At his new Phoenix pop-up, talented chef conjures memories with mesquite

Chef Antonio Padilla, best known as the formidable sous chef of Bacanora and Huarachis, feels nostalgic as he puts a hand torch to a stack of mesquite. It’s a mild, overcast Saturday at Goldwater Brewery in Old Town Scottsdale, where Padilla’s new pop-up, Alita, is just setting up for the brewery’s Beer Fest. As the wood catches and the scent of campfire carries through the crowd, things start to heat up.

Two dozen whole chicken wings are lined up over the open flames, crisping up and waiting for sauce while Padilla, armed with a long set of tongs and his signature neckerchief, observes and flips when necessary. The scent of the smoke immediately changes as chicken fat sizzles and drips onto the coals, causing more than a few onlookers to trek over and check out the menu. It’s a straightforward line-up: three types of wings, a salad and a dessert.

But for Padilla, the offerings are anything but simple. 

“So Alita, the inspiration behind the name, is my sister Alexandra, and this concept is essentially a love letter to what we ate growing up,” Padilla explains. “We used to call her Allie for short, and my aunt took that and started calling her ‘Alita’, which just means ‘little wings.’”

The name fits, especially considering how wing-forward the menu is at Alita, and it serves as a fitting homage to his childhood. Padilla was raised by a single mom in Yuma who worked full-time and was reliant on quick, easy meals to feed her family. 

“There were lots of casserole-style dishes with my mom, lots of pasta, Hamburger Helper, that sort of thing. And those are so nostalgic and so good, those are huge memories,” Padilla says.

However, some days Padilla’s grandmother stepped in to help. It was then that the future chef was exposed to more elaborate cuisine.  

“We would go to my grandma’s house, and she would always be making pozole, tamales, sopas or chicken and mole. She’d be like, ‘You hungry?’ and there would be a torta out of nowhere,” Padilla recalls. 

It was in the kitchens of these two matriarchs that Padilla first found his interest in cooking. 

He remembers sitting on the counter, making meatloaf with his mom as “Seinfeld” played in the background, and pressing tortillas with his grandma. 

“Between the two of them letting me help in the kitchen, I was like, ‘Damn, man, being in the kitchen is super cool,” Padilla says. 

In high school, he joined the Culinary Club, where his teacher showed him the ropes on catering, competing in cooking competitions and creating meals for classmates. One dish in particular made an impression. 

“There was this kid from Michigan that showed us how to make a tater tot casserole. I tried it and I was like, dude what the heck! It’s so good! He pulled me into the kitchen and showed me how to make it, and then I showed my mom and she loved it, so she would start making it,” Padilla recalls. “I would come home from school or work and it would just be there, on the stove, with the light shining on it, just a way for her to show some love.”

The fire beckons

After graduating, Padilla moved to Phoenix in 2015 and found work at The Four Seasons. He bounced around from kitchen to kitchen, including Atlas Bistro, Crujiente and The Golden Pineapple, before landing at Bacanora in 2022. There, acclaimed chef and owner Rene Andrade took him under his wing. Padilla realized that the wood-fired approach brought more than flavor: it triggered memories. 

Padilla links the smell inextricably to his grandmother’s cooking. It conjures memories of her digging fire pits at Thanksgiving to smoke turkeys, or frying bunuelos with copious amounts of cinnamon and sugar over an open flame using a makeshift barrel and steel pan that, because of heavy use, Padilla remembers operating more like a wok. 

“She would fry something up on this thing, and it would have a smokiness to it; it was the best,” Padilla recalls. “So when I got to Bacanora, it brought me back to my grandma, and her way of cooking. That’s just the nature of the smoke.”

As time progressed, Padilla’s idea for his own concept began to take shape out of that smoky haze. Not knowing quite what to expect, he reluctantly informed Andrade that he was thinking about leaving Bacanora and soft-pitched his idea for a pop-up. Andrade was immediately supportive. 

“I told Rene about my idea, and how I had been thinking about it for a while, you know, keeping it in my back pocket. He was like, ‘You can’t do this part-time and that part-time. You’ll have one foot in and out of both, and you won’t be able to put your full effort into anything. Just go and jump, you are going to kill it,’” Padilla says. 

Luckily, Padilla was not alone in the leap. Along for the ride is Mandy Workman, whom Padilla refers to as his “partner in life and in business.” She runs the front-of-house operations for Alita, drawing on her extensive industry background at The Golden Pineapple, Hush, Espiritu and Huarachis. 

“We first met at Golden Pineapple back in 2020 and instantly clicked. We just worked so well together,” Workman says. “From there, we continued side-by-side at Bacanora and Huarachis, so when he presented this new project, it felt completely natural for me to join. We are truly partners, so anything else just wouldn’t feel right.”

With Workman helping finalize the systems and logistics, Padilla was finally ready to unveil Alita to the city. While the concept is new, Padilla wanted his first pop-ups to feel like a homecoming of sorts – if not physically, certainly in the spirit of the food. He wanted to bring his customers into his childhood home. 

The taste of memory 

At Alita, Padilla attempts to transport diners to very specific moments from his childhood where food and family coalesced. Take, for example, the Alita citrus salad.

“I was playing with a memory of me and my sister at soccer,” he says. “There’s always these moms with bags of cut oranges, whether it was practice or halftime in a game or whatever. So the vinaigrette for the salad actually uses oranges and wheatgrass. If you smell it, it smells a bit like that memory: citrus and soccer fields.”

It may be hard to share a memory with someone who has never experienced it for themselves, but Padilla’s salad comes close. Thick cuts of tomato nestle against julienned onion, cucumber and slivers of radish, with liberal amounts of mint and wheatgrass, all tied together as a sweet, fragrant citrus slaw. It’s a perfect summer salad, and, if you squint, you can almost see the soccer fields in the distance, a transcendent bit of culinary inception. 

A dessert offering, Pavlova Payaso, leans into Padilla’s favorite childhood sweet treat featuring a marshmallow clown. The outer dark chocolate face smiles as you crack into it, revealing a creamy orange, sea salt and rich olive oil meringue, a balanced and charming last bite. 

For the wings, Padilla par-boils them first and finishes them on the mesquite-fired grill, adding three different sauces. 

“The mole is a tribute to my grandmother, who used to make us chicken mole all the time. There’s also a Tepache, because Mandy loves a sweet and spicy wing, so I thought the best thing would be a charred pineapple habanero with some notes of cinnamon, clove, garlic and onion. And the third is my own version of a traditional Buffalo sauce, but with serranos, charred tomatillos and cilantro, super vinegary and emulsified to order,” Padilla says. 

A word of warning, or welcoming, for those who love spicy: Padilla’s childhood had some heat. 

The citrus and sweet notes work well against the smoky backdrop of the Tepache wing, and the serrano sauce brings a slow burn that rewards the punchy vinegar and cilantro notes, keeping you coming back despite the peppery bite. 

However, the mole may wind up being the favorite. While it has the mildest spice, the deep well of sweet and savory flavors are complimented by the charred mesquite and juicy fattiness of the whole wing. The result is a layered, complex, beautiful and truly original creation.

While the wings are the centerpiece of Alita’s menu, Padilla also plans to weave some creative takes on his favorite childhood snacks. Albondiga French dips, Chicharron “Chips and Dip,” and, yes, the infamous tater tot casserole are all expected to make appearances as Alita gets its footing.

Leaning back, looking forward

For Padilla, sharing these bites and watching people’s reactions to his childhood food is a joy. 

“I call it the ‘Ratatouille’ Moment,” he says, referencing the Pixar film. Of course, in the movie, a single bite can transport even the most jaded culinary critic to a specific time where all was good, and a fixed memory can come alive again for a chef and those he serves. 

For Padilla, the smell of smoke caught the attention of someone even more important. 

“That’s how I won over Mandy. She grew up camping, so the smell of smoke is nostalgic for her. Whenever I would lean in, she would get that campfire smell. I guess it just was meant to be,” Padilla says. 

At Goldwater, he continues to eye the grill as the sun beats overhead. The smoke wafts over the picnic seating. Hungry guests line up, drawn to the flame. Padilla uses his handkerchief to wipe his brow, flipping a row of wings as one of the patrons chats him up. They sell out before 5 p.m. 

Tomorrow, he will be at another brewery, fanning the flame and battling the heat, hoping for another sellout. That said, it doesn’t matter the location. To Padilla, we are home.