Barrio Café

"When chef Silvana Salcido Esparza (a James Beard nominee and semi-finalist many times over) opened this art-filled, white-tablecloth restaurant in 2002, she rejected the usual Mexican restaurant tropes to illustrate how sophisticated Mexican cooking could be, mashing pomegranate-studded guacamole tableside and plunking down baskets of bread and butter instead of the requisite chips and salsa. Her regional menu still features smoky, achiote-rubbed cochinita pibil from the Yucatan, nut- and dried fruit-studded chiles en nogada from Puebla, and velvety chicken mole, which may be draped in one of four different classic Oaxacan sauces. Start with a fun cocktail (the restaurant’s tequila selection is enormous) and finish with dessert churros, crunchy with sugar and drizzled with goat’s milk caramel." - Nikki Buchanan

"Don’t confuse this spot for the chain of similar-named restaurants—there’s only one Barrio Café. Since opening in the early 2000s, the Calle 16 original has become a fixture in Phoenix for regional Mexican favorites. There are two main reasons why: the tableside guacamole and the chef’s community involvement. When the pandemic hit and the restaurant was closed, she provided free food to the neighborhood from the empty parking lot. Nowadays, it's back to its normal state of being almost always packed with people feasting on tlayudas and cochinita pibil." - Lauren Topor

"Don’t confuse this spot for the chain of similar-named restaurants—there’s only one Barrio Café. Since opening in the early 2000s, the Calle 16 original has become a fixture in Phoenix for regional Mexican favorites. There are two main reasons why: the tableside guacamole and the chef’s community involvement. When the pandemic hit and the restaurant was closed, she provided free food to the neighborhood from the empty parking lot. Nowadays, it's back to its normal state of being almost always packed with people feasting on tlayudas and cochinita pibil." - Lauren Topor

"Alongside Chris Bianco, Barrio Cafe’s Silvana Salcido Esparza is the face of the Phoenix food scene. The James Beard Award nominee has gone against the grain of the usual northern Mexican food in the Valley with Barrio Cafe, which features an array of Southern Mexico’s delicacies. While her chiles en nogada (a traditional stuffed poblano dish) have become synonymous with her cooking, Esparza’s Tecate-battered fish tacos — so crisp but light — make them a must-have dish. — Steven Totten" - Nikki Buchanan

"The Mexican food scene in metro Phoenix can be divided into two eras: before Barrio Cafe’s opening in 2002, and after. Classically trained chef Silvana Salcido Esparza broke the mold, serving pre-dinner bread instead of the usual chips and salsa, while lightly applying French cooking techniques to preparations from all over Mexico — cochinita pibil from the Yucatán, nut-studded chiles en nogada from Puebla, fish from Veracruz, and silky moles from Oaxaca. The work of local Mexican artists fills the restaurant’s interior walls, while the building’s exterior swirls with colorful murals. Agave-based spirits are everywhere these days, but Barrio was the first restaurant in the area to offer a vast selection of them." - Nikki Buchanan, Chris Malloy