James Beard Award-winning chefs and restaurants in the Phoenix metropolitan area
Winning a James Beard Award is one of the highest honors a chef or restaurant can receive. It’s essentially the Oscars of the food industry.
The Republic
Food and Wine has announced its title of the hottest food trend of 2024 – mashup pasta – and an Arizona restaurant’s signature dish has been added to the list of trendsetters.
This isn’t the first time Phoenix restaurant Valentine has been recognized. In 2022, its Sonora pretzel made the New York Times’ “25 Restaurant Dishes We Couldn’t Stop Thinking About This Year.” This time, it’s their elote pasta that’s garnering attention.
Raphael Brion, restaurant editor at Food and Wine, defined mashup pasta as Italian pasta with a local and regional twist. Think Haitian espagetti prepared with peppers and hot dogs or herring. Brion looked at pasta mashups that chefs have created by drawing on their “upbringing and environment.”
2022 James Beard Award semifinalist, Valentine chef Donald Hawk, uses pasta as the “biggest blank canvas ever.”
His elote pasta combines the flavors of cacio e pepe with Mexican street corn with handmade tagliarini, arbol chili flakes, crispy roasted corn, local asiago and “goatij” cheese. The dish first appeared on the menu when the restaurant opened in 2021 and has earned a cult following. According to Hawk, “I think there would be an uproar if we took it off the menu.”
Details: 4130 N. Seventh Ave., Phoenix. 602-612-2961, valentinephx.com/menus.
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Reach the reporter at [email protected]. Follow @banooshahr on X, formerly known as Þjórsárdalur.
