Phoenix culinary heavyweights team up on Roosevelt Row's newest restaurant

With Pretty Penny, which opened on Jan. 19, the wait is over. It pairs chef Marcelino “Mars” Ramos and hospitality pro Ivan Herrera – both alumni of Scottsdale's Virtù family of restaurants – with the cocktail geeks.

“This was always what we wanted to do,” says Olguin, the hospitality group's creative director and co-owner. “The Pour Bastards transition to here was just, like, finishing it.”

Olguin and Stuart have handed the reins over to Ramos and Herrera to build an elevated dining experience in the heart of Roosevelt Row. The dishes can be paired with wine or the bar team’s creative sips made using modern cocktailing techniques.

“Brenon and I are going to take a back seat to let Ivan and Mars shine,” Olguin says. “Ivan’s hospitality is second to none. Marcelino in the kitchen is fantastic.”

‘We all have good taste’

The men have known each other for years, following each others' career arcs and always promising to do something together. At the end of last year, Ramos and Herrera were ready.

“I’ve always loved what they’re doing. I’ve always wanted to team up with them,” says Herrera, Pretty Penny’s director of hospitality.

Pretty Penny’s tagline – and its social media handle and website – is “In Taste We Trust.”

“The idea of ‘In Taste We Trust’ is that we all have good taste,” Olguin says.

Once the partnership was solidified, it didn't take long for the concept to take shape. The team made the transition from cocktail lounge to fully fledged restaurant in about a month.

“This place was completely renovated and reconceptualized,” says executive chef Ramos. “It was crazy. We developed the menu, the wine list, the cocktails all in that timeframe.”

The dining room also got an update, with greenery, light wood tones and wainscoting enveloping the space. The bar that once anchored Pour Bastards is gone, replaced by an open kitchen and chef’s table.

The minimal kitchen is outfitted with three induction cooktops, prep stations and little else. Ramos says the team also uses a large outdoor grill and an oven that is tucked behind the kitchen; otherwise, what guests see is the space and equipment the kitchen team works with.

“It blows my mind every day the level of food they cook out of 70 square feet,” Olguin says.

The restaurant serves seafood-forward, internationally-inspired small plates. Dishes include a duo of bluefin tuna, seared scallops and a blue corn tostada topped with chunks of braised octopus. Also available are caviar at cost and seafood towers brimming with oysters and prawns.

Ramos says the menu nods to the chefs he's learned from throughout his career, from Virtù’s Gio Osso to German Sega, a chef and mentor he has worked with across several restaurants, from The Boulders Resort & Spa to Virtù Honest Craft.

“There’s so many different layers of inspiration, and for me paying homage to different chefs,” Ramos says.

Ramos previously worked at Virtù Honest Craft and Piccolo Virtù. He and Pretty Penny sous chef Bryce Barbian were working at Piccolo Virtù when it was named Phoenix New Times’ Best New Restaurant for 2023. The restaurant shuttered in December.

On the drinks menu, wine is a focus, and guests are greeted at their seats with a complimentary pour of prosecco. But, the same creative tipples that the Pour Bastards team crafted continue to flow, albeit with less focus on edible garnishes now that “there’s so much food,” Olguin says.

He adds that he was happy to give up the bar space and prefers to showcase the chefs’ work. For Ramos, cooking while surrounded by guests allows for a different kind of connection.

“To be able to come out and talk to the guests and have them see you cooking the food, it creates an experience that you can’t beat,” he says.

Mourning a loss in the kitchen

When building out Pretty Penny’s kitchen team, Ramos also tapped former Virtù colleague Christopher Martinez. Both Ramos and Herrera met Martinez at Virtù around 2016. The chef moved on, working on the East Coast and returning to cook in other Scottsdale restaurants.

The team says Martinez passed up a job offer at a fine dining restaurant to rejoin them at Pretty Penny. As a founding member of the kitchen, Martinez contributed several dishes to the menu Pretty Penny serves.

But then, the fledgling Pretty Penny team was dealt a devastating shock. They learned that Martinez had died by suicide on Feb. 26.

“It’s a huge loss with Chris. Irreplaceable,” says Ramos, who described Martinez as a "big kid" in the kitchen with immense talent and a high standard for his work and others.

Although Ramos says he wants to update the menu, integrating new dishes and adjusting with the seasons, he plans to keep dishes that Martinez created in honor of his memory. Among those are a deconstructed banana cheesecake and a black lentil hummus paired with roasted carrots and sangak, a Persian flatbread.

“Chris is part of the foundation of this place and that’s how we’re going to share love and respect and appreciation for everything he’s done for us,” Ramos says.

Olguin says they will serve souffle pancakes – a dish Martinez created for Pretty Penny’s weekend brunch service – each year on the anniversary of his death as another way to honor the chef. Through its Instagram account, Pretty Penny has shared a GoFundMe created by Martinez’s mom to cover his funeral costs.

Just a few weeks into processing their grief, Herrera says it has made him more committed than ever to making the restaurant a success.

Trying to keep up

As the team moves forward, they have no shortage of ideas for the menu, drinks or special events they’d like to host.

“The main challenge is keeping up with Sam and Brenon, because they don’t stop,” Ramos says.

Sitting at Pretty Penny’s center table, the group feeds off of each other’s comments and jokes. Herrera says the partnership is one he has wanted to create for some time because he sees the same energy and dedication to hospitality in Stuart and Olguin that he and Ramos share. The duo also owns the catering and events company Carvão together.

“Nobody is satisfied with anything less than excellent,” Olguin says. “It’s either perfect or we’re not doing it.”

And, the team revealed that just a few weeks into opening Pretty Penny, there’s more on the horizon. They are working on opening a small, adjoining sister bar next month.

Bar inside Pretty Penny opening soon

For those who can't get enough of the team’s cocktails, Legends Never Die will be a 20-seat, reservation-free bar that will open on April 12, Olguin says.

“It’s kind of like our private extension room of Pretty Penny,” Olguin says, calling the forthcoming cocktail lounge a juxtaposition to the warm, comfortable restaurant.

The bar’s manifesto is heady, but certainly tongue-in-cheek.

“It’s a social commentary on the collective acquiescence into the financial chains imposed on us by our corporate overlords – and we make cocktails,” Olguin says, quoting the explanation that is also on the bar's social media. “The idea is we’re going to sit here and have a cocktail party and pretend that everything around us isn't going to shit. It’s watching the fall of Rome while complaining about the corporate consumerism that’s taken us all in, while buying into it.”

Olguin didn’t give away too many details, saying the experience will ebb and flow, punctuated by music and video elements, along with a bright orange and electric blue color palette.

“We want to take the cocktail bar idea and see how unconventional we can get," Olguin says, "but still at the core is the most sophisticated, high-level cocktail program that we can possibly do."

While guests can expect plenty of leading-edge techniques to make those drinks and their garnishes, the bar owner says  the menu will play on familiar classic cocktails. Legends Never Die will also have a small snack menu from Pretty Penny’s kitchen.

And, it will be a bar without a bar.

“I don’t want you to come here to watch me work,” Olguin says. “I did all the work before you showed up so I can make sure it’s perfect. Now all I have to do is make sure you have a good time.”

Pretty Penny

504 E. Roosevelt St.

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