👀 FIRST LOOK: Quiriego

Quiriego Cocina Rústica has made its U.S. debut in North Scottsdale, bringing a family-run restaurant from Sonora to Arizona with live-fire cooking, a striking new space, and a philosophy built around something surprisingly simple: food should remind you of home.

Some restaurants want to impress you with something you've never tasted before.

Quiriego wants you to remember something you already know.

Maybe it's a chile roasting over a flame. A piece of meat coming off the grill. A sauce that tastes strangely familiar. Or that moment when you take a bite and think, I remember my grandmother making something like this.

That sense of memory is central to the story behind Quiriego Cocina Rústica, the new Sonoran restaurant now in its soft-opening phase at Scottsdale Road and Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard.

We visited Quiriego on Saturday for an early look, and while the restaurant is still finding its rhythm, we left understanding that this isn't simply another Mexican restaurant opening in Scottsdale.

It's a family story that started in Sonora.

At the center of Quiriego is the Abeyta family.

Mario Abeyta leads the family project, with chef Carlos Abeyta and other relatives helping bring the concept to life. The restaurant opened in Hermosillo in 2019 and has since expanded to Mexicali before crossing the border to Scottsdale.

But the story goes back much further than 2019.

The restaurant's identity is tied to the family's roots and the cooking they grew up around. Reporting on the Abeyta family describes Quiriego's food as inspired by home cooking, regional traditions, and the family's grandmother, who came from El Quiriego, Sonora. Club Lado

That's where the restaurant gets its name.

And that family connection helps explain what Quiriego is trying to accomplish with its food.

It's not necessarily about recreating Grandma's exact recipe.

It's about recreating the feeling of it.

That moment when a flavor, smell, or texture transports you somewhere else.

"I remember my granny used to make this dish just like this."

Or:

"That flavor reminds me of something we used to eat growing up."

Food has an incredible ability to do that, and Quiriego wants those memories to be part of the dining experience.

The cooking draws heavily from Sonoran traditions, including grilled meats, roasted chiles, handmade tortillas, and cooking with mesquite wood. Club Lado

For Scottsdale, that gives Quiriego something important right out of the gate.

It has a story to tell.

Quiriego began in Hermosillo, Sonora, before expanding to Mexicali, Baja California.

Now the Abeyta family has brought the restaurant north for its first U.S. location.

And they didn't exactly choose a small space for their Scottsdale debut.

Quiriego has taken over the former Carrabba's Italian Grill at 17007 N. Scottsdale Road, at the corner of Scottsdale Road and Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard.

The restaurant encompasses 9,200 GSF, or gross square feet, according to the project's architectural team.

That's really all you need to know about the number.

What matters when you walk through the doors is what they did with it.

If you remember this building as Carrabba's, forget it.

The transformation is dramatic.

Merge Architectural Group designed the project, with Katz Design Group handling the interiors. Interior designer Beth Katz spent nearly two years working on Quiriego alongside Merge and Laurshan Construction.

The finished restaurant is warm, contemporary, and polished without losing the rustic elements that connect it back to the food.

Wood plays a major role throughout the room. So do black architectural details, ceramics, textured surfaces, custom lighting, and open shelving.

One of our favorite details comes almost immediately.

The host stand incorporates a beautiful natural wood slab within a sweeping dark structure. It's functional, but it also feels like art.

The restaurant is large, yet the design keeps it from feeling like one enormous dining hall. Different materials, lighting, and architectural elements create smaller spaces within the room.

There are details everywhere you look.

This wasn't a matter of changing some paint, bringing in new tables, and covering up the remnants of Carrabba's.

They completely reimagined the building.

And just when you're settling into a restaurant built around rustic Sonoran cooking, wood, fire, and family traditions...

A robot rolls by.

Yes, really.

Quiriego is using an autonomous indoor food-delivery robot to help move dishes through the restaurant.

Considering the size of the space, it actually makes sense.

The robot isn't replacing the servers. It's there to help move food around the restaurant, allowing the service team to spend more time interacting with guests.

Still, seeing it for the first time is a little surreal.

There is something wonderfully Quiriego about watching food inspired by generations of Sonoran cooking travel across the dining room with the help of a robot.

Old traditions meet new technology.

We have a feeling plenty of phones will come out when diners see it cruising by.

The menu describes Quiriego as "a contemporary expression of Sonora, shaped by live fire, bold flavors and the generous hospitality of Northern Mexico."

That's a pretty accurate description of what they're going for.

Fire is everywhere.

Meats, seafood, vegetables, and chiles all find their way to the grill or live fire in one form or another.

During the current soft opening, Quiriego is serving approximately 70% of its eventual menu, so what we're seeing right now is still just a preview of where the kitchen is headed.

A few dishes give you a good sense of the direction.

There's Pulpo a las Brasas, with slow-braised octopus finished over live fire, and Cocido Sonorense al Fuego, a house-braised short rib surrounded by fire-roasted vegetables.

One of the more unexpected items is the Sonoran Pizza, made with naturally fermented dough, roasted garlic tomato sauce, Sonoran cheese, grilled Snake River Farms skirt steak, roasted green chile, and chiltepín.

Even cabbage gets the live-fire treatment.

And that's where Quiriego gets interesting.

They're not trying to create a museum of traditional Sonoran dishes.

They're using those flavors and techniques as a starting point, then allowing the kitchen to have some fun with them.

The same approach carries over to the cocktails.

The Flor de Hermosillo immediately caught our attention, combining clarified dark rum, coconut purée, orange liqueur, agave, and hibiscus.

There's also a Horchata Espresso Martini, along with Quiriego's takes on the margarita and paloma.

The cocktail list isn't enormous right now, but neither is the food menu.

That's intentional.

Quiriego is still in soft opening, and the restaurant is giving itself room to learn before everything rolls out.

Our Saturday visit wasn't perfect.

There were some hiccups.

But we're not going to spend a First Look picking apart every one of them, because doing that would miss the point of what is happening right now.

This is a soft opening.

Restaurants do this because you can't learn everything until real customers start walking through the doors.

You can train a staff for weeks, practice dishes in the kitchen and rehearse service.

Then Saturday night happens.

What impressed us was the response.

When something didn't go quite right, the Quiriego team wanted to hear about it.

Not the obligatory "How was everything?" as you're walking out the door.

They genuinely wanted feedback.

They listened.

They asked questions.

And we got the impression that they're willing to make changes when something isn't working.

That's exactly what we'd hope to see from a restaurant during this stage.

They're learning Scottsdale while Scottsdale is learning them.

For all the attention the beautiful dining room, robot, and live-fire kitchen will probably receive, the part of Quiriego's story we find most interesting is much simpler.

Memory.

Almost everyone has a food like that.

Maybe your grandmother made it.

Maybe it came from a restaurant your family visited when you were young.

Maybe it's something you ate while traveling that you haven't tasted in 20 years.

Then one day, completely unexpectedly, you taste something similar.

For a second, you're right back there.

That's what the Abeyta family wants Quiriego to evoke.

The dishes don't necessarily have to be exactly what your grandmother cooked. They want the flavors, aromas, and experience to trigger that familiar feeling.

And maybe that's why bringing Quiriego from Sonora to Arizona makes sense.

The restaurant may be new to Scottsdale.

The memories behind it aren't.

Yes, Quiriego is still in its soft-opening phase. The team is learning, adjusting, and listening.

But let's not let all that talk about a soft opening overshadow something important.

We really enjoyed the food.

In fact, several days later, we're still talking about it.

My wife is still talking about the octopus she had. You know a dish made an impression when you're home days later, and someone suddenly says, "I keep thinking about that octopus."

For me, it was the charred and smoked Caesar salad.

I can still taste the smokiness.

There's something about the smoke and char that takes what could have been just another Caesar salad and gives it a completely different personality. It's one of those dishes that sticks with you, and I'm already looking forward to going back and ordering it again.

And that's probably the best compliment we can give Quiriego after a First Look.

We're already talking about what we'll order next time.

For me, that's the Sonoran Pizza.

I looked at it on the menu Saturday and didn't order it. Now I wish I had. Naturally fermented dough, Sonoran cheese, grilled skirt steak, fire-roasted green chile and chiltepín - that's absolutely happening on our next visit.

Maybe that's where Quiriego's whole idea about food and memory starts to make sense.

The Abeyta family wants you to leave remembering a flavor. Something that makes you think about a meal you had growing up, your grandmother's cooking, a trip you took years ago, or simply something so good that you can't stop thinking about it afterward.

We didn't grow up eating Quiriego's food in Sonora.

But days after our first visit, we're still talking about that octopus and that smoky Caesar salad.

Maybe they're already accomplishing exactly what they set out to do.

Quiriego still has some growing to do as it moves through its soft opening, and we're looking forward to seeing what happens as the rest of the menu arrives and the restaurant settles into its rhythm.

But there's no question about whether we'll be back, and you can visit during the soft opening or after- up to you.

We already know what we're ordering.

A chance to see a restaurant while its story is just beginning in Scottsdale.

17007 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, Arizona
Scottsdale Road & Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard

(480) 944-7001
Reservations: Soon, they will be on OpenTable

Cuisine: Contemporary Sonoran / Cocina Rústica
Status: Soft opening
Current menu: Approximately 70% of the planned menu
Architecture: Merge Architectural Group
Interior Design: Katz Design Group
Construction: Laurshan Construction
Project: 9,200 GSF (gross square feet)
Previous location: Carrabba's Italian Grill
Scottsdale distinction: Quiriego's first U.S. location