Tucson restaurants ready to shine in annual Sonoran Restaurant Week

Tucson’s food scene takes centerstage starting Friday, Sept. 8, the kickoff of the fifth annual Sonoran Restaurant Week that runs through Sept. 17.

For 10 belly-smiling days, diners can try out restaurants they haven’t experienced or revisit old faves to remind them of what they’ve been missing.

Nearly 100 restaurants from throughout the greater Tucson area will offer three-course prix fixe menus that include an appetizer, main dish and dessert priced from $25 to $45; beverages are separate.

“It’s a chance to have new people come who maybe haven’t tried us before … but might want to give us a try,” said Susan Fulton, who co-owns the 12-year-old Gourmet Girls Gluten Free Bakery/Bistro with Mary Steiger. “And it’s just fun to be part of the community and be part of an event like this. It’s just good camaraderie and Tucson is so special that way.”

It’s also good for business for restaurants during what is arguably their slowest period, said Shane Reiser, CEO of Tucson Foodie, which has been coordinating Sonoran Restaurant Week since Reiser took over the food-centric news site in May 2022. In its first year last fall, Tucson Foodie doubled the number of restaurants participating from 50 to nearly 100, Reiser said.

Reiser said the weeklong campaign brings in some $3 million in revenue to participating restaurants that often see their biggest slow down in September while they wait for winter residents to return and University of Arizona students to settle in.

“It is straight up trying to drive revenue to locally owned restaurants,” said Reiser, who has lived in Tucson nine years and spent most of his professional life working as an entrepreneur before buying Tucson Foodie. “On the diner side, I think it exists as kind of the unique way to explore and fall in love with the local restaurant scene.”

Some participating restaurants create unique menus just for Sonoran Restaurant Week. Others dust off old favorites.

“I think this is the time to be fun and customers get excited about it,” said Coralie Satta, chef-owner of Tucson’s venerable Ghini’s French Caffe & Bistro at 1803 E. Prince Road, which Satta opened in 1992.

Satta curated a Sonoran Restaurant Week menu for two that starts with choice of classic French onion or vegan vegetable soup or cranberry feta salad, followed by a main course ranging from her house special eggs Provençal to fresh PEI mussels served over capellini noodles, or vegan tomato basil pasta and Provençal scrambled tofu. Dessert is strawberry shortcake and your choice of coffee, wine or lavender lemonade for $35 a couple.

“It’s a great deal so the customers are happy and they appreciate it,” Satta said.

In addition to Ghini’s, this year’s participants include two other longtime Tucson restaurants — El Charro Café (101 years) and Kon Tiki Restaurant & Lounge (60 years) — and a couple of the area’s newest — the year-old Alejandro Serious Mexican, Mariscos, & Fusion Food in Marana, the months-old St. Cruz in the Leo Kent Hotel downtown and the weeks old Pizza Sonora, a new food truck from the owners of MotoSonora Brewing on South Park Avenue.

Here are a few things we’re looking forward to from Sonoran Restaurant Week.

Welcome to the neighborhood

Here are three restaurants that are new to Sonoran Restaurant Week.

Alejandro Serious Mexican, Mariscos & Fusion Food just marked its one-year anniversary in Marana’s Continental Ranch community.

Tucked into a shopping plaza space at 7850 N. Silverbell Road that was home to an outpost of Jerry Bob’s, chef-owner Alejandro Diaz and his staff serve a menu of classic Sonoran-style Mexican fare with a few fusion twists like Primo Arturito’s R2D2 crab puffs — jalapeño mini-chimi crab puffs served with a mango sweet chile dipping sauce.

Prima Sara’s Calamari appetizer is tossed in arugula and sided with that same mango chile sauce, and Sobrina Alicia’s fresh spring rolls work from the basic premise of unfried shrimp spring rolls and fuses it with classic Mexican ingredients including skirt steak, cilantro, cucumber and jicama, with mango chile and a housemade peanut ginger sauce for dipping.

“Those are the little things people notice,” said Diaz, who ran two locations of his Mexican restaurant Cafe Bonita from 1998-2010.

Diaz had wanted to return to restaurants in the years since he closed Cafe Bonita but it wasn’t until two cousins and his brother died unexpectedly that Diaz took the plunge.

“I wanted to honor my brother and make every dish good,” he said. “It’s a way of honoring my brother and my cousins.”

For Sonoran Restaurant Week, Diaz is offering three options, each of which opens with a choice of appetizer including the mini-chimi spring roll and crab puffs. The $25 option’s main course includes a choice of beef or chicken flautas or caramelo quesadilla. For $35 you can choose between carne asada, carnitas or tacos dorados or a red or green chile beef or shredded chicken chimichanga. The $45 option has three ribeye tacos, or a choice of spinach and shrimp, shredded beef or cheese enchiladas. All three options finish with either fried ice cream or dulce de leche and caramel cheesecake.

Alejandro Serious Mexican is open Thursdays through Mondays. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the restaurant morphs into the more casual Alejandro Taqueria offering a menu of street tacos and housemade salsas.

Learn more at

alejandroserious mexicanfood.com.

St. Cruz Restaurant and Bar is an anchor to the Leo Kent boutique hotel that opened May 20 in One South Church, Tucson’s tallest building downtown. The restaurant is helmed by Executive Chef Devin Pinto, whose resume includes working in some of Tucson’s finest resort kitchens including the Ritz Carlton Dove Mountain, where he was executive sous chef for 11 years before taking over the top job at Hacienda del Sol for the last two years.

Pinto brings an upscale mentality combined with a casual ambience to the elevated fare at St. Cruz, whose name is an homage to the Santa Cruz River. The restaurant, a 1 S. Church, focuses on locally-grown and sourced ingredients including a selection of Tucson craft beers, wines and distilled spirits.

Those local accents will be on full display in the menu Pinto has curated for Sonoran Restaurant Week. The $35 meal opens with a Sonoran chopped salad topped with black beans and Mexican street corn, tomato, cotija cheese and dressed in a honey lime vinaigrette. The main course of chicken tinga tacos is paired with pickled onion, slaw, pico de gallo and avocado and served with chorizo black beans. Dessert is a heavenly paletas duo: mango chamoy and strawberry tajin.

St. Cruz is open daily from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Learn more at leokenthotel.com.

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Pizza Sonora at MotoSonora Brewing Co. made its debut in early August. The food truck operation gives MotoSonora’s customers another excuse to linger at the south side brewery, 1015 S. Park Ave.

The pizza truck, set up in the brewery’s beer garden, is open daily at 5 p.m., offering a special slice and a pint for $8.

For Sonoran Restaurant Week, Pizza Sonora is serving a full Sonoran Hot Dog Pizza with two pints of MotoSonora draft beer for $25.

Learn more at motosonora.com.

Healthy fare is on the menuEating out can be good for your health. Just ask the folks at these three restaurants participating in Sonoran Restaurant Week.

Gourmet Girls Gluten Free Bakery/Bistro, 5845 N. Oracle Road, is the OG of Tucson’s limited gluten-free restaurants.

Susan Fulton and Mary Steiger opened the brick-and-mortar restaurant in 2011 after spending several years selling their baked goods and other products at local farmers markets and offering catering.

The pair serve an extensive and inventive elevated menu that will have you thinking you are at fine-dining restaurant. Simple pancakes are on a menu alongside a spiced pumpkin seed bacon waffle and quiche of the day served with organic mixed greens. Carrot sunflower bread is the foundation for a double-decker, triple cheese grilled cheese sandwich kicked up with avocado and bacon.

For Sonoran Restaurant Week, Gourmet Girls is offering breakfast pizza for two served with non-alcoholic beverages for $25. The lunchtime offer is a Greek burger on a housemade pita topped with sprouts and feta cheese and dressed in tzatziki sauce. It comes with a beverage and gourmet cupcake for $25.

Learn more at gourmetgirlsglutenfree.com.

Dedicated, A Gluten Free Bakery and Coffee Shop followed Gourmet Girls into the gluten-free niche in 2014.

In 2020, Jennifer Kinkade, who grew up in Tucson, bought the restaurant after years of working as a park ranger. Her brother and social media/marketing manager Judson Kinkade said his sister, who baked with her mother and grandmother as a child and worked for years at Bentley’s House of Coffee & Tea when she was younger, became interested in gluten-free after having kids and experiencing their food allergies.

Kinkade said his sister’s goal was to create truly delicious gluten-free food, like the restaurant’s “Take the ‘A’ Train” avocado toast, crowned with two bacon strips and a hint of spice; or the “Bowl Me Over” breakfast baked potato topped with scrambled eggs, bacon and cheese.

Lunch offerings include the “South By Southwest Spicy Vegan Sandwich” with a baked falafal patty topped with green chile and avocado and smeared with spicy vegan mayo on a toasted sourdough bun, or the “New York, New York” deli sandwich stuffed with Genoa salami, ham, pepperoni, capicola and provolone cheese dressed in a house oil and vinegar.

The menu leans heavy on vegan and vegetarian and most of the meat dishes can be ordered with vegan protein substitutes.

For Sonoran Restaurant Week last year, Kinkade offered two sandwiches that celebrated two famous Tucson Lindas: Linda Ronstadt and Linda McCartney.

This year, they’re celebrating the Tucson Barbaras: “The Eden,” aka I Dream of Turkey, pairs turkey breast and bacon with creamy Havarti cheese and fresh arugula on fresh baked bread smeared with a pumpkin aioli; and “The Kingsolver,” aka The Bean Trees, featuring the house black bean patty topped with arugula, roasted red peppers and spicy seasoned pepitos on sourdough bread.

The $45 meal, which serves two, opens with a pair of appetizers — spinach and artichoke crustini and roasted garlic hummus plate served with cucumber, bell peppers, carrots and toasted sliced bread — and closes with Dedicated’s popular Twin Thumbprint Cookies: apple butter and cherry blackberry jam. Diners also can choose between Sparkling Orchard Elixir, a fusion of crisp apple cider and an effervescent seltzer; and Pumpkin Spice Dirty Chai, billed as the taste of fall in a cup served hot or iced.

Learn more about Dedicated, 4500 E. Speedway Blvd., at dedicatedgf.com.

Charrovida is El Charro matriarch Carlotta Flores’s vision of healthy eating that takes heart-healthy cues from the classic Mediterranean diet and flavor inspiration from the classic Sonoran recipes that her family has served the Tucson community for more than 100 years.

Charrovida’s Sonoran-style Mexican menu employs healthy fats (olive and seed oils), whole grains and fresh local produce alongside sustainable proteins including chicken, shrimp and grass-fed beef.

Most of the menu is plant-based and vegan-leaning from the vida bowls and burritos with jackfruit carnitas as an option to the yucca street fries topped with chickpea chorizo.

Charrovida’s $35 Sonoran Restaurant Week menu opens with a selection from the “Refrescos, Cocktails & Mocktails” menu that features non-alcoholic drinks that can be made into cocktails with the addition of tequila, Del Bac whiskey and Gran Ponche pomegranate and hibiscus liqueur.

The main dish is Charrovida’s Three Sister Taco Plates that allows diners to make their own flour or corn tacos with a host of vegan (grilled mushrooms, jackfruit carnitas quesabirria style) and non-vegan (grilled chicken, chicken al pastor, grass-fed steak asada) ingredients. The meal finishes with The Game Changer, Charrovida’s vegan dessert made with almond flour, vegan cream cheese and churro carmalized manzanas (apples).

Learn more about Charrovida, 7109 N. Oracle Road, at charrovida.com.