Tia Amigos

The story of Rancho de Tia Rosa, a handout compiled by owners Dennis and Lizabeth Sirrine, spans six pages, single-spaced. While the restaurant just opened last spring, its lore supposedly goes all the way back to the turn of the 20th century, when Pancho Villa rode into colonial Juárez, Mexico, and demanded that its people, including Dennis' grandmother, "leave town or die."

Erik Guzowski

Bigger is better at Rancho de Tia Rosa.

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Rancho De Tia Rosa

3129 E. McKellips Road
Mesa, AZ 85213

Category: Restaurant > California

Region: Mesa

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Details

Flying saucer: $7.99
Chicken mole: $10.99
Ancho chile-peach glazed chicken: $10.99
Carnitas: $12.99
Enchiladas espinaca: $10.99

Pineapple-avocado salad: $7.99

480-659-8787. Hours: Lunch and dinner, Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

3129 East McKellips, Mesa

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More About

• Pancho Villa
• Lizabeth Sirrine
• Dennis Sirrine
• Eating Out
• Mexican Food and Cooking

Grandmother Rosa figured leaving was the better option, so she did, making a new home in Tucson. There, she introduced Arizona native Dennis Sirrine to the cooking of her homeland. He was smitten with the food, and later met and married Liz, who shared his dream of opening a restaurant. The sacrifice came from the heart, the story says. To make the restaurant work, the Sirrines labored a grueling 16 hours a day, seven days a week.

Zzzz. This teary-eyed nostalgic tale has been told, in one form or another, since the dawn of marketing. Usually, though, the vignette doesn't require so many pages to unfold. And it's rare to see that included in the legend are 24 -- count 'em, two dozen -- brothers and sisters, as Rosa proclaims to have brought with her. But then again, the Sirrines aren't taking a traditional, sleepy approach to their new restaurant. Rancho de Tia Rosa is a stunning operation, a Type-A eatery if ever there was one. With almost obsessive attention to intricacies, it's worthy of such romantic overload. Given the restaurant's incredible ambiance, and the kitchen's focus on from-scratch preparation, it wouldn't be out of line to see the Rancho de Tia Rosa story issued in hardback sometime soon.

The Sirrines could save a lot of paper by letting people know just one thing: They are the couple that founded Mesa's immensely popular Rosa's Mexican Grill. Since opening in 1991, Rosa's has been showered with rave reviews and awards, lauded for its creative application of fresh ingredients. The kitchen uses no chemicals, preservatives or lard and offers an impressive selection of low-fat dishes.

Looking for larger space, the Sirrines sold Rosa's in the spring of 1999. Rancho de Tia Rosa, while maintaining the same philosophy and many of the same menu items as its original, has evolved as the prettier big sister.

Make that much bigger, much prettier. The four-acre layout here is boggling, a horse pasture converted to a mini village of sorts along a nondescript stretch of McKellips. Nighttime brings sparkling white lights, draped on every inch of the trees lining the entry gates, and blazing atop the walls and roofs of the property's buildings, courtyards and garden walls.

It's a complex anchored by the main restaurant (a 7,000-square-foot castle), and a 1,500-square-foot takeout taqueria. Courtyards wrap around the restaurant, brimming with flowers in riotous color, the pots cozying up to kivas licking flames into the chill night air. The crowning touch: a backdrop of gardens and greenhouses -- organic fresh produce is grown on-site, fertilized by compost created from kitchen leftovers.

The flagship restaurant took two years to complete, and a step inside shows why. This decor would be insane if it weren't so jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Stained glass crawls to soaring ceilings, crisscrossed by hand-painted wooden beams and elaborate chandeliers. Walls are mosaics of texture and treatment, ranging from exposed brick, to paint in shocking pink and blue, to white stucco laced with straw. Crazy quilts of tile are everywhere, a kaleidoscope design on saltillo floors, half-walls, tabletops and a full-service bar.

Found among the flurry: bouquets of dried chile peppers, blazing chile pepper lights, sconces in the shapes of dragons, Mexican portraits, tile murals of Mexican landscapes, blinking beer signs and ceramics. In honor of the holidays, the Sirrines wiped out a Christmas store, cramming every available inch of the huge foyer and main dining room with brilliantly decorated trees, wreaths, garlands and enough lights to rival Times Square. For extra stimulation, the place throbs with the beat of rowdy mariachi music. It's so beautiful I want to move in right now.

Less cacophony can be found -- Rancho de Tia Rosa has two private dining rooms, each with private fireplaces and courtyards. They're pretty, but not nearly as much fun as dining in the heart of the hopping hacienda.

Given the surroundings, a fantasia menu seems a given. The menu is surprisingly restrained, however, even in its design, printed as it is on a boring legal-size sheet of 20-pound bond, a half-page of which is dedicated to liquid concoctions.

And how refreshing -- offerings are inspired but not nuts. Dishes are different enough to command attention, but no so weird as to encourage pushing food around on plates in an attempt to figure out what in the world is being served.

One of Rosa's most popular items is the "flying saucer," and it lands again at Rancho de Tia Rosa. It would seem like appetizer fare, basically a gussied-up tostada, but don't be fooled. It's listed as an entree for good reason. The thing is enormous, the size of a personal pan pizza, and so heavy with toppings it takes two hands to lift the plate. It's also a mess, but a good one, the crisp tortilla groaning with whole pinto beans, lettuce, salsa fresca, chunky guacamole, sour cream and shredded cheeses, plus a choice of beef, pork or chicken. The Sirrines aren't concerned about portion control, given the massive amounts of meat lumped on.