The new Arizona cuisine
Bianco, Holguin meld Italian, Mexican
Recent restaurant openings in Phoenix are sketching the outlines of a new Arizona dining style, informed by the area’s history and Mexican roots.
Is something happening here? ● The Phoenix dining scene, we’re fond of saying, is still growing into its identity as we emerge from a bygone (but beloved) era of cheese crisps and cowboy steaks. Excellence is here, even if the rest of the country hasn’t quite yet caught on, and it’s just a matter of time before a unique, modern culinary identity sets the ground shaking. ● In case you haven’t been paying attention, the ground has been rumbling around downtown Phoenix. ● Maybe it isn’t a quake just yet, but it’s a tremble. Recent openings have sketched the outlines of a coalescing style, informed by Arizona’s history and
Mexican roots without being blindly beholden to tradition or expectations of what our food should be.
Restaurants like Gallo Blanco and Taco Chelo have begun to codify a style of contemporary Arizona Mexican fare that seems barely related to the AZ-Mex of old. They offer inexpensive food, reduced to its essentials, built on exceptional local ingredients and crafted with care by people who for too long have comprised the restaurant industry’s underclass.
Which brings us to Roland’s Cafe Market Bar.
Bianco, the mentor
Open since April, the latest Chris Bianco project looks the part.
With a panoramic view of a workingclass Phoenix neighborhood at Van Buren and 15th streets, Roland’s inhabits a shoebox-shaped piece of the city’s history, a nifty bit of adaptive reuse forged from the shell of a former Chinese market. Outside, it’s dusty brick, blacktop and car dealership marquees.
Inside, it’s Bianco through and through, a big and bright space filled with salvaged wooden chairs, tin ceiling tiles, patterned tile and a small gallery’s worth of art, courtesy of his father Leonard’s brush. For those who have visited his other restaurants, the look of Roland’s is exactly what you expect from Bianco. And that could pose a problem.
When you’re a big-leaguer like Bianco with multiple restaurants (Pizzeria Bianco, Tratto, Pane Bianco) and an epic local history, an awful lot of people have made up their minds about your new venture before they even walk through the doors. So let’s reframe this a bit. Roland’s looks like a Bianco restaurant, and that’s how the national press will see and sell it. But while his influence, style and mentorship permeate every aspect of the place, this isn’t Bianco’s restaurant.
It’s Nadia Holguin’s.
Emerging talent
“Don’t get it twisted,” Bianco himself once admonished, warning against underestimating the soft-spoken Holguin’s outsize influence on anything she touches.
Last year, Bianco joined forces with Tacos Chiwas, a widely heralded taco shop run by Holguin and her husband, Armando Hernandez, both originally from Chihuahua, Mexico. Together, the trio pledged to jump in the kitchen, knock their heads together and see what kind of collaborative craziness popped out.
The result isn’t quite the MexicanItalian mashup everyone expected.
To be sure, both influences share the stage. Bianco’s presence is felt, particularly where it comes to bread and ingredients that feel like they came from the farmers market of the gods. But somewhere along the way, it’s Holguin’s voice that emerged from the din.
The result is sort of an Italiantwinged modern Mexican diner, slinging three squares a day with a steaming hot cup of hipster joe at Denny’s prices.
That Roland’s brings such a level of quality to such a modest price point isn’t just impressive. It’s a roadmap for the future of casual cuisine.
Affordable
Take a dish like the chile colorado burrito.
I will go 12 rounds with anybody who complains that it weighs less than 2 pounds or that it costs a dollar or two more than your local late-night ‘berto. Yes, it looks like any other burrito, but if you can’t taste the difference, get yourself to an ENT, pronto.
Here is a humble dish, rich with the dusky desert flavors of northern Mexico. It’s little more than beans, stewed pork and a flour tortilla, but this burro
gently hums with a pure chile burn and a lingering natural smokiness swaddled in a toasty warm blanket. It’s the culinary equivalent of a television with the saturation turned up just a little higher than the rest.
Why? Hernandez traveled to Chihuahua to find the best chiles he could. Bianco milled the white Sonoran wheat for the tortilla. Holguin used Niman Ranch pork as the base for her stew.
And they did all of this for $8.
That’s what makes Roland’s exceptional. Not that the food isn’t excellent — it generally is — but that those producing it are obsessed with getting the most they can out of every simple ingredient that goes on the plate.
Breakfast
I get angry when my breakfast potatoes aren’t crispy, but for once I don’t give a damn. They’re plied with butter, roasted to a pliant, creamy texture and seated next to some of the best breakfast pork chops ($13) I’ve ever had.
When the wood-fired oven dies down for the night, in go the chops. They sit, roasting slowly in low heat, absorbing the smoke all night long. When they emerge, it’s like they spent all night at the spa, tender as can be, every muscle fiber in a state of total relaxation. Throw in a couple of jiggly fried eggs and one of the killer tortillas and breakfast needn’t be any more complicated.
That said, a bathtub-size cup of cajeta latte, thick and creamy with a sweet slick of goat’s milk caramel coating the bottom, is a mighty fine mate.
A pair of breakfast sandwiches ($10) — ham and cheese and a roasted red pepper frittata — are both warm, melty messes stuffed into soft rolls with just enough crust to avoid being pushovers.
The menudo rojo ($11) is a beautifully crafted soup, but I confess it never quite gets my heart pumping. The richness is there, but it’s about as funky as a Michael Bolton concert. It’s neophyte-friendly, but it isn’t my jam.
I prefer my chiles drenching the enchiladas montadas ($12), stacked like a layered cake — corn tortillas,
Roland’s does tacos with aplomb. The chicken ($3) feels too neat to me, filled with a tinga that doesn’t tingle. But the carnitas ($3) are a minimal lot with a lusty, citrusy richness. And the steak tacos ($4) are dynamite, long strips of tender beef marinated and gently seared without going too far — the antidote for the overcooked kibble that typifies too many taco stands.
The steak sandwich ($14) takes it a step further, eschewing the well-done standard in favor of juicy slices of beef. I love the carnitas sandwich ($12) even more, its fatty crisp offset with a tart lemon vinaigrette and salsa de arbol. Both arrive on a roll that’s an engineering marvel. With a crust that fights back but a tender, airy crumb, it sports weathered, Old World character, but it doesn’t eject the filling out the back when you take a bite.
Salads, though fresh, feel more serviceable than special. But I am in love with the quesadillas.
These don’t fit any definition of “quesadilla” I’m aware of, but if you’re going to break the rules, this is how to do it. They appear almost as small pizzas, toppings melted onto a flour tortilla that acts like a pizza crust, skinny with a tender center and a crisp, deeply browned edge that flakes like pastry. It eats like a feather but it packs a flavorful punch, whether topped with a ruddy crumble of chorizo ($9), cubes of mortadella ($8) or — perhaps the best — a jumble of simple, perfect mushrooms and spinach ($8).
Dinner
Tostadas topped with chicken tinga ($12) suffer the same fate as the tacos, but I adore the simplicity of their crown, a shaved cabbage and radish salad. Its charms are better suited to the fritura ($6), a crackling crisp flour chicharron with a speck of cheese and a mote of full-flavored salsa botanera.
Two shining stars, however, come out at night. The entomatadas ($12) are special — rough hewn corn tortillas cradling melted asadero cheese beneath a blanket of crema and a sauce so evocative of summer’s finest tomatoes that you’d think Bianco handpicked them himself, just for you. Given his commitment to seasonality, I wonder how long they’ll remain. Get them while you can.
Drawing from a drastically different palette are the empanadas ($13), carefully braided pockets of perfect, flaky dough wrapped around juicy, slick shredded cabeza (beef ) perked up with chile pasado. Served with a garbanzo bean dip, it might first seem like a mistake — there’s no sweetness, no punchy pickled contrast, no blazing chile fire.
Two bites deeper, however, what first seemed onenote reveals itself to be subtly complex, a smart exploration of the kind of earthy flavors that rarely stand on their own in American cooking.
Two reactions
There are going to be two schools of thought when it comes to Roland’s: Those who are taken aback by its simplicity and those who celebrate it.
I’ve heard some complaints that it borders on plain, but I’m not buying it. If we can revere a pasta dish made with four perfect ingredients, we can do the same with a burrito. That’s where this team has forged a connection, Bianco providing the ethos and the platform for Holguin to shine.
Here is a strong Latina voice, listening to a wise mentor and helping shape an emerging local culinary style in a city that’s finding its rhythm.