After a few years out of the limelight, Samantha Sanz has resurfaced. She’s the talented chef who garnered a following for her exceptional Spanish cuisine at Talavera (2016-2020). In 2020, she moved to elements at Sanctuary, where she stayed until 2022 to further hone her fine dining skills. Then she dropped out of the public eye for a few years. These days she’s the executive chef at the as-yet-unopened Glenrosa, a Sonoran restaurant in the works at Tempe’s new Grass Clippings at Rolling Hills. It’s a public, 18-hole golf course at Papago Buttes and the first golf course in Arizona to be fully lit for night golfing. There’s also a driving range, a bar and plenty of space for special events.
But I’d so much rather talk about Sanz’s food and the space in which she’ll create it. She says it will be colorful, modern and minimalist. The kitchen is being built from the ground up, so an accurate opening date is hard to pinpoint. Let’s say spring and hope it’s early April. Sanz says Glenrosa will be casual, fun, inviting, and it won’t exude the typically bougie golf club vibe (my words not hers). In short, a good place for gathering with friends and family. She’s proud of and excited about the custom locally made grill inspired by Grillworks’ world-famous wood-fired grills, upon which she’ll be crafting many of her dishes.
Naturally, then, much of her food will be wood-fired, and while she’ll stay true to her Sonoran roots (she was born and raised in Nogales, Mexico), many fresh, seasonal dishes will have special chef-y touches. She’s currently working on the menu and plans to do large-format entrees of carne asada, pollo asado, and whole fish. She’ll also be making lots of different (and possibly modernized salsas) as well as house-made corn tortillas, made from corn sourced in Yuma. For now, the flour tortillas will be sourced from local La Sonorense Tortilla Factory (the best flour tortillas this side of Sonora, Sanz says). Because space is limited, the kitchen may not be able to accommodate flour tortilla-making. That’s up in the air. There will also be an ember-roasted vegetable salad with tamarind-tomatillo dressing and mochomos (shredded beef, fried in lard with plenty of garlic), a typical Sonoran appetizer. I’m especially eager to try that one.
Sanz grew up in her grandmother’s restaurant, and in fact, as the ideas for Glenrosa were batted around, Sanz rounded up her CEO, GM and FnB guy for a field trip to her grandmother’s 65-year-old Nogales restaurant called Trocadero. That sealed the deal.
This promises to be exceptional. Stay tuned.
