‘Food for the soul’: Feel the love at CC's on Central

Across the table at CC’s on Central, a friend dips into a bowl of debris and grits and her cheeks start to flush.

“This is so fucking good. You can taste the love in this,” she says.

I stifle a snicker.

She’s not wrong. The debris and grits — like just about everything I’ve had at CC’s on Central — steals your attention and makes everything else in the room go a little fuzzy. Rough-hewn little bits of sweet corn suspended in a creamy emulsion are bedded down beneath a puddle of succulent braised beef that swims in a robust but lightly tart jus, all of it crowned with an egg that jiggles before bursting and smothering the whole lot with its thick, golden richness.

Yeah, I’m a fan, too.

But all I can think about are "Top Chef" contestants over the years who’ve made the mistake of saying they put love in their food, only to visibly wither when judge Tom Colicchio pointedly asks if they could please explain what love tastes like.

Still, I get it. You can’t spend your life around people who make food and not feel that there’s a spiritual component at work. And whatever mojo Devan and Sharon Cunningham have tapped into, I’m here for it, because CC’s on Central is a gem — if you can find it.

An unlikely home

When I say great food is hard to find, I’m generally not talking about a matter of geolocation.

“CC’s off Central” might be more appropriate. Flanked by two office towers and set back about 50 yards from the street, it has almost no visibility even for passing pedestrians, and getting there by car requires parking in the deck out back and navigating an office complex.

This could only be an obstacle in a town like Phoenix, where diners worship at the altar of convenience. But bust out Google Maps and pretend you’re on a scavenger hunt if you have to. Just get your ass inside.

Once you do, you’re home.

Sharon, always armed with a smile and something delicious, roams the dining room, spending as much time chatting with diners as she does doing whatever needs doing. She mostly makes me wish they’d hire a couple more people so she could spend all of her time talking with customers.

“It’s just family and fun and eating, ‘cause we like to eat,” she says.

Sharon runs the front of house, but she can cook. She started out catering to friends and church groups, but she’s been running restaurants in and around Temecula, California since 2009. The most recent, Sharon’s Creole Kitchen, is under her husband’s watch since she moved to Phoenix to team up with their son, Devan, in late 2022.

“I try to stay in my lane and stay in the front and let Devan manage the back,” she says. “I trust him enough to know that he knows what he’s doing in the kitchen.”

He absolutely does. Devan’s worked in the Valley since 2014, logging stints at Windsor and House of Tricks, plus a lot of time cooking for Stephen Jones at Bootleggers and the Larder + the Delta. After launching a catering company, The Good Food Table, he opted to go brick-and-mortar with CC’s.

'This is us'

Between the Cunninghams’ heritage and Devan’s kitchen experience, the menu at CC’s is what you might anticipate. Sort of.

“My mother is from Louisiana, and my in-laws are from Mississippi,” Sharon explains. “We’re Creole, we’re Southern. But I don’t think people really understand what the difference is. It’s just food. That’s all it is. It’s food for the soul.”

That’s probably the best way to think about the menu at CC’s. Get too hung up on trying to pigeonhole things, and you’re just going to hurt your head. There’s a little Cajun, a little Creole, a little Southern, a little soul. But the lines are fuzzy, which is how food evolves in the real world anyway.

The same grits beneath my friend’s debris make me happiest when they’re smothered with a perfect scoop of stewed collard greens and vinegary potlikker — the ambrosial liquid left in the pot after cooking beans and greens — lounging aside a crisp, griddled plank of smashed chicken sausage.

Frankly, though, Devan’s collards don’t need a damn thing but a fork. They’re the stripped-down platonic ideal of the form, intensely green and gently perked up with a touch of acid, and I find myself demolishing a bowlful like a competitive eater.

The shrimp etouffee is a silky, sultry rendition, built on bold shellfish stock and loaded with a bright and fresh trinity. It’s unlike the etouffee you had when you visited New Orleans. It's lighter on its feet and gently sweetened with melted yellow and red bell peppers. But good is good and you’d be a fool to wish it were something else. Besides, if personal touches like that rankle you, the jambalaya will really get your hackles up.

“I don’t mix in the rice,” Sharon says. “That’s just not how I make it. I’m not your grandma, I’m not your mammy. This is us. If you want it that way, you go find your grandmother and let her make it. This is our stuff. You’re going to get some good food and you’re going to enjoy it.”

This woman is my hero. She’s also right. No, it isn’t what I think of as jambalaya, but it’s delicious — a loose stew of chicken and sausage with a deeply spiced, ruddy tomato base ladled around a mound of white rice and served with a hunk of cornbread. Little personal twists are how this family rolls.

Homestyle, remixed

“I don’t like to do just straight-up plain stuff,” Devan says.

He's the creative technician who remixes and amplifies his mother's homestyle soulful sensibilities. Still, this is a family that knows how to run a business, and for the time being, their bread and butter is the midtown Phoenix office crowd.

“I want something that they recognize, but I want it to speak to who we are,” Devan says.

What that means is that you can get a stack of buttermilk pancakes — straightforward but stellar, light and spongy and almost custardy, topped with a bright berry compote.

Or you can get Devan’s praline French toast — a wild, geometric construction of layered milk bread that he makes with an egg wash and a quick dip in the deep fryer, lending a little body and texture to support its steaming, tender core. Saturated with condensed milk caramel and dusted with a pecan dukkah that boasts a wild blend of spice, it marries classic breakfast flavors like cinnamon and nutmeg with savory curveballs like cardamom and fennel, adding a complex edge to the caramel's sweetness.

Once lunch rolls around, if you want a chicken salad croissant, Sharon slings a mean one.

But “Dat Turkey Sandwich” takes a little dogleg, bringing smoked turkey and cheddar sauce before leaning into a smear of harissa verde mayonnaise and a scoop of olive tapenade that makes the whole thing play like a mini muffuletta. And Devan’s “Damn Good Veggie Sandwich” is aptly named, stuffed with a perky tangle of pickled summer squash that's grounded in the earthy notes of black pea hummus.

Where Devan really cuts loose, though, is the wings.

Wings of desire

Devan has built a reputation on social media for chicken wing wizardry. I’d heard the rumors, but I was unprepared for what awaited me.

Wednesday is Wing Day at CC’s, but I’ve yet to visit on a day when the chef didn’t have at least one flavor available. Don’t be afraid to ask. CC’s is like that. The menu gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect, but you never know. And that’s fortunate for anybody who visits any other day of the week, because these morsels are crisp and juicy and perfectly primed for a little bit of insanity.

Devan tends to favor dry, powdery coatings, and I can’t get my mind off the dill pickle wings, caked with fragrant dill and what I can only presume is a boatload of vinegar powder. Even wilder is his fully loaded wings, and I won’t even attempt to deconstruct those. They’ve got a tart pucker followed by a bit of cayenne burn and a whole mess of who-knows-what that sets your synapses popping off like a string of firecrackers. This is a sensory rush I highly recommend.

I also love his wet lemon pepper wings, which flip the wet/dry convention on its ear. And one day I caught him playing around with an Asian-styled wing with stir-fried scallions and a sizzling chile crisp sauce that he said he got from “Dom.”

“Dom who?”

“Ruggiero, from Hush (Public House).”

I note the connection. Later, when we get to talking, I learn that while Devan and Sharon might be hiding from the public in an office building, they’re already beloved within the local restaurant community. And the love is mutual.

Please California my Arizona

Turns out, it was the rock stars of the Phoenix dining scene who lured Sharon away from California. She recounts attending a party where Devan introduced her to his newfound industry friends in Phoenix.

“Talking with Rene (Andrade) from Bacanora and Armando (Hernandez, of Tacos Chiwas and others) kind of triggered us to come out here,” she says. “Scott (Holmes) from Little Miss (BBQ), he actually told us, he says, ‘Close down California, come out here.’ Who does that?”

Sharon was floored by a sense of community she’d never seen among restaurant owners before.

“It’s not a competition. They support each other and everybody in (Devan’s) group of folks, they’re family. And that whole circle — the love. In California, everybody is cutthroat. I don’t think any other city really has the camaraderie that the community here in Phoenix has,” she says.

While Sharon continues to rattle off a litany of local chefs who have supported her and her son, Devan piles on.

“I think part of it is we want to see the city grow and we want it to be recognized and loved,” Devan says. “If I see you’re doing something great but you don’t necessarily know how to get it out there? Come here. Let me help you out. Come tag along with me and we can do this together. I definitely have seen that as a thing that builds this community.”

Sunday love

The first Sunday of the month is Soul Food Sunday, and on a recent visit, CC’s is packed.

This is the day Sharon takes over the kitchen, and the menu changes every month. Could be barbecue, could be oxtails, could be smothered okra.

Today, it’s fried chicken, plump and juicy with a thick, crisp dredge and a heavy-handed spice. A simple side of braised cabbage and some devastating yams — sweet but not too sweet — also have my attention.

Take a bite of Sharon’s desserts, though, and it all makes sense.

There’s blue velvet cake, sweet, soft as silk and bursting with blueberries. Her Church Lemon Cake takes no prisoners with a sharp, acidic pucker to cut the intense sweetness. Have a little too much of her bread pudding and you might go home drunk. There’s bourbon and rum in there, and its eggy curd slides down so easily you might not notice how much you’re imbibing until it’s too late.

These aren’t restaurant desserts. They’re homestyle desserts, made by somebody who just wants you to feel at home.

“The world is a crazy place as it is, and as I say, food has no color lines and we should be coming together to work together and support and build up and help where we can,” Sharon says. “How everybody here comes together, it just feels so good to be welcomed and feel that love.”

Can you taste it? I don’t know. But you can absolutely feel it. 

CC's on Central

2800 N. Central Ave.
602-253-9220
7 a.m.-2:45 p.m. Monday through Friday; 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Sunday (wings and fries only); 1 p.m.-6 p.m. first Sunday of the month (Soul Food Sunday).
Breakfast and lunch sandwiches, $8-$14; Mains $9-$16; Wings $12; Sunday platters $30.