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TucsonThis Arizona hotspot, designated a Unesco ‘world city of gastronomy’, is fast becoming an essential foodie destination with its unique Baja Arizona and Sonoran Mexican cuisines, and unusual desert-grown ingredients

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Marina O’Loughlin eats

Explore France’s most gastronomic city, plus our insider guide to Newcastle

126 bbcgoodfood.com APRIL 2017

Bruce Yim, executive

chef at The Grill

Saguaro National Park,

just outside Tucson

Sweet & spicy

calamari at The Grill

T

he approach to Tucson from Phoenix looks oddly familiar. And then it clicks: with its mountainous backdrop, desert

trails and soaring, weirdly humanoid saguaro cacti – it’s Roadrunner. I’m in a Roadrunner cartoon, and it’s wonderful.

Arizona’s second city is quite gloriously di�erent, oozing Americana in a low-slung, sprawling way entirely foreign to us Europeans. In my admittedly limited experience, good food isn’t always a priority in these o�-radar towns with their strip malls and Pizza Huts. So why is it here? Because not only does the city have a rich, occasionally eccentric, cultural life, but now Unesco has designated it one of its Cities of Gastronomy.

It’s recognition of a culinary heritage going back more than 4,000 years, to the husbandry of the indigenous Tohono O’odham people, who gave the city its original name. And for the richness of its Baja Arizona cuisine and intriguing desert-grown ingredients: tepary beans, chiltepins, cholla buds, prickly pear syrup, mesquite flour. To be the first city in America to receive the award – yes, before San Francisco or New York – is quite an achievement. No wonder I’m on the plane as fast as Roadrunner.

From peat to mesquiteOur base is the beautiful ‘guest ranch’ Hacienda del Sol (haciendadelsol.com) in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains. It’s a fantasy of ancient adobe buildings, riotous desert landscaping (oh, those cacti!) and old-school luxury. Sitting on the terrace outside our suite, nibbling mesquite cookies, we gawp at awe-inspiring sunsets. This former girls’ school is also home to a swish restaurant, The Grill, where local ingredients and dishes are given a gourmet flourish in a classic room with killer views of the Catalinas. Charred bone marrow comes with pickled shallot, Serrano ham & herb vinaigrette; ‘pork belly ‘n’ beans’ becomes a sophisticated but hearty dish of fine meat, oven-dried tomatoes, grilled lemon & heritage beans. The almost-courtliness of the sta�, especially the silver-haired sommelier, is enchanting.

The city’s celebration of local ingredients doesn’t stop at the desert’s surprising bounty: local bars often feature cocktails starring Tucson’s own Del Bac whiskey. This is a haunting homage to Scottish single malts, created by Hamilton Distillers owner Stephen Paul, wife Elaine and daughter Amanda (hamiltondistillers.com), after a brainwave hit while barbecuing with woodchips from their bespoke furniture company.

The Scots have peat, Tucson has mesquite. So the family business now produces three whiskeys, punctiliously following the classic Scotch malt formula, but with unique, South-western notes of spice and campfires. I’m particularly taken with the sultry, mesquite-smoked Dorado.

Heading DowntownOne of the most intriguing uses of Del Bac is in the Welcome Diner’s cocktail flight (welcomediner.net). Aesthetically, this is my favourite Tucson restaurant; for a 20th-century Modernism freak like me, close to nirvana – a perfectly realised revamp of an original roadside diner.

Owners Sloane McFarland and chef Michael Babcock started out with their iconic fried chicken diners in Phoenix, but this is more ambitious. Sure, that chicken – crisp, succulent, with subtly spiced coating – is unmissable, especially packed into a fat, buttermilk ‘biscuit’ (like our scones), with creamy ‘country gravy’ and melted cheese. But its menu is now an adventurous one of small plates and local ingredients, kicking o� with the likes of pork pozole rojo for breakfast and heading into fine dining territory at dinner with ‘chicanoyaki’, its take on Japanese street-food octopus balls, or wood-fired trout with salsa verde & charred lime, or a vegetable cassoulet P

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Tucson’s historic

Barrio Viejo

neighbourhood

APRIL 2017 bbcgoodfood.com 127

eat like a localtucson

A Western-style facade near

Sabino Canyon, Tucson

The Sidecar Bar

Bourbon and

doughnuts at Batch

Mission San Xavier Del

Bac on Tucson’s outskirts

Breakfast at

Hotel Congress

Del Bac whiskey at

Hamilton Distillers

featuring desert-grown tepary beans. This is my first taste of American comfort-food classic ‘chess pie’ – a kind of sweet custard tart sti�ened with cornmeal. Nobody knows why it got its name: a delicious mystery.

We head Downtown, a newly vibrant collection of handsome old buildings revivified by exuberant street art and cool cocktail bars. Here’s where to come for niche bourbon with your doughnuts, at Batch (batchtucson.com), or gourmet Central Mexican food with crafted cocktails from Penca (pencarestaurante.com), or a fine, typically lavish American breakfast from the historic Hotel Congress

(hotelcongress.com), so immaculately preserved it looks like a Disney Western.

Our choice is chic Downtown Kitchen

+ Cocktails (downtownkitchen.com), from a man often quoted as the godfather of contemporary Tucson cuisine – James Beard Award-winning chef Janos Wilder. The menu is an intriguing mix of Sonoran Mexican with touches of Asian and Latin, and even Native American, all pulled o� with wit and grace. I’m powerless to resist the siren song of pork belly-stu�ed doughnuts glazed with foie gras caramel on an apple-fennel slaw: inspired. Or calamari, rustling with fresh crispness, with mango, candied ginger, peanuts &

green chilli vinaigrette, the perfect marriage of dirty and fresh. Abuelita (‘Grandma’s’) brownies come with horchata ice cream.

Mexican influencesWe meet Adam Lehrman, the local expert known as Tucson Foodie (tucsonfoodie.

com), in the delicious little Sidecar Bar

(barsidecar.com). Side note: bars which in other cities would be populated by the young and intimidatingly cool are, here, gloriously democratic. And, for the fan of the American dive bar, there’s a ripe and rackety collection. Lehrman is evangelical about the thriving food culture in Tucson and introduces us to Don Guerra of nearby Barrio Bread

(barriobread.com), an artisan bakery dedicated to locality and community. I intend to take our loaves back to enjoy on our balcony, but they find their way down my neck before we get there. The fragrance, the crunch of the crust, the yielding, dense crumb: it’s irresistible – some of the finest bread I’ve eaten.

One of the main reasons for Tucson’s spotlight as a destination for the food-obsessed is its Mexican cuisine, specifically beef and flour tortilla-focused Sonoran style. There are contemporary stars, such as Penca and renowned Cafe

Poca Cosa (cafepocacosatucson.com), but

we’re after local heroes, each quirkier than the next. Tucson is a city that rewards the walker – not just Downtown, but the unique beauty of the barrios, especially Barrio Viejo and El Presidio; it’s how we come across tiny Anita St

Market in Barrio Anita, where we sit outside eating homemade, excellent shrimp tacos at a ridiculous 99¢ each. And the marvellous Tanias ‘33’ (tanias33.com) in Barrio Hollywood for its famous, freshly made, Sonoran-style breakfast burritos, smokily blistered from the grill. You can order the homemade pozole soup by the gallon. (We resist the challenge of ‘the mighty B Rex’ burrito, the size of a large baby.)

But we need a car and a guide to south Tucson’s Mexican food Mecca, pretty much impenetrable to the casual visitor; enter Dan Gibson, former Tucson Weekly editor turned tourism guru. He meets us in the hip 5 Points Market &

Restaurant (5pointstucson.com) for prickly pear juice before whisking us o� on a voyage of spicy discovery.

O� the beaten trackOur mini taco crawl kicks o� in Taqueria Pico de Gallo ( facebook.

com/taqueriapico.degallo), the living incarnation of our mission for local heroes, permanently mobbed, its

128 bbcgoodfood.com APRIL 2017

eat like a local

tucson

Next month:

Amsterdam

Marina O’Loughlin is one of the UK’s most

knowledgeable food writers, and undercover

restaurant reviewer for BBC Good Food and

The Guardian Weekend. An intrepid culinary

traveller, she researches the most exciting

places to visit at each destination, so you’ll

know exactly where and what to eat when

you get there. For more from Marina,

visit bbcgoodfood.com.

@marinaoloughlin @marinagpoloughlin

ceramics-covered walls ringing with Mexican voices. Tortillas are made to order using fresh, homemade dough, stu�ed with fish, barbacoa, carne asada or birria, a resonant stew; their fish tacos, served with pickled carrots, are well worth the pilgrimage.

We pull up stools at Tacos Apson’s

counter (+1 520-670-1248). Named after the owner’s dad’s 1960s pop band, it’s a carnivore’s heaven. A brave carnivore: the blackened grill belches out tripe, tongue and even testicles, in addition to the more conventional carne asada, pastor and barbecoa. Eccentrically, whole ribs are shoved into tortillas: it’s as unreconstructed as it comes. And, even though we exit as smoke-fragrant as one of their costillas, it’s delicious.

The hottest dog in townIt should be illegal to visit Tucson without trying the city’s famous Sonoran hot dog. El Güero Canelo (elguerocanelo.com) is among those credited with popularising this fantastic ri� on wieners-in-a-bun. The sausage, wrapped in mesquite-smoked bacon, nestles in a split, steamed bolillo roll, then loaded with cheese, mayo, pinto beans, tomatoes, mustard, cooked and raw onions, and jalapeño salsa. It’s the maddest, stoned-teenager invention and I could easily have scarfed three of the things.

A taste of America’s pastWe wind up in pretty Mercado San

Augustin (mercadosanagustin.com), home to a handful of good restaurants, a farmers’ market and intriguing shops, including the excellent La Estrella

Bakery (laestrellabakeryincaz.com), dedicated to a green and local ethic. I want to try raspado – a Mexican shaved ice dessert, from the Spanish ‘raspar’, to scrape – from Sonoran Sno-Cones

(sonoransnocones.com): fresh fruit syrup (I have mango) topped with fruit pulp, lechero (sweetened condensed milk) and a spritz of lime. The bustling courtyard is a beautiful setting for my first raspado.

Our little crawl has given us a real insider’s look at a scene I’d never before encountered. I love the hectic anti-design of the grungy little restaurants. And I adore the food: the vividness of the produce, the electric freshness of the flavours: even fruit comes ‘pico de gallo’ style, dusted with chilli, salt & lime juice. Which is how I’m going to always eat it from now on. I feel as if I’m in a particularly enlightened episode of the late-night TV favourite, Diners, Drive-Ins

& Dives. Despite hitting quite a few joints in Phoenix, the bleached, fast-food enthusiast presenter has yet to hit Tucson. His loss. I reckon the Unesco recognition is quite the consolation. I’d come back for the food and the sense of an America that’s rapidly disappearing. I’ve genuinely already booked a return trip.

• Flights and accommodation for this feature were provided by Visit Tuscon (visittucson.org), Arizona O�ce of Tourism (tourism.az.gov) and Hacienda del Sol (haciendadelsol.com).

Taqueria Pico de Gallo

Baker Don Guerra

at Barrio Bread

Butter-braised

scallops at The Grill

El Güero Canelo’s

Sonoran hot dog