23 Feb 8th–Feb 14th, 2024 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Food Focus New chef brings food-filled chapter to Hidden Track Bottle Shop & Wine Bar. BY SARA CROCKER C raig Dziadowicz doesn’t believe in following trends. The Hidden Track Bottle Shop & Wine Bar owner prefers to stick to his guns rather than ride the latest craze, not only in how he selects the wines sold at his shop but also in the food that’s paired with them. “I want it to be a unique experience,” Dziadowicz says. Dziadowicz and his partner Danielle Middlebrook first opened Hidden Track as a small, curated bottle shop in down- town Phoenix in 2015, followed by a cafe and bodega next door in 2017. Hidden Track expanded with a second bottle shop inside Practical Art in 2019, which they quickly outgrew. Its current Uptown location on 12th Street opened in 2022. The duo decided to sell the downtown bottle shop location in October to a former employee; that space has since reopened as Unfiltered Natural Wine and More. At Hidden Track in Uptown, the bar and lounge has been serving natural wines and a “Franco-Iberian”-influenced menu for over a year, but Dziadowicz has recently brought on a chef and long-time friend to update the food. Marco Di Santo, the former chef and owner of downtown’s now-shuttered Noodle Bar, joined Hidden Track in October. “He took our menu, which was good … and made it amazing. Every dish has layers,” Dziadowicz says. “There’s so much flavor, so much texture in each of these dishes.” Dziadowicz and Di Santo became friends after the wine shop owner fell for his cooking. Di Santo ran Noodle Bar, a dual-concept Italian and ramen joint, which closed in 2019. Dziadowicz says he would joke that they should open up a small spot together. They did collaborate on pasta and sandwich popups at Hidden Track, but the timing for something more never worked until now. Betting on conservas Di Santo has kept the Hidden Track menu true to Dziadowicz’s initial vision, heavily featuring conservas, or tinned fish, tapas and flammekueche, a baked tart traditional to areas of France and Germany. Dziadowicz first started offering conservas in his downtown Hidden Track Cafe & Bodega eight years ago. While it’s not always been easy to get Valley diners excited about tinned fish, Dziadowicz says as more people travel to tourism hotspots like Portugal, he sees more openness to it. “It’s been an uphill struggle. I love tinned fish,” he says. “I’ve seen the Phoenician atti- tude and acceptance change.” With the conservas, Di Santo is creating composed dishes, not simply cracking open the tin and spreading some crackers on a plate. For the sardine toast, a piece of grilled Noble Bread is topped with scratch-made miso mayo, sliced cherry tomatoes and an entire can of Spanish sardines, greens and pickled onion. The plate is dressed with salsa verde and a blueberry hot sauce. Other dishes include a play on French chef Jacques Pepin’s salmon rillets and smoked mussels served atop Noble Bread with preserved lemon, cornichons, a mussel oil vinaigrette, creme fraiche and pickled onion. Chef integrates roots into menu Di Santo has also incorporated his Chinese heritage into the menu, adding items like smashed cucumber salad and tea eggs – two dishes he ate often growing up in Southern California. “I also wanted to do some things that represented me,” he says. For the tea egg, Di Santo boils the egg and marinates it in soy, oolong tea, star anise, ginger and cinnamon. The egg is cured over- night and served nestled in a bed of greens and topped with housemade chile crisp. “It’s kind of gooey inside, a little salty, a little sweet,” he says. Though the kitchen space is small, Di Santo aims to make an impact on each dish by using local ingredients and crafting as many items as he can in-house, from chile crisp and mayonnaise to pickles and hot sauce. “My way of cooking … I like making it from scratch,” he says. But, one thing that Di Santo isn’t making right now is the tart shells for the flammekueche, which Dziadowicz imports from Alsace, France. Di Santo sticks to a classic style for The Old One, using creme fraiche with a dusting of nutmeg, topping the shell with paper-thin slices of red onion and strips of guanciale. Other flammekueche flavors include prosciutto and arugula with onion, preserved lemon, nutmeg and olive oil; the Tart Tomate with mustard, nutmeg, onions, thyme, tomato and a balsamic glaze; and Salty Like the Sea, made with creme fraiche, anchovies, salsa verde, balsamic glaze, onion and nutmeg. Leaning into geeking out Because these aren’t exactly everyday menu items, Dziadowicz and Di Santo concede there’s been some work to ensure there’s clarity around the menu items without confusing folks, like moving away from calling flammekueche pizzas. “It is a lot like a pizza,” Di Santo says of the thin-crusted dish. “I wanted to really own it’s an Alsatian tart flambée.” Much like how the bottle shop aims to “geek out” on wine with its customers, Di Santo says he wants to match that enthu- siasm and introduce people to dishes they may not have tasted before. Unprompted, he echoes Dziadowicz’s desire to march to their own beat. “We want to be trendsetters,” he says. Hidden Track Bottle Shop & Wine Bar 4700 N. 12th St., #118 Among menu items on Hidden Track Bottle Shop & Wine Bar’s food menu is flammekueche, a baked tarte that’s traditional to parts of France and Germany. Chef Marco Di Santo, who has been cooking around the Valley for years, recently joined the uptown bar and bottle shop to update the menu. (Photos by Sara Crocker) ▼ Food & Drink
