| CHOW BELLA | ▼ Café ▼ LISTS FORWARD THINKING strong second-half restaurant openings made 2019 a good year for dining in the Valley. We have some momentum and fresh growth in a few exciting directions. What are some of those directions? Where can you expect our food and beverage scene to veer in 2020 and beyond? Find out below. A Continued Ceviche Surge You may have noticed that ceviche dishes are starting to become now what the slider was: ubiquitous, a little different in each it- eration, always pretty satisfying. I think we can attribute this to a few factors. One is the root culture of mariscos we have. An- other is how refreshing raw-fish prepara- tions are in the desert heat. But most importantly, we’ve seen a rise of stellar sea- food purveyors in the past few years, most notably Chula Seafood and Nelson’s Meat + Fish. Not only can you grab a bracing or- der of ceviche from old standbys like El Chullo, Gallo Blanco, and Mariscos Playa SEVEN FOOD TRENDS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2020 AND BEYOND nother year of eating and drinking has sluiced into the past, a year that ended with a bang. A spate of Hermosa, leading new restaurants like Hush Public House and Vecina are plating epic versions. The Gradual Rise of Multiuse Spaces Phoenix proper is 519 square miles. Often to go eat somewhere, we have to drive 20 minutes or longer. Multiuse spaces, those that unite food and nonfood concepts, not only make these drives more worthwhile, they can bring accents and layers that en- hance the eating and drinking compo- nents. Take Barnone in Gilbert. There, you can score pours and bottles of the 12 West sour series, eat pizza from Fire & Brim- stone, grab laser-cut wood from Letter- craft, and even take a farm tour. At Palabra in downtown Phoenix, you can score tama- les, a haircut, and browse contemporary art. MonOrchid offers a related art-an- chored, shape-shifting space. Expect to see more of these progressive destinations. Expanded Focus on Zero-Waste and Sustainability As our country veers further off course in failing to address climate change, local food professionals have been going to bat for Mother Earth, as food editor Lauren Cusimano has shown her series Table Scraps. I’m thinking of Ivan Jacobo, execu- tive chef at Anhelo in Heritage Square, who is at the dawn of his career but has shown veteran savvy in composting waste. I’m thinking about familiar names on the food circuit, like Sacha Levine, who re- cently took the stove at Century Grand. There, she does things like use fish bones leftover from crudo to simmer dashi that becomes the foundation of another dish — a building block salvaged from what other chefs might trash. I’m thinking of Stephen Jones of the Larder + the Delta turning vegetable scraps to ash for seasoning, of Charleen Badman’s composting efforts and earth-driven approach, and all of the long- view sustainability projects championed by Danielle Leoni of The Breadfruit. Chris Malloy Palabra is a multipurpose space that combines art, food, coffee, and a hair salon. Rise of the Non-Restaurant Chef/Cook The food truck craze has long since blos- somed and withered. That said, an intrigu- ing new crop of mobile chefs has taken to the streets. Not all are on wheels. Some cook at event and farmers market stands. The Nepali-style dumplings served out of the truck Everest Momo, momo being the name for this subset of the expansive dumpling world, are wolfed down by big- name restaurant chefs and average mar- ketgoers alike. Bao Bar — a stand rather than a truck — has been preparing some wild bao buns. Think crispy chicken with spicy honey. Or soft-shell crab, the breaded legs spiraling out from the bun like the blades of a saw. There is also Toduken, home of Filipino skewers and specials like a lechon baboy riff. Sure, many of these folks will move on to restaurants (like Myke Olsen of Myke’s Pizza), but it’s nice to have a growing, ever-changing scene of street food artisans. An Expanding Interest in Desert Ingredients Right now, culinary use of the edible plants of the Sonoran Desert is something hap- pening on the margins of our food culture. But these local ingredients, the tepary beans and amaranth and cactus barrel fruit and so on, have the capacity to give the Val- ley’s food scene rich, place-specific levels of definition beyond what can be dreamed in the coastal cities and the culinary hot- beds between them. I’ve been tracking the culture of these ingredients and desert foodways in my 2019 column, Sonoran Ar- cana. I expect them to steadily trickle into an increasing number of capable hands, inching from the margins closer to the mainstream. Zak’s Chocolate studs a bar with cactus seeds. Welcome Diner makes a soup with nopales. Even Café Allegro at MIM, the Musical Instrument >> p 30 29 phoenixnewtimes.com | CONTENTS | FEEDBACK | OPINION | NEWS | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | PHOENIX NEW TIMES DEC. 26TH, 2019–JAN. 1ST, 2020
