Moises Treves, champion of regional Mexican food

Valley chef treated diners to trailblazing cuisine at Such Is Life restaurant William Greaves; filmmaker pioneered 1960s TV program for Black audiences

Moises Treves, the pioneering chef whose restaurant Such Is Life introduced the Valley to regional Mexican cuisine in 1992, died Aug. 21 in Mexico City, said his former Such Is Life business partner, Luis Mata.

“He was a legend, a trailblazer,” said Silvana Salcido Esparza, chef/owner of acclaimed Barrio Cafe, which showcases regional Mexican fare.

Treves was about 60 years old, according to Mata.

Prior to Such Is Life, at 24th Street and Osborn Road in Phoenix, the Valley’s Mexican food scene essentially began and ended with Sonoran and TexMex fare: nachos, burros, tacos, enchiladas, chimichangas and cheeseglopped combo plates. Treves would have none of that. Perhaps most daringly, Treves refused to set out chips and salsa, claiming they weren’t authentic components of a Mexican meal.

A lot of customers howled. But plenty were intrigued, too.

Treves took diners off the beaten path to then-unfamiliar parts of central and southern Mexico.

Dishes included queso Angela, a combination of mushrooms, pork and chorizo bound with fresh ranchero cheese; adobo pork; chicken mole; co- chinita pibil; and pescado jarocho, red snapper snappily festooned with olives, tomatoes, onions and capers.

His signature dessert — a killer combination of cheesecake and flan — was an instant hit.

Esparza, a James Beard Award semifinalist, said Barrio Cafe built on Treves’ foundation.

And there’s still a connection between the two Phoenix restaurants — her current chef worked at Such Is Life.

Treves’ food got national attention, including a glowing write-up in the

And so did his unusu- al backstory.

While cooking at a taco stand in Cozumel in the 1970s, he mused to a sympathetic American tourist that he’d like to someday run his own restaurant there.

Later, as she was leaving to return to the U.S., she gave him an envelope, and told him not to open it until she was gone.

Inside, he found $500 and a note encouraging him to open his own place, which jump-started his career.

About 20 years later, the two were reunited after the story aired on “Unsolved Mysteries.”

Faced with legal and health-department issues, Such Is Life ran its course by the end of the 1990s. But Treves wasn’t gone for long.

In 2000, he opened Coyoacan, a south Phoenix steak house. In 2006, he launched Cocono’s, a somewhat Americanized spot in Glendale.

Both were short-lived, and neither had nearly the impact of Such Is Life.

William Greaves, the Emmy-award winning co-host and executive producer of a groundbreaking TV news program and a prolific filmmaker whose subjects ranged from Muhammad Ali to the Harlem Renaissance to the Black middle class, has died at age 87.

Greaves died Monday at his Manhattan home after a prolonged illness, according to his granddaughter, Liani Greaves.

A minister’s son born in New York City, Greaves had a diverse background that included drawing, acting, dance and engineering. He leaves behind a vast film archive of Black art and culture.

Greaves made hundreds of movies, and in the 1960s, he served as co-host and executive producer of “Black Journal,” among the first TV news programs designed for a Black audience. “Black Journal” won an Emmy in 1970 for excellence in public affairs.

He studied engineering at City College of New York, but dropped out to pursue a career in the performing arts. He joined the American Negro Theatre, where fellow members included Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier, and was briefly part of the Actors Studio, with Marlon Brando among his peers.

Greaves appeared in “Lost in the Stars,” “Lost Boundaries” and other movies, but he became frustrated with the roles offered Black performers, especially after being asked to play a porter in a Broadway revival of “Twentieth Century.” He moved to Canada and immersed himself in documentary-making as part of the National Film Board of Canada.

The rise of the civil-rights movement opened up chances for work in the United States, and in the early ’60s, he returned and formed William Greaves Productions.

His notable documentaries included “Still a Brother: Inside the Black Middle Class” and “From These Roots,” about the Harlem Renaissance.

In 1966, at the request of the United States Information Agency, he traveled to Senegal and filmed the First World Festival of Negro Arts, which featured Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes, among others.

He also made the experimental “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One,” what he called a “cosmic comedy” about a director (Greaves) facing a rebellion from his cast and crew. A cult favorite admired by Steven Soderbergh, “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm” was filmed in the late 1960s, but wasn’t released until 2005.

One of Greaves’ most widely seen productions was “Ali, the Fighter,” a documentary about the 1971 championship fight between Ali and Joe Frazier, a 15-round bout won by Frazier. In a 1991 interview with the Associated Press, Greaves recalled that his biggest challenge was getting the boxers to forget he was there.

“When Ali finally caught up with the film, he was amazed,” Greaves said. “He said, ‘How did you get that?’ ‘You shot this?’ He was involved with his own life, and he didn’t know what we were doing.”