An Asian-inspired restaurant, Zen Culinary is all set to come to the city of Scottsdale soon!
The first-time restaurateur, Rachel McAuley is launching her first project a 300-seat, Asian-inspired restaurant with a contemporary vibe, is under construction at the Sonora Village shopping center in north Scottsdale.
The restaurant is expected to be launched by late-October. McAuley is putting $3 million into the 7,500-square-foot space, the former Los Olivos Norte on Pima Road off Frank Lloyd Drive Boulevard.
McAuley said that, “I don’t have experience owning a restaurant.” “So I started looking around and it took a year to connect with these guys, to get to know them, to have them on board.”
Zen Culinary has Kelly Fletcher as executive chef, who will lead the kitchen. While, the extensive beverage program will be lead by Michael Liberatore from Citizen Public House and Cristina Serrano will serve as the general manager of the project.
The AZCentral reported, the restaurant menu will be designed by Fletcher in partnership with Bob Tam of Phoenix's Bitter & Twisted Cocktail Parlor.
Fletcher said at an exclusive interview with the Zen Culinary team, that, “I’ve never met anybody with an exact vision like Rachel.”
“We’re dating,” Fletcher joked. “We’re always together, always working on the menu. I’ve always been influenced by Japan and Korea, but one of the great things is that I can collaborate with Bob Tam and the evolution of the menu has been insane.”
“If you go out for Chinese food, sometimes it’s kind of a blob in a bowl,” Fletcher said. “We don’t want that. We want it to be elegant.”
“Classic cocktails give you the best building blocks to go ahead and create something unique,” Liberatore said. “I want to go ahead and use these Asian flavors in a classic way.”
“There’s so much stuff that should be bigger out here, like shochu, infusions of shochu, playing around with baijiu, which is distilled sorghum. It’s right in between whiskey and rum. I want to incorporate new cocktails that get (those) on people’s palates.”
“A person can order their own meal,” she said, “but it’s designed for sharing.”
“I think the concept is that we’re trying to push for what we do when we go out,” Fletcher added. “We’ll just order ‘let’s get one of these, one of these, one of these’ and then we just pass around plates. So it’s more of a communal feel.”
“It’s taking the experiences from all of us.” “Incorporating them into something that’s approachable but it still infused with that Asian style,” Liberatore said.
Address: 15544 N. Pima Road, Scottsdale. 480-296-0030.
Also Read: Ethnic Indian Cuisine at Arizona, Daawat
Nandini
