you’re going over to your neighbor’s house,” Fox said. “You’re sitting down, and they’re cooking something interesting, and you’re like, ‘Cool. Let’s see what this is,’ and they’re using the highest quality ingredients, and it’s always going to be the same and always going to be delicious.”
The neighborly atmosphere extends to the dishes themselves. At both Vecina and Riserva, Fox presents dishes in a family-style shareable format. Clean side plates are provided with each course, and dishes are sliced or portioned for sharing. Fox said the shareable format is a movement he wants to encourage at his restaurants.
“That’s one thing that we’re really trying to concentrate on because I think it makes that much more exciting and fun,” he said.
Chef Fox strives for the highest quality and freshest ingredients for all of his dishes. Vecina uses Capitol Hill-based tortilla factory Taqueria Y Tortilleria Lupita’s corn, blue corn and flour tortillas. The family-owned tortilla factory has been operating in Oklahoma City since 1997, and its tortillas are available for order online and curbside pickup. Vecina also serves ice cream from Provision Concepts sister restaurant Bibi’s alongside its conchas.
Working with local sources helps ensure that a Vecina experience will be consistent from one trip to the next and even between locations. There is one important menu ingredient, however, that Fox said is harder to procure in Oklahoma City than in Phoenix.
“There currently isn’t, or I haven’t found, a fish purveyor that provides hiramasa, so we’re actually using our fish purveyor in Phoenix that gets it in, cuts it up, gets it to our spec and then we’ll fly it same day out to us in Oklahoma City.”
Hiramasa is the Japanese name for high-quality Yellowtail Kingfish. You may have also heard it called Amberjack or Yellowtail Jack.
Bright atmosphere
Fox also focused on creating a unique atmosphere at Vecina. He said that he believes ambiance is a large factor in a restaurant experience.
“I think it’s huge,” Fox said. “That’s one thing that we wanted to strive for at the Vecina in Phoenix, was we wanted to hit it from every single angle. And I think we’re able to do that at the Vecina in Oklahoma City as well, from the moment you step in to sitting down, ordering one of our awesome cocktails or a cool bottle of wine to ordering.”
Yukon-based muralist Carlos Barboza collaborated with Fox on an original piece for the restaurant. Barboza’s bright and portrait-forward murals can be seen across Oklahoma on the side of museums, marketplaces and community centers as well as enriching school decor in Yukon and Banner. After meeting a few times with Barboza and coming to an understanding of what he was wanting for Vecina, Fox said he was pleased with the final mural.
“The job that he did there, I think, is out of his normal comfort zone, but it is absolutely spectacular what he did with that,” he said.
Adventurous challenge
If Vecina’s menu seems a little overwhelming, Chef Fox provides a guided tour for a first visit. He suggests starting with the roasted tomato, cruda (fresh chunky-style) and habanero salsa trio ($13) and guacamole ($17) with chips for the table. He also recommends the carnitas empanada made with slow-cooked pork, onion marmalade, Manchego cheese, salsa verde and chile ($22); the hiramasa ceviche with grilled pineapple, coconut-citrus marinade and crispy tortillas ($26); and the romaine salad with buttermilk dressing, Mexican Sriracha, Parmesan and sourdough bread crumbs ($19). Fox also recommends the mesquite-grilled prime carne asada ribeye served with habanero potato puree, chimichurri sauce and charred onion ($78) and the skirt steak tacos served with red salsa, avocado relish, Cotija cheese and corn tortillas ($26).
Fox urges guests to be adventurous and try everything on the menu, but one entree rises to the top of his recommendation list.
“If the Hiramasa Collar is available, get it,” Fox said. “Because we get the hiramasa in, we cut the collars off, so we have a really finite amount of those. So if that’s available, that’s a really really fun, delicious dish as well.”
In striving for the highest quality and consistent experiences, Fox hopes Vecina can become a go-to for diners in Oklahoma City. He recognizes the stiff competition in the Quail Springs area and issued a friendly challenge to W. Memorial Road neighbor Mahogany Prime Steakhouse.
“I guess Mahogany is the end-all be-all of steakhouses in Oklahoma City,” Fox said, “and I would love to go toe-to-toe with whatever ribeye they have and know that ours is gonna potentially blow it out of the water.”
This article appears in The OG Food Issue 2025.