Chef Silvana Salcido Esparza's original Barrio Café restaurant helped put the Phoenix Mexican food scene on the national map, and it remains one of the city's top destinations for distinctively artful, upscale dishes inspired by regional Mexican cooking. Here is the place to go for tableside guacamole punctuated with bright, ruby-like pomegranate seeds, enjoyed amid white tablecloths and the warm glow of a Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe candle. It's the place to go for seared duck breast finished with a tamarind chipotle reduction, filet mignon topped with a lovely tangle of crab and goat cheese, or an impeccably crafted chile en nogada floating in buttery almond cream sauce. Barrio Café is the heart and soul — and stomach — of Calle 16, the place to go when six-pound burritos, humdrum combo platters, or the squawk of a drive-thru speaker simply won't satisfy.