A waft of spice and smoke beckons patrons before they enter Mister Pio Peruvian Rotisserie. The savory aromas emanate from the massive spit-roast oven, leading hungry guests inside where they will find whole chickens slowly rotating and sizzling over smoking coals.
Mister Pio is making a mark in the Arcadia neighborhood by offering an elevated take on the Peruvian classic pollo a la brasa, slow-roasted whole chicken cooked over charcoal, traditionally served with French fries and salad. Chef and owner Justin Nasralla and co-owner David Goluboff met in Peru over a decade ago and have been waiting for the right opportunity to share their passion for the dish.
“Initially, we always thought that we would lead with fine dining. We both came up in that world, but I firmly believe that the space dictates the food that you will be making," Nasralla says. "When we found this space, David and I agreed that the only thing that made sense was the polleria."
A balance of smoke, spice and care
Admittedly, their take on the dish is more upscale than what you might find at the thousands of pollerias in Peru. Nasralla notes that while traditionally, the chicken is marinated in a mixture of dry and wet ingredients, he opts for a two-day dry brine with 21 spices to enhance the crispness of the skin.He also prides himself on using the best ingredients he can get his hands on. The birds themselves are air-chilled from Bell and Evans Farms in Pennsylvania, while the salad greens are from Steadfast Farms in Mesa. They are paired with his thrice-cooked, thick-cut fries, which are fried in rice oil to avoid any seed-oil heaviness.
The whole chickens are roasted slowly for about an hour and a half over Marabu coals, a Japanese-style charcoal that burns hotter and cleaner, for a richer, deeper smokiness.
The resulting combination of smoke, spice and sizzle is intoxicating, and the flavor permeates every bite. Even without a two-day dry brine, the slow cooking over such a carefully crafted fire would set this chicken apart. But the balance of heat, pepper and earthy aromatics take this dish into another stratosphere.
Like the best barbeque, Mister Pio knows that the heat source itself brings the flavor. Everything else on top is in danger of gilding the lily. While there are lots of flavors working, none outshines the patience and care taken to prepare excellent ingredients.
The fries are a robust complement — thick rectangles that are perfectly seasoned with sea salt. Crispy exteriors give way to a surprising tenderness. According to Goluboff, the fries are sometimes a neglected, almost perfunctory and underwhelming part of the dish in Peru. At Mister Pio, great thought was put into making sure the complementary parts of the restaurant could stand equally to the whole.
The salad also succeeds in this regard — the vinaigrette dressing has notes of citrus, ginger and Peruvian yellow chile, giving a lightness and slight spice to the plate.
These three options are the focus of the restaurant, and thus the menu reflects this streamlined focus on doing one thing very well, with three ordering options: chicken (half chicken at $29, Quarter Chicken at $18 for white meat and $15 for dark meat), fries ($8 large, $5 small), and a market salad ($16 or a side salad for $5).
A culinary crash course abroad
While there is talk of adding a sandwich and dessert option, Nasralla and Goluboff are proud to keep the offerings focused. Nasralla credits this approach to his time traveling and working in award-winning restaurants around the world.“I came to cooking late. I had always loved food, but when it came time for college, my uncle told me there was no money in it, and shit hours, and that chefs were a dime-a-dozen. That is true, at least in part, so I went to study law. But my heart just wasn’t in it. So, I had to take the long way to figure it out.” Nasralla reflects.
He headed to Palm Beach, Florida and started a clothing business, but life seemed to be calling him to cook. His father and brother started Blu Burger Grille in Scottsdale, and he came back to Phoenix to learn the operations and help out. After almost five years, he felt the need to travel. First, he headed to Peru, where he spent time learning about his mother’s Limeno ancestry. In 2013, while staying in Lima, he met Los Angeles native Goluboff while both were enrolled at the Instituto Gastronomico D’Gallia.
“I was mostly just taking classes just to have something to do. But he was in it, really studying and trying to perfect his technique, and we just hit it off. We were also the only two people there who spoke any English, so that immediately brought us together.” Nasralla recalls.
The more Nasralla traveled and worked in kitchens, the more he became convinced that cooking was his true calling. In 2016 he began working for Matt Carter at The Mission and was inspired to elevate his craft. Nasralla made a list of fifty restaurants and started applying. His cold-calling approach got his foot in the door at the now-closed Luksus in New York City in 2017, where he had the opportunity to work under former NOMA pastry chef Daniel Burns at his flagship concept in Greenpoint.
“I started putting myself in uncomfortable situations — applying for these really intense, competitive jobs in these elite kitchens — because I knew I started late, and I knew I had to make up for that time," he says. "At first, I was way out of my depth, but how do you get better without making these moves and learning those lessons?”
After his time in Luksus, and at the encouragement of Goluboff, Nasralla accepted a position to work with the “mad genius” chef Zaiyu Hasegawa at Den in Tokyo. Later that same year, Nasralla took an offer to work under the leadership of another NOMA alum, Thomas Frebel, at his ambitious Scandinavian-meets-Japanese Inua.
Then, in 2019 Nasralla headed back to Lima to work under Chef Pia Leon at Kjolie, the sister restaurant to Central, (where she is also head chef), which was voted best restaurant in the world in 2024 by World’s 50 Best List.
Bringing it all home
In 2020 he headed back to Phoenix and began kicking around ideas with Goluboff.
“The experience of being on a line and in a team at those places was unreal. There is a focus and intentionality to everything they do. These are the best restaurants on the planet for a reason, and incredibly humbling. It taught me that you have to lean into your strengths and helped shape where I am now with Mister Pio — just doing the best possible version of this dish with the best ingredients imaginable,” Nasralla says.
With excellent flavors, a precise menu, quality ingredients and a massive Josper charcoal oven (one of just three in the country, according to the company), Mister Pio is earning buzz from patrons. But local Peruvians visiting the spot seem to confirm what Nasralla and Goluboff have been striving for: a sense of familiarity with a beloved regional dish that is not easy to find in America.
“There’s been a huge swell of support from the local Peruvian community — people in Phoenix, but also Peoria, Chandler — it’s so familiar and wanted, and they have been so supportive and welcoming,” Goluboff says.
“We wanted to do this love letter to the dish, which in Peru is a weekend staple, just a universally loved thing. To do it well was always the goal. It’s great, it's quality, it’s healthy, it’s just a totally different option than anything else. For people that love this dish, they come once or twice a week or once or twice a month, and it becomes a part of their family tradition," Goluboff says. "It’s a Sunday tradition in Peru, and it’s becoming one here.”
As for the future, both Goluboff and Nasralla share the goal of opening a gourmet epicurean experience down the road. In the meantime, the smoke beckons, the chicken turns, and the lines grow. All good things, in time.
