Before Southeast Valley residents have a collective heart attack, we should point out right away Barrio Cafe chef-owner Silvana Salcido Esparza is NOT pulling out of plans to open a restaurant in Gilbert this fall.
When we caught up with the James Beard Award nominee at Devoured over the weekend, however, she wanted to clear up some of the confusion in the media surrounding her plans to join Postino in the former GrainBelt GrillHouse building.
“I’m not opening a Barrio Cafe in Gilbert,” she says. “It’s going to be different than Barrio Cafe. It’s going to be called just Barrio.”
The menu, she says, will be noticeably different than the one at her acclaimed Mexican restaurant in Phoenix.
“It’s not going to be as French-influenced,” she says. “There will be a wood-burning oven. I’m going to do a roasted artichoke heart. I’m going to do baby back ribs with a chile barbecue sauce.”
The Gilbert restaurant, which will have a 2,000-square-foot dining room and a 2,000-square-foot patio, will be much larger than Barrio Cafe, which has a 1,200-square-foot dining room.
Esparza is well-aware of what she calls the building’s “bad juju” – five restaurants failed in eight years. But after the building’s owners tear it down to the studs, she has a plan.
“Before we start construction, I’m going to bring in a priest, a rabbi, a witch doctor – whatever it takes,” she laughs.
But there is one small thing for Southeast Valley residents to worry about: If Barrio isn’t ready to open before Thanksgiving, Esparza says she’ll postpone the opening until early 2012.
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