La Vida

Silvana Salcido Esparza was planning on retiring in a couple of years. Then COVID hit, upending life — and especially restaurant life — as we all knew it. “Guess what?” she told us in March. “You’re going to have to put up with my annoying ass for a lot longer than I thought.” No complaints here. The always-quotable Esparza is not only a star of the local dining scene (we’ve lost track of how many times she’s been nominated for a James Beard Award); she’s also an essential moral figure in Phoenix. When the virus arrived, Esparza closed her flagship restaurant, Barrio Café, and converted it into a community kitchen, preparing red chile burritos and barbecue pork, and giving it all away for free. It wasn’t the first time she shouldered her community. In 2019, she comped meals for furloughed workers after the federal government shut down. And as Esparza prepared for the reopening of Barrio Café this summer, she hired several artists to transform the restaurant with new murals and wall art, helping them weather tough economic times caused by the closure of the gallery scene. “I look out for these artists,” Esparza told us. “They’re my family.” For Esparza in Phoenix, it seems, that’s true of just about everybody.

Rosaura “Chawa” Magaña founded Palabras Bilingual Bookstore as a community space in 2015, eager to give readers the chance to spend time together in an environment where cultural representation was a high priority. Today, the bookstore hosts a wide variety of events that includes women’s reading groups, spoken-word nights, and writers’ workshops. Cozy seating areas allow visitors to linger over conversations, and there’s a back patio where people sometimes gather to share food and drink. The walls are filled with works by local artists — many of which, by design, inspire meaningful dialogue among browsing book-buyers. Most of all, though, Palabras is exactly what Magaña aimed for it to be five years ago: a place where people who’ve traditionally been marginalized can come and find a safe space to gather and grow together.

United by creativity and a shared love for artist Frida Kahlo, a group of Latina artists based in metro Phoenix have been working together for more than 10 years to bring their affection for Kahlo to a wider audience through exhibits, craft fairs, workshops, and an annual celebration of the artist’s birthday. This collective’s members have changed through the years, but the group has always been a beautiful window into the work created by Latina artists and the ways that work brings joy to the greater community. Their events draw people with a shared passion for Kahlo, then broaden their view to include the exciting arts landscape right here in our midst.

Performers danced through a grassy expanse at Steele Indian School Park last October, carrying a large-scale puppet fashioned after a feathered serpent deity called Quetzalcoatl. It was part of a Día de los Muertos celebration called Mikiztli, created by Cultural Coalition as a public celebration of ancestors and ancient Mesoamerican culture. The festival highlights the richness of cultural traditions that gave rise to Día de los Muertos, largely through mediums such as music, dance, storytelling, and art. People of all ages descended on the park, where they made sugar skulls, had their faces painted, explored works by local artists, enjoyed moving performances, and participated in a candlelight procession. It was a poignant reminder of the ways that popular culture tends to dilute or twist history, and a powerful community act of reclaiming and honoring deeply rooted cultural truths.

What started as a group of music students in the same class at ASU has grown into a skilled mariachi band composed of all female musicians who play the classic mariachi mix of violins, trumpets, flute, vihuela, and guitarron. Dressed in traditional mariachi attire in beautiful silvery blue with crisp white embellishments, these talented performers are musicians and cultural ambassadors who prompt their audiences to consider the rich histories inherent in mariachi music and mariachi’s significance in the contemporary musical landscape. Every musician in Mariachi Pasion brings a specific energy to the group, whether performing in a school, park, museum, or community center. Their music stirs the soul, making it dance with delight.

For 50 years, Mexican Art Imports has been adding dazzling color to metro Phoenix. The shop is packed to the gills with merchandise: pottery, clothing, kitchenware, leather goods, wall hangings, religious items, fridge magnets, and holiday items share space in a dizzying display. We never know where to look first, but we often head straight for the apparel section, where fun woven totes sit alongside embroidered clothing, leather holsters, striped blankets, and gorgeous hand-tooled purses. We hit up Mexican Art Imports for papel picado in a variety of sizes, for brightly painted serving platters to give as housewarming gifts, for wall mirrors bordered by tiny Mexican tiles. Each room in the surprisingly large shop yields more items to discover, and we like to visit often to see what’s new and take a few treasures home for ourselves.

On the surface, Tocaya Organica seems very … shiny. The fast-casual Mexican restaurant chain immigrated from California, bringing with it almost 60,000 Instagram followers, a greenery wall for people to pose with, and a “West Coast cool” brand identity. But when you eat there, you’ll find that Tocaya has substance to go along with its style. The restaurant sells build-your-own, customizable items; choose a burrito, salad, bowl, quesadilla, or tacos, then select a protein and a type of queso. We love the Street Corn en Fuego bowl, which comes with jalapeno cabbage, cilantro lime rice, avocado, and salsa. Vegans and vegetarians will appreciate all the meat-free options, like adobo tofu and cilantro lime chick’n plus vegan chipotle jack and mozzarella “cheese.” Don’t skip the pomegranate guacamole with plantain chips or the churro waffle bites with chocolate and strawberry dipping sauces, either.

Mexican food is often heavy on the opposite of vegan food: lots of meat, lots of cheese. Earth Plant Based Cuisine on Grand Avenue has a different vision, though. This small, family-owned business packs big flavor into its menu, along with a desire to show customers what going green and being vegan is all about. The tables and ceilings are made from wood pallets, the countertops and prep tables from repurposed materials. The friendly staff is eager to guide you, but in our experience, you can’t go wrong with the street-style corn, the carnitas made with seasoned mushrooms, or the Baja burrito with beer-battered “shrimp.” Save room for a milkshake made with soy-based ice cream and almond milk.

During pandemic days, it’s been great to have a drive-thru that allows us to enjoy our favorite Sonoran fare. Now if we could only figure out what to order. We’ve finally given up trying to decide which of Maria’s frybreads is our favorite. Plain, it’s delightful, dense, and soft and crispy around the edges. With honey, it’s our favorite decadent dessert. Clumped with both red and green chile, it’s a meal. And speaking of meals, we only need one per day when it comes from Maria’s speedy, friendly drive-thru, where we can pick up the five-star flavor of an enchilada-style red chile burrito, or maybe the giant-sized chicken chimichanga with rice and some of the best refried beans we’ve ever had.

The pleasures of a great roadside taco truck are simple, and south Phoenix’s Taqueria La Hacienda keeps it as simple as can be. The Buckeye Road fixture prepares a large handful of proteins in a small handful of ways. For $6, you can nab a carne asada or lengua burro neatly wrapped in red-checked paper and jammed with juicy meat. Tacos come with scatterings of chopped onion and herbs — not much more than the bare essentials. Vampiros are a smart order at this truck, as tortillas crisped into place cup generous portions. Lace on red and green salsa from the squeeze bottles generously. We love that we always know where to find Taqueria La Hacienda, and that it gives us the food we crave during the day, when covered seating banishes the sun, and into the night, including until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Chef Javier Perez, who runs this warm nook with his wife, Ana Bautista, plates thoughtful breakfasts that are largely Mexican, but not always. Something that isn’t: an egg sandwich slicked with mayo, served on challah, absolutely stellar. But the La Grande Orange and Luci’s Orchard alum can go new-school and old-school Mexican with the best of them. An all-business breakfast burrito stretches with potato, egg, and crumbles of chorizo. Crepes soak under velvety tres leches crema. Chilaquiles — house-fried tortilla chips angled every way that sop with fork-broken egg yolk and quietly smolder with chiles and chicken stock — are a perfect morning meal.

Prepackaged flour tortillas are available at pretty much any supermarket in town. But why on earth would you buy those, when you can walk into any Carolina’s Mexican Food location and leave with its fresh tortillas instead? The Carolina’s tortillas come in two sizes — 12-inch and 15-inch — and are made throughout the day, just like they have been since 1968. You can get a half-dozen for $3.60 or a dozen for $6.45 — a little more expensive than the processed, bland ones in the grocery store, but infinitely better. We routinely pick up a six-pack and take it home to make quesadillas or fajitas — or to just heat one up, spread butter on it, and enjoy.

Minimalism is a fine concept when applied to art, design, or fashion. Not nachos, though. We expect excess and decadence when we order nachos. The ones that emerge from the kitchen of Crescent Ballroom’s Cocina 10 almost overflow the plate. The light, thin tortilla chips come smothered in a pile of refried beans, three types of cheese, cilantro, pico de gallo, guacamole, and sour cream. You know that sad, bare patch of chips that’s often found on an order of nachos? Doesn’t exist at Cocina 10; toppings are plentiful. We like to eat on the open-air second floor, which adds a lovely view of downtown to the nacho-consuming experience. We also recommend adding carne asada to your order; again, when it comes to nachos, less is not more.

After a lifetime of eating specimens made on lesser tortillas, tasting a quesadilla made by Nadia Holguin and Armando Hernandez is like going from black-and-white to color, acoustic to electric. The tortilla? Handmade from freshly ground local grain, warm and fragrant and perfectly browned. The cheese? Molten, oozing. The meat? If you go pork, it’ll be fall-apart shreds boosted by a steady, beautiful chile heat. There are a handful of elite tortillas in metro Phoenix. Tacos Chiwas has one of them — and all the added touches are just as impressive. For the money, this quesadilla is one of the top bites of food in town.

Take birria. Subtract broth (or simply put it on the side). Add a crisp, hot tortilla and lots of gooey cheese. This is a recipe for quesabirria, a food that has mushroomed in popularity among eaters of Mexican food from coast to coast. The several versions at Birrieria Tijuana, a truck operating out of a north Phoenix parking lot, are worth the trek and a meal at tables just feet from car traffic. Tortilla half-moons crackle as you bite in, oozing cheese. Long-stewed beef has a satisfying melt almost on a cheesy level, and intensity to match, all rounded by chopped herbs and lime juice. There’s a reason everyone sitting in this parking lot is beaming.

Too much of the “best taco” talk around town neglects to consider the actual best taco: the generously heaped, three-sauced wonders plated by Edson Garcia, who juggles 17 tasks at once inside his far west Valley hidden gem. Tacos here are deeply considered, to the point that their basic components are remixed. The al pastor uses pork belly, shards of marinated pineapple, and pineapple vinegar. Horchata is served in a giant stein, impossibly lush. This intensity and quality extends to all Garcia touches. A native of Veracruz, the man deserves a place in Arizona’s taco pantheon. A few bites of carne asada or shrimp, and you’ll believe.

We don’t know exactly when Taco Tuesday became a thing. But one day per week when taco consumption is encouraged, arguably even required? We’re not mad about it. Plenty of taco joints run specials on this holy day, but of those our favorite is Taqueria El Fundador, where most of the taco varieties are just $1 each on Tuesdays. These tacos are filled with warm, perfectly spiced morsels of meat and piles of onion and cilantro (we’re partial to the al pastor). Of course it doesn’t have to be Tuesday for us to crave what Taqueria El Fundador’s got going on; the eatery, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, does hearty burritos, gooey quesadillas and yes, tacos, six days a week (it’s closed on Sundays).

Juan Cornejo and Juan Cornejo Jr. have brought their fun, flavorful, intensely personal brand of Sonoran backyard cookout to Roosevelt Row. The elder captains the kitchen, where barbacoa softens, vampiros crisp on the plancha, and ruby sheets of carne asada sizzle like mad on charcoal grills. A perfume fills the restaurant. The salsa bar beckons. Soccer plays on the corner TV. It’s all comfortable and welcoming, and that’s before you even get to the food. It’s some of the best Sonoran-style eating in town, even some of the very tastiest Mexican. Sleepers like cabeza and tripa can star. So, too, can a simple carne asada burro or humble side of beans. The Cornejos have an amazing thing going.

The chimichanga is one of the only zones of the Rito’s menu where prices sail north of $10. But even though you can get happily full for half of that here, you will be elated to gnash into its burro deep-fried to a saucy crisp. Saucy, yes, because the right move is to go enchilada-style, meaning a chimichanga smothered in chile sauce and blanketed with melted cheese. Rito’s, of course, is for old-school eating. Its category of “yellow-cheese” Mexican has been disparaged by other chefs. But conceptual, high-minded cooking feels overly dainty when you’re two bites away from finishing a green chile enchilada, full, and wishing you had a thousand more.

PHX Burrito House is the kind of place where even the potato is expertly considered, providing soft bites that break up richness, jive with cheese, and pair nicely with a fragrant flour tortilla. You would be wise to include the humble potato in your build-your-own breakfast burritos at this eatery, which is truly a house. The best burrito here, the machaca, comes with them, forming a jalapeno-charged package big enough for two meals. Where most options here are meaty and intense, a shrimp burrito displays lightness and freshness. Other places are divier or flashier, but PHX Burrito House wraps its namesake food better than anyone in the Valley.

People loiter outside El Norteño, the humble Mexican-food shack at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Roosevelt Street. Are they waiting to order? Have they already ordered? Is this where the line starts, sir? Eventually, you piece together that you must enter a small vestibule (only one person at a time, especially these days) to place your order. On the wall inside is a massive menu that vaguely resembles the periodic table of the elements. You could eat here twice a week for a year and still not try everything. So, we’ll make it simple for you: Go with the chorizo egg burro, and add potatoes. It’s about $6 with tax, and, depending on how you see your day going, constitutes either a big breakfast or two small ones. Join the loiterers. When your order’s called, apply the spicy salsa that comes in little tubs in your brown bag to every bite. And remember to bring bills — El Norteño is cash only, and closed on Sundays.

In a metropolis brimming with Mexican eateries, the best tamale happens to be cooked in a Salvadorian restaurant. This may not sound right, but it’s true. The banana-leaf-wrapped tamale at Reinas De Las Pupusas Restaurant is a gastronomic masterpiece. Chef Dolores Garcia deftly calibrates the simple flavors and tucks the package into hot foil. The melted cheese that glues the corn together? Mozzarella. The flavors? Deeply herbal, a faint earthy perfume, almost akin to the profile of an excellent green tea. Order a few yourself (they’re only $2.50 each) and you’ll be hooked.

Torta ahogada, drowned in chile sauce. Torta stuffed with achiote-laced cochinita pibil. Even a torta stuffed with fried turkey tails. This family-owned torta shop (also known as Tortas El Guero) has specialized in many versions of the Mexican sandwich since 2002. Featuring soft buns that guide your focus to the fillings, these tortas, available in three sizes to suit your appetite, are full-on joyous meals on their own. But at TEG Torta Shop, you can go further. Regulars sidekick their sandwiches with horchata, or maybe a cantaloupe, mango, or plantain milkshake. The bow on top of the meal is a chilled salsa bar, catapulting excellent tortas to an unforgettable level.

We love all elote, from the kind that comes out of a Styrofoam cup from a food truck window to the fancy-pants foodie variety found at Scottsdale eateries. But we like it best at Otro Café, Doug Robson’s uptown Phoenix sister restaurant to Gallo Blanco. Otro’s Elote Callejero — a perfect prelude, we should add, to one of the restaurant’s excellent shrimp tacos or chicken enchiladas — is a wood-fired ear of corn draped in mayo, cotija cheese, and smoked paprika. Each slice down the cob releases a pile of fresh, warm, rich elote. We always make sure we’ve stripped the cob bare and grab every bit of cotija before the server whisks the plate away.

Vegetarians can trust beans again at America’s Taco Shop. No need to verify with the manager whether those pintos are 100 percent vegetarian: Owner America Corrales made a conscious decision to cook her beans without lard. In doing so, she’s proven that extra pig fat isn’t essential for tasty beans. Hers retain their natural flavor and authenticity, and blend well with the heaping amounts of salsa and guacamole on the burritos, salad bowls, and nachos served at America’s Taco Shop. Dine in at the Scottsdale location, where the walls are decorated with colorful depictions of Corrales’ family history and roots in Mexico. Or take these beans to-go and make it a Taco Tuesday night at home. Just be certain to warn your family.

Though the 16th Street hub has closed its nautical-themed dining room for good, other locations of cult favorite Mariscos Ensenada are still giving seafood the galvanizing Mexican treatment. Seafood tacos in the Valley don’t get much better than the achiote-rubbed smoked marlin taco, about as meaty and umami-potent as fish can get. On the other end of the spectrum, raw shrimp slicked with an electric spicy lime sauce highlights all the fresh, delicate facets of food pulled from the sea. The spread of options here covers just about everything in between, from delicate octopus tostadas to heady, cheesy tacos gobernadora. With some of this town’s most underrated salsa and an icy Pacifico, this spot will fill you with marine bliss.

The easternmost truck of the La Fronteras in their 16th Street lot does a mean, criminally underrated Sonoran dog. On a split-top bun, somewhere down below all those toppings — guac, mustard, silky pinto beans, chopped tomatoes, a webbing of crema — a hot dog awaits. A blizzard of salty cheese sharpens it all, and a toasted chile is there to help you chase bites with little spurts of fire. The bun possesses that impossible union of chew and softness that most great Sonoran dogs have. It’s key to easing you into all the goodness in the middle. Though not a dog-only truck, La Frontera makes such a solid version that it could be.

We’d love nothing better than to completely clean our plate of the modern Mexican fare served at Gallo Blanco every time we dine there. But then we wouldn’t have room for the churros. On their own, churros are a simple delight, two tubes of dough fried to crispy perfection and rolled in cinnamon sugar. But the Gallo version comes with a trio of dipping sauces — cajeta, condensed milk, and chocolate fudge — that take the experience from tasty to divine. There’s never enough churro to finish the dips, leaving us wishing for more sweet pastry — or wishing that it was socially acceptable to scoop up the sauces with a spoon.

Think you’ve tasted tamarind? How about guava, or even rice? Each of these foods takes on new dimensions when turned into paletas at Realeza Michoacana, purveyor of other frozen treats as well, like raspados and ice cream. But that tamarind? Deeply tropical, weighty, and veering into molasses notes. The guava paleta has a cool lushness. And the creamy, sweet rice flavor has the deep, almost floral fragrance of a great horchata, yet chewy and stippled with broken grains. Opt for a margarita flavor, an ornate coconut, or whatever calls to you from the rainbow colors of the paleta freezer. If you’ve been raised on mass-produced frozen treats, then here you can only go right.

Hot summer nights are always improved by a well-made margarita. (Or days — we don’t judge.) Which is why we so frequently head to Arcadia for drinks at CRUjiente Tacos. The Premier Cru margarita is our go-to — 100 percent blue agave tequila, house agave syrup, freshly squeezed lime, and a muddled orange to give it some character. But we’ve also been known to switch it up and order the bright, fresh Arcadia margarita, which adds cilantro, jalapeno, and cucumber to the mix, or the sweet and spicy Passion Fruit Serrano margarita. Whatever you choose, try to go either during happy hour, or on CRUjiente’s Margarita Mondays, when you can get any of these for a very reasonable $5 a pop.

In early 2019, the American arm of the Mezcal Carreño team, Ivan Carreño and Abel Arriaga, started distributing a handful of mezcals in Arizona. These days, they’re moving to sell their product, made in Oaxaca using traditional methods (stone wheel, open-air fermentation, a copper alembic), in dozens of states across the country. Their most singular bottle might be Ensemble 7, which blends that many kinds of agave. The product is a tightly edited, deeply nuanced mezcal that will make anyone who has ever been clobbered by a bottom-shelf mezcal smoke bomb see the craft spirit anew. Carreño recently released a bottle called Naran, which happily brings the Carreño price tag within closer reach.

Mexican food in Scottsdale? Not your best bet. One of the exceptions is this little carniceria, bodega, and lunch counter, operated without fanfare by the Santana family. Behind its long glass case, you can find just about any cut of pork or beef you please. Regulars flock to the few tables for prepared food. The whole-roasted-chicken special packs deep flavor and brings incredible value. The creamy, dark orange salsa filled with seeds is hauntingly good, easily one of the most memorable in the Valley. If you’re looking for a few meaty sopes for lunch, longaniza and pork chops to grill, and tortillas and hot sauce for your fridge, this carniceria is a blessing.

Now in its fifth decade, west Valley panaderia La Purisima is still our best and most beloved. Conchas are soft, fragrant, and touched with just enough sugar. Puffy, pig-shaped marrinatos are simple beauties with ample chew and notes of molasses that roll and roll. Flaky baked empanadas filled with sweet pumpkin drop in the fall. Regulars flow in for quick to-go orders of sugar-encrusted pan dulce like clockwork. What many also grab is an underrated aspect of this longtime standby: savory food. Next time you stop in for cookies or sweet yeasted breads, grab a burrito or tamale for the road.

One pandemic habit we’ll stick with long after this plague has left us? Avoiding the grocery store. What an incredible convenience it’s been to order produce, dairy, and frozen pizzas with a laptop click. Truly, we’re living in the future. We’ll make an exception for Los Altos, though, which answers the question: What if the oppressive lighting, dull brands, and sunken-eyed cart-pushers at your local grocery chain were replaced by something a little more Technicolor and full of life? Los Altos is like a Walmart-sized bodega; curiosities abound alongside the essentials. Do you need a Spongebob pinata? Several dangle from light fixtures. A tiny yellow lawn chair for a child? A few are hoisted up above the frozen section. An entire third of an aisle is dedicated to seeds. There are two women stacking and packing fresh corn tortillas that ride down a conveyor belt, one after another. A vendor near the entrance sells steel-toed boots. Another buys gold. There’s a salsa bar. There’s a juice bar. There are bright, beautiful, elaborate quinceanera cakes. You can order a torta or chicharrones or menudo for lunch and eat it at the indoor picnic tables. “We are here to serve and enrich the lives of others,” reads the wallpaper above the checkout, painted in both Spanish and English. Mission accomplished.

The Pixar movie Coco may have increased public awareness of Día de los Muertos, but in metro Phoenix, this annual holiday to commemorate loved ones who’ve passed on has always been an integral part of our cultural identity. When we want to add new items to our ofrenda (the ceremonial display created for the holiday), we head to Mercado Mexico in Guadalupe. The Mexican import shop has lots to see and buy, from sugar skull merchandise including figurines and tiles, to calacas (skeleton figurines). While you’re there, check out everything else the store has to offer, like hand-painted Christmas ornaments, pottery, jewelry, and more.