Red Iguana opened on West North Temple in 1985, when Lucy and Ramon Cardenas brought the mole tradition of Oaxaca and Puebla to a city that, at the time, had no context for it. Forty years later, the wait stretches around the block on weekend evenings, the family still runs both locations, and the moles — seven of them on the standard menu, with seasonal specials rotating through the year — remain the primary reason that food writers, visiting chefs, and Salt Lake residents who know what they are doing point to Red Iguana as the city's most significant restaurant.
The mole negro is the kitchen's benchmark: a sauce of extraordinary complexity built from more than thirty ingredients including multiple dried chiles, dark chocolate, charred tortilla, and a spice profile that takes days to develop properly. It is served over chicken or pork, or over the house-made enchiladas that represent one of the most straightforward ways to understand what traditional Mexican cooking achieves when it is given time and care. The mole amarillo — a lighter, herb-forward sauce with characteristic Oaxacan flavour — and the mole coloradito, which incorporates tomato and dried fruit alongside the chile base, demonstrate the range of what the tradition encompasses.
Beyond the moles, Red Iguana's kitchen produces the full vocabulary of traditional Mexican cooking: chile rellenos stuffed with cheese and a proprietary blend of spices, pozole verde on weekends, tamales made in-house with fresh masa and prepared to order. The tortillas are made on the premises. The margaritas, which can be ordered in pitchers for table service, are made with fresh lime juice and agave-based spirits that have no business being this good at this price.
The dining room is colourful, loud, family-friendly, and full. The wait on weekend evenings has become a Salt Lake institution in its own right — people bring drinks to the line, meet their neighbours, and treat the wait as a natural extension of the evening. Call ahead to add your name to the list if the system permits. Arrive early on weeknights for a shorter wait. Either way, go.