Regardless how hot it is, we’re ordering this Phoenix chef’s soul-warming soup

Some of Erick Pineda’s fondest memories are from his teen years, hanging with his “rock-and-roll friends” and eating the pozole his mom made to feed them all. She would start this low, slow-cooking soup before she left for work and let the flavor develop and deepen all day.

“It was just a way to celebrate but also nourish and love,” Pineda says.

Since 2022, Pineda has served his version of that Guerrero-style white pozole at Requinto, the brunch pop-up he hosts three days a week at the Phoenix dive Linger Longer Lounge. It’s a recipe that his family has perfected over generations, as his grandmother ran a weekend pozoleria in Chilpancingo, Mexico.

“This is kind of my homage,” Pineda explains, standing at the oversized stove in the Phoenix commissary kitchen where he prepares Requinto’s unique dishes. “When I first decided to learn how to cook the food of my family, this was one I had to nail.”

Pineda’s pozole continues his familial tradition of simple comfort that warms the soul, even in the heat of summer. 

The chef starts his soup by putting pork shoulder, garlic, onion, water and chicken bouillon in a pot and cooking it over the flame for four hours. While it bubbles away, scenting the kitchen with the sweet, earthy aroma of the meat and vegetables, he sets to work on a second broth. That can vary depending on what’s on hand. On our visit, it’s chicken thighs, pork bones and onion scraps. Once both broths are finished, he pulls out the pork and strains out the aromatics.

He cooks and combines the two stocks for depth of flavor. The stocks marry in one pot, heated to a roiling boil on the stove. The rich, layered broth serves as a clean but well-seasoned canvas to which he adds generous hunks of the slow-cooked pork and starchy, chewy hominy.

Pineda grabs a large terracotta bowl to serve the stew. He ladles in broth, then scoops in a generous amount of shredded pork and hominy. The pozole isn’t ready yet. Pineda says the final toppings help distinguish the pozole as Guerrero-style.

At his brunch pop-up, chiles, onion and lime wedges are placed on a plate with an accompanying tostada, but in the kitchen, Pineda shows us how he tops a bowl. The chef grabs a spoon to scoop diced red onion, then serrano pepper, scattering them over the broth. The chef reaches for a small, burgundy-hued chile de arbol. The dried pepper crackles in Pineda’s hands as he crumbles it into the soup. He deftly halves an avocado, divides it into segments with a knife and scoops the green hunks into the bowl. He finishes the soup with a flourish of dried, crumbled Mexican oregano.

The pozole sings on its own with salinity and meaty comfort. The addition of a squeeze of lime, red onion, serrano and tiny flakes of chile de arbol puts those flavors in stereo.

For Requinto’s latest brunch menu, Pineda added a pozole platter in addition to his standard bowl. The platter is ideal for someone who wants to “ball out” with even more food, Pineda says. A chicken flauta, chicharron, two chiles capones and two chalupitas fill out the plate. The latter is a traditional pozole accompaniment, the chef explains. He sources the little fried masa cups from shops in Guerrero, then stuffs them with shredded chicken, chipotle chicken broth, onion and a chipotle strip.

“You can have like 50 of those,” he says of the street-style snack.

Challenge accepted, with a few more bowls of pozole while we’re at it.