El Panzon y Frida Is Closing Today

A restaurant new this year already shutters

November 3, 2017

Image: Late night nibbles at the new El Panzon y Frida in Scottsdale.

Late night nibbles at the new El Panzon y Frida in Scottsdale. Mehdi Taghavi

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The Old Town Scottsdale restaurant El Panzon y Frida, open for half a year, will close for good today at 3 p.m., following lunch service. Bold fusion was the name of this eatery's game. For about six months, it served imaginative dishes to eaters in the heart of Old Town, keeping the kitchen open late.

Chef Paula Martinez helmed that kitchen. As the restaurant's name suggests, she took inspiration from Frida Kahlo, the legendary Mexican painter.

Early reports on the restaurant were positive, but noted several oddities (lots of TVs, few waitstaff).

One of El Panzon's floor managers, who found out about today's closing the day before yesterday, gave a New Times photographer word of the closing. The restaurant has confirmed that it will be closing this afternoon.

Chris Malloy, former food editor and food critic at Phoenix New Times, has written for various local and national outlets. He has scrubbed pots in a restaurant kitchen, earned graduate credit for a class about cheese, harvested garlic in Le Marche, and rolled pastas like cappellacci stuffed with chicken liver. He writes stories on the food world's margins.

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