Photography by Grace Stufkosky
Seven years and multiple concepts removed from their humble taco shop beginnings, Armando Hernandez and Nadia Holguin score big-time with an ambitious Modern Mexican restaurant in Tempe.
Don’t even try to get into Cocina Chiwas without a reservation. Tempe’s hippest new Mexican restaurant, located in its hippest new community (car-free Culdesac Tempe), gets busy the instant the doors open at 5 p.m. I learned this lesson the scary way, when my friend and I waltzed in at 5:15 p.m. on a Tuesday in mid-May and snagged the only remaining open, unreserved table in the whole place. At 5! On a Tuesday!
But why am I surprised? Armando Hernandez and Nadia Holguin, the empire-building young couple behind this project, are setting the Phoenix restaurant scene on fire these days, opening three Tacos Chiwas locations since 2016 and partnering in two of the city’s hottest new restaurants, Bacanora and Espiritu, both of which have received national attention. Despite a few misses along the way – previous enterprises Café Chiwas, Roland’s and The Normal have all closed – these determined “chiwas” (more accurately, “chihuas,” an informal term for people from Chihuahua) have forged ahead, becoming major players in Phoenix’s Mexican food renaissance. They demonstrate daily just how complex and regionally diverse Mexican food can be.
Composed almost entirely of glass walls, the L-shaped space is modern and airy, featuring a wine wall (practically nonexistent in local Mexican restaurants) and an open kitchen, outfitted with a wood-burning hearth and a Santa Maria grill that Hernandez built himself. He also built the tables, low-slung chairs and booths. As trendy as it is, the place exudes an intentional and deeply personal vibe.
The Modern Mexican menu is upscale too, structured around quesadillas, salads, small plates and big plates. Tacos do not figure prominently, while a separate menu of daily specials offers foodie bait such as bone marrow and a market-price 28-day, dry-aged tomahawk.
Pretty cocktails are dispensed from an indoor-outdoor bar, and quesadillas, an early favorite, make excellent accompaniment. Served open and unfolded (gringa me would call them “cheese crisps”), the house-made, organic flour tortillas are fired in a mesquite- and pecan-burning hearth. The flame-licked final product – thin, crisp and charred at the edges – sizzles with molten cheeses, including mozzarella-like queso asadero and Chihuahua’s famously mild and melty queso Menonita (named for the cheese-making Mennonite community in Chihuahua). Liberally strewn across the quesadilla’s top are juicy shreds of beef birria, white onion and cilantro. I could eat this all day, and another version, littered with crumbles of salty chorizo, is just as good.
From the daily specials menu come delicate heirloom blue corn empanadas, stuffed with chorizo, potato and queso Menonita, their faintly crisp surfaces looped with crema and dusted with cotija. Tuna ceviche, another special, is a hybrid of Mexican and Peruvian styles. “Cooked” in a lime-based Peruvian marinade called leche de tigre, sliced yellowfin is arranged in a shallow bowl (the Peruvian way), not served in a soupy tomato mixture (the Mexican way). Topped with avocado, jicama, red onion, cucumber and sesame seeds and served with tortilla chips, the dish is a vivid conflation of the two cultures.
There’s nothing strictly traditional about a Caesar-esque salad either, in which romaine is swapped out for broccolini, bathed in creamy, eggless (and surely anchovy-less) Caesar dressing and studded with crunchy sourdough croutons. It’s tasty and fun. Save the inclusion of crema jocoque (Mexico’s tangy, cultured buttermilk-style cream), an arugula salad – strewn with honeyed pecans and studded with roasted morsels of beets and corn – could be a typical salad in almost any Modern American restaurant in town.
Wood-fire-roasted elote, however, is unapologetically old-school, liberally coated in lime-sparked chile mayo and dusted with cotija. Potato tacos are everywhere these days, and while Cocina’s tacos de papa bulge with buttery potato purée and toppers of fresh cabbage, onion and tomato, the fried tortillas should be browned and crunchy to provide the textural contrast that gives this dish its appeal. They aren’t, and it suffers.
From the large plate section, slabs of fatty, crisp-edged pork belly, known popularly as chicharrón, sit atop a salsa verde ribboned with crema, the salsa playing tangy foil to pork and cilantro-strewn, slightly overcooked white rice. It’s a crowd-pleaser for good reason. Silky branzino, grilled whole and set in a puddle of rich chile cream sauce, is soupy and wonderful against the freshness and crunch of watermelon radishes, blistered tomato, Fresno chiles and microgreens.
The only way to eat massive, wood-grilled backbone beef ribs, glazed in spicy-sweet salsa macha, is to pick them up and gnaw on them, licking the sticky sauce from your hands as you go. Creamy, perfect pintos provide starchy backup.
For dessert, there’s slippery sweet corn panna cotta, topped with sesame seed streusel and fruit compote, or sweet tamales, sprinkled with pecan brittle and sided with a drift of mascarpone – one light, the other heavy, both delish.
Cocina Chiwas seems a long way from the humble taco shop of 2016, but watching Holguin and Hernandez evolve is a delicious experience for the rest of us.
Cocina Chiwas
Cuisine: Modern Mexican
Contact: 2001 E. Apache Blvd., Tempe, 480-916-3690, cocinachiwasaz.com
Hours: Tu-Th 5-10 p.m., F-Sa 5-11 p.m.
Highlights: Quesadillas ($14); broccolini Caesar ($14); chicharrón ($22); branzino asado ($65); sweet corn panna cotta ($14)
