ful places to eat in town. For Bacanora and the future that now awaits following this young chef’s career change, Andrade is Phoenix’s best new chef. EEEEE James Beard Foundation Women of Arizona azwomeninfood.com Earlier this year, the James Beard Founda- tion Women of Arizona, a movement that includes 15 female chefs, launched a series of takeout tasting menus across metro Phoenix. Each menu offered a starter, main course, and dessert — a three-course menu from three local chefs, packaging different local restaurant offerings into one meal. Participating restaurants and their respec- tive chefs (and owners) included FnB and Charleen Badman; Songbird Coffee House and Erin Westgate; Maya’s Cajun Kitchen and Maya Bartlett; 24 Carrots and Sasha Raj; Lori Hassler of The Farish House; Lori Hashimoto of Hana Japanese Eatery; Jen- nifer Caraway, founder of The Joy Bus; The Breadfruit & Rum Bar’s Danielle Le- oni, and more — making it one of the most complete who’s-who collaborations of fe- male chefs in the Valley … maybe ever. The group was encouraged by the national group Let’s Talk, part of the James Beard Foundation Women’s Leadership Pro- gram, and they still have lots more to do. We’ll be watching — and eating. EEEEE Danielle Carlock Danielle Leoni 166 Chef Danielle Leoni is a James Beard Award-nominated chef and a pillar of sus- tainable restauranting in Arizona — dare we say the country. Here’s a quick resume: She holds an Executive Master of Sustain- ability Leadership from ASU, the James Beard Foundation awarded her a “Seafood Sustainability Seal,” and she’s a member of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Blue-Ribbon Task Force. But none of that mattered when COVID hit. Within weeks, she shuttered her restaurant, The Breadfruit & Rum Bar, penned an open let- ter to Governor Doug Ducey on behalf of local eateries, and started the Arizona Small Restaurant Coalition. Yet her pan- demic work was just getting started. Since then, Leoni and her Breadfruit team have delivered high-quality, locally sourced Ja- maican food to A New Leaf and Roosevelt Community Church to feed families expe- riencing homelessness. She has joined the James Beard Foundation Women of Ari- zona alliance to promote female-owned Mesa Community College Red Mountain Campus 7110 East McKellips Road, Mesa 480-654-7741 libguides.maricopa.edu/seed During the pandemic, Scottsdale Commu- nity College faculty member Danielle Car- lock got up to some interesting work. Carlock’s sabbatical project was meant to address food insecurity for students through a farmers’ market-style event at SCC, where Carlock would distribute free vegetables and edible plants from the cam- pus food garden. But when SCC shut down due to COVID, she instead expanded the other part of the project: the free Maricopa Native Seed Library, which focuses on na- tive plants — ecologically specific to Mari- copa County — and seeds that aren’t readily available at Valley nurseries (many of which Carlock herself collected in the field). These native seeds are free to stu- dents, faculty, and the public. They come in packets of 20 or so, which can be picked up or mailed. Food plant seeds include kale, lettuce, firecracker penstemon, white So- restaurants in the Valley. And, during one of the most memorable election days in history, Leoni was part of Chefs for the Polls — a nonpartisan effort initiated by World Central Kitchen that fed voters (for free) at the Camelback Center on Novem- ber 3. EEEEE Christopher’s at Wrigley Mansion 2501 East Telawa Trail 602-522-2344 wrigleymansion.com/christophers Old-school Phoenix foodies might remem- ber the original Christopher’s Restaurant & Crush Lounge, the beloved eatery and bar manned by the James Beard Award- winning Chef Christopher Gross. It was lo- cated at Biltmore Fashion Park for a decade till Gross relocated to Wrigley Mansion to run Geordie’s in 2018. (There was also a brief Sky Harbor satellite location, Christo- pher’s, in 2019). But as of this spring, Gross opened a new restaurant: Christopher’s at Wrigley Mansion. The eight-course tasting menu spotlights seasonal ingredients from a prix-fixe menu at $250 per person, as well as Christopher’s Classic, a lighter tast- ing menu served at lunch. The 26-seat, 1,500-square-foot space, sitting right next to the mansion, was designed by architect Wendell Burnett, and boasts 180-degree views via floor-to-ceiling windows and a retractable roof. It’s quite an experience, if you can swing it. nora wheat, Salt River Pima pea, and des- ert chia. And now, Mesa Community College’s Red Mountain campus is home to many of the parent plants, making it some- thing of a showroom for the seed library. EEEEE Project Roots AZ 602-775-2090 projectrootsaz.org Co-founded by former Phoenix Mercury player Bridget Pettis, nonprofit urban farming organization Project Roots AZ grows fresh fruits, herbs, and vegetables on land at the Spaces of Opportunity garden in Phoenix and the Local First Community Garden in Mesa. In addition to providing plots for people to farm their own food, the founders and staff of Project Roots AZ make community education a huge part of their activities, offering garden boxes for people to grow their own food on their pa- tios or balconies, conducting gardening and yoga classes, making produce box de- liveries, and running a soup kitchen out of their Mesa space. Project Roots AZ’s gar- den bounties can also be found at the Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market. EEEEE Pa’La Downtown 132 East Washington Street 602-368-3052 palakitchen.com We live in an age when so many restau- rants just pretend to offer tapas. Pa’La Downtown is the real thing — a creative, Italian-leaning, Japanese-accented, unbe- lievably interesting restaurant where the BEST OF PHOENIX 2021 | WWW.BESTOFPHOENIX2021.C0M | SEPTEMBER 30, 2021 f o o d & dr i nk B C E U OMM S NITY F T URB AA NRM B ES T CO L LABO R A T IO N B NO PI E S B B E S T S EED P U S HER E S T P L STFF A C E T O T AK E A F O ODIE B E S T HER O
