Hearth ’61 has some hits but needs to cut loose
Can the soul of an old institution lay dormant in the soil, waiting to be revived?
Having moved to Phoenix in 2010, I never knew the original Mountain Shadows Resort that was buried in 2004. Until recently, I’ve only seen the fallow field running a long stretch of Paradise Valley’s resort row, now home to the new Mountain Shadows, resurrected in April to much fanfare and excitement.
Hearth ’61, the resort’s signature restaurant, sits in a box of a building (still under construction, six months later) that comes across as somewhat cold and austere until daybreak reveals, in a remarkable show of architectural restraint, that it’s simply a picture frame for a live portrait of the mountain planted in its backyard.
The view of majestic Camelback Mountain from the restaurant’s patio, flanked by palms and rising to the sky, is gorgeous. A vaulted interior dining room, dressed in clean, contemporary style, is built around a rainbow-lit reflecting pool that — to almost comedic effect — is just a few swimmers shy of a Busby Berkeley number.
Unburdened by nostalgia, however, my eye detects little connection to the Mountain Shadows of old, a place that saw its heyday in the ’60s and was reputedly a swinging destination.
Indeed, had Hearth ’61 launched in the early aughts, we might be discussing a full-blown Rat Pack revival. Though given the pack’s penchant for subsisting on cigarettes and martinis, it’s probably best we aren’t.
Instead, Hearth ‘61 has built its ethos on the commendable combination of seasonal, local product and a blazing domed