Casa Corazon’s new sibling location is one mean hermana.
by Nikki Buchanan | Photography by Grace Stufkosky
If you love Casa Corazon, the classy but casual Mexican restaurant on 16th Street, I bear good tidings. Owner Javier Verdugo and family have opened a second Calle 16 restaurant about a mile south of the original. Apparently, Verdugo bought the second property years ago and leased it to another Mexican family, who operated La Cocina Economica there for 20 years. When Cocina closed in 2024, Verdugo extensively remodeled the old house and turned the operation over to his son, Ulysses. After all, why not have two great restaurants on Calle 16 instead of one?
Both locations highlight Southern Mexico, but Verdugo the Younger offers more cocktails (and a gorgeous bar for enjoying them), leans hard into seafood and wanders Mexico’s other regions more extensively. With the exception of one slightly disappointing tres leches cake (not enough leche, ironically), everything I’ve sipped and eaten here has been generously portioned and strikingly good, starting with a tart tamarind margarita and a bubbling queso fundido of mild, stretchy Oaxacan cheese, chorizo, avocado, pico de gallo and sour cream, served with chips or tortillas. Comforting caldo de queso, a Sonoran soup of potatoes, queso fresco and roasted chiles in rich broth, is new to me, and I love it.
This day, the pescado del día is grilled halibut, topped with crumbled chorizo, set over Mexican rice and ladled with a reduced cream sauce brimming with shrimp, crab, sweet bay scallops and roasted poblanos. Mild, rich and unexpected.
Enchiladas, filled with chicken or beef, are sauced with classic mole poblano, pipián verde (green mole made with tomatillos and pumpkin seeds) or suizas (a combo of salsa verde, cream and cheese, named for the dairy-loving Swiss). Rich and faintly tangy, the suizas are the standout here.
I can’t stop thinking about a lunch special of mix-and-match tacos: tender, smoky carne asada, cochinita pibil (tangy with citrus and pickled onions) and a crunchy taco dorado filled with soft beef and mashed potatoes, then topped with lettuce, avocado, pico and crema. So insanely good – as is a sweet, silky finish of coco flan, made with coconut milk and topped with coconut shavings.
Bottom line: Cien Fuegos is fire.
Cien Fuegos
Cuisine: Mexican
Contact: 1550 N. 16th St., Phoenix, 602-677-7252, cienfuegosrestaurant.com
Hours: Su-Th, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; F-Sa, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.
Highlights: Queso fundido ($18); pescado del día ($34); enchiladas suizas ($24); mix-and-match tacos ($20)
