Photos: Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Rick Wiley
Photo editor
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Seven months after temporarily closing due to COVID-19 in 2020, Tucson chef Janos Wilder closed 10-year-old Downtown Kitchen + Cocktails restaurant for good.
Wilder, a James Beard Award-winning chef, has been a fixture in Tucson's restaurant scene since he opened his namesake Janos downtown on Halloween night 1983. He remained downtown until he moved the restaurant to La Paloma in 1998. – Cathy Burch
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder stands in dining room of his restaurant in the La Paloma Resort in the Catalina Foothills outside Tucson, Ariz in 2001.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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El Charro's Jason Blackburn, KVOA's Lorraine Rivera and Chef Janos WIlder taste test Sonoran dogs at Mr. Antojo in 2010.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Pueblo High student Michael Guevara his classmate Anita Natividad joking around with chef Janos Wilder in 2004 as they practice folding napkins and doing place settings in preparation for "Southside Janos" feast.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder sautees mushrooms at his home in 2006 as part of the pasta dish. Caliente challenged Janos to make meals out of only items that he could get at Walgreens. These are meals that any college student could make. "The time here is opening the cans and cooking the pasta. Other than that, it's like three minutes," he said.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Tucson chef Janos Wilder laughs at a joke after tasting goat cheese from Fiore di Capra in 2008 at the St. Philip's Plaza farmer's market in Tucson, Ariz. Fiore di Capra is farm based in Pomerene, Ariz. that specializes in raw goat milk cheese.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Chef Janos Wilder prepared a meal for four people will all local organic ingredients that cost a total of $7.98, in this 2008 photo. He made a Locavore Vegetable Platter with Heirloom Poached Eggs and Garlic Toast.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder discusses locally grown produce as he teaches the last in a series of cooking classes at his restaurant, 3770 E. Sunrise Drive, in 2010.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder teaches the last in a series of cooking classes at his restaurant at 3770 E. Sunrise Drive) in 2010.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Chef Janos Wilder gives a cooking demonstration in the Arizona Public Media tent at The 2010 Tucson Festival of Books at the University of Arizona.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder jokes with Freci Villanueva as she and other Pueblo High School special education students serve an elegant meal to guests in2009. The students served, bussed and checked out the guests in the classroom turned dining room.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Chef Janos Wilder asks who has taken his Thanksgiving cooking class before as he does a Tucson-style Thanksgiving Dinner class for 35 at Janos Cooking School classes in 2009.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder, shown in 2007, prepares a prickly pear syrup as part of a dish for a cooking segment. He prepared roasted fig with foraged autumn mushrooms topped with serrano ham, parmigiano reggiano and watercress with prickly pear syrup.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder, shown in 2007, believes in taste-testing as you cook a dish. Janos tastes the prickly pear syrup while preparing a dish for a cooking segment. He prepared roasted fig with foraged autumn mushrooms topped with serrano ham, parmigiano reggiano and watercress with prickly pear syrup.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Executive chef Janos Wilder (right) and Chef de Cuisine Tom Mead prepare a shrimp dish on at Janos Restaurant to benefit the Catalina Foothills School District Foundation in 2001.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Volunteers work in the Tucson Children's Museum garden in the memory of Andra Dalrymple. Chef Janos Wilder used produce from the garden and use it for his restaurant. Andra, 12, died of a congenital heart condition.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Chef Janos Wilder teaches culinary techniques during a two and a half hour class at Jano's Restaurant at 3770 E. Sunrise Drive in 2011. Janos taught a three piece summer soup and salads class that included a tasting of the dishes and beverage pairing.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder takes in the scent of the sauce for a Thanksgiving Day dish he is cooking and demonstrating for his cooking class held at his restaurant, Janos at La Paloma Resort and Hotel, in 2008.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Chef Janos Wilder's dish from his "10 terrific tastes" of Summer of 2005 menu are: (left) early season soft shell crab in light batter with slaw and caper butter sauce; (center) is swordfish with creamy polenta, black olive tapenade and marinated white asparagus, and (upper right) is Maine lobster tail with fresh artichoke, exotic mushrooms and butternut squash coulis.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder stands on the patio of the J BAR in 2008.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Tucson chef Janos Wilder educates a class of about 30 folks who paid $50 to learn about various dishes and beverages during a two and a half hour class at his restaurant at 3770 E. Sunrise Drive in 2011. Janos taught a three piece summer soup and salads class that included a tasting of the dishes and beverage pairing.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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From left, owner and chef Janos Wilder instructs the apprentice chefs Tamara Crockett, Jeff Silvyn and Herman Salazar during the Primavera Cooks summer dining event at J-Bar on May 19, 2010. The dinner was the first of 10 fundraising dining events that the foundation is putting on this summer.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder, upper left, and Jennifer English talk to a class of 50 students about the world of spices during the Janos Cooking School at the Janos Restaurant in 2008.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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From left, Rev. Greg Foraker, assistant to the rector at St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church, Rabbi Samuel Cohon, senior rabbi at Temple Emanu-El and Edip Yuksel, a leader of a local Islamic group look on as chef Janos Wilder, right, explains the Jerusalem-inspired meals in front of them at Downtown Kitchen and Cocktails, 135 S 6th Ave., on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2014, in downtown, Tucson, Ariz. As he rolls out new menus featuring cuisine of different countries, Wilder invited the three religious leaders for a conversation of religion and food.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Shown in 2015, James Beard Award-winning chef, Janos Wilder, owner of Downtown Kitchen + Cocktails, opened his Carriage House event space in what is now the Dragonfly Gallery, 146 E Broadway Blvd. Beth Daum, right, director of the gallery, re-opened the gallery in a space near North Fourth Avenue and University Blvd.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Chef Janos Wilder, and Food critic Charlotte Lowe-Bailey prepare broth, part of the recipe for blue corn crusted cabrilla (sea bass) with broth, in the Primavera foundation cookbook in 2000. They're in the kitchen of the J-bar, at Westin La Paloma resort.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder's restaurant in La Paloma in 1998.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder, owner of Janos Restaurant poses in front of his restaurant in downtown Tucson in 1994. The Tucson City Council voted 4-2 to put up $700,000 to keep the restaurant from moving out of the downtown Tucson Museum of Art complex.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Chef Janos Wilder shows the progress of a dark roux he is preparing for Red Chili Veloute that will be part of his Chorizo Chilaquiles dish during his City of Gastronomy Cooking Class demonstration at The Carriage House in 2016.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Janos Wilder, owner and chef of Janos in the kitchen area under construction at his new Janos at the Westin La Paloma Resort.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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The Janos Cooking School, brainchild of chef Janos Wilder, started in 2009.
Tucson chef Janos Wilder
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Employees from Downtown Kitchen and Cocktails create to-go meals at The Carriage House, 135 S. Sixth Ave., in Tucson, Ariz., on May 12, 2020. Janos Wilder, owner of The Carriage House and Downtown Kitchen and Cocktails, received a donation to help prepare 1,400 meals for Tucson Medical Center employees. The meal included two entrees and a desert.
Rick Wiley
Photo editor
As featured on
The Consorts recitals will feature eight True Concord vocalists accompanied by a pianist.
Seven months after temporarily closing due to COVID-19, celebrated Tucson chef Janos Wilder is closing his 10-year-old Downtown Kitchen + Cocktails restaurant for good.
Transplant will be next door to William and Travis Miller's Craft, A Modern Drinkery taproom on East Speedway.
