👀 FIRST LOOK: Vecina McCormick Ranch

Some restaurant openings leave you wondering what the kitchen can do.

That really isn’t the question at Vecina.

Chef James Fox and his wife, Raenee Fox, already proved what Vecina could be when they opened the original Arcadia restaurant in 2019. Within a year, it had earned national attention as a James Beard Award semifinalist for Best New Restaurant. Phoenix New Times

So when Vecina opened its second location in McCormick Ranch on Sept. 18, the bigger question was:

We went to find out.

Vecina describes itself as a chef-driven, Modern American restaurant inspired by Latin flavors, using chiles, spices and ingredients from across Latin America to build a rotating menu designed largely around sharing. Vecina

That description is important because I w’t simply call this a Mexican restaurant.

You will see tacos.

You will see salsa.

You will see chiles everywhere.

But then you also get Japanese karaage, yuzu kosho, ceviche, Spanish influences, and other techniques that pull the menu in different directions.

The connective tissue is less about one particular country and more about acid, smoke, spice, and fire.

And a lot of that fire comes from the mesquite grill.

The Scottsdale restaurant takes over the former Z’Tejas space near Hayden Road and Via de Ventura.

That matters because anyone who remembers that building knows this is not a small room.

The new Vecina is roughly three times larger than the original Arcadia restaurant and gives the Foxes things they simply did not have room for before:

A much larger kitchen

Private dining areas

A mezzanine

Catering capabilities

More room for chef dinners and special events

and one of the biggest additions:

That extra kitchen space also gives Chef Fox more freedom to expand the menu with crudos, ceviches, oysters, and other dishes that would have been difficult to execute consistently in Arcadia’s tighter quarters. Axios

Despite being much larger, the goal was clearly not to turn Vecina into a giant Scottsdale restaurant that happens to share the same name.

Visual ties to Arcadia remain.

A custom mural from Phoenix artist Tato Caraveo frames the cocktail bar, and the design carries over Vecina’s contemporary neighborhood feel while giving the Scottsdale location a more expansive personality. AZFoothills.com

The bigger footprint changes the experience, though.

There is more movement.

More bar space.

More separation between dining areas.

And the lakeside patio gives this location something the original simply cannot duplicate.

If Arcadia Vecina feels like a neighborhood restaurant that became a destination, McCormick Ranch feels more like Vecina was finally given the room to grow into the destination it had already become.

Chef James Fox's cooking is still the heart of Vecina.

Several dishes made the trip from Arcadia.

This may be one of Vecina’s defining dishes.

The chicken is marinated with carne asada seasoning, fried until crisp, then served over aji amarillo sauce with citrus gastrique, togarashi and lime. The current menu lists it at $17. Vecina

It is exactly the kind of dish that explains Vecina in one plate.

Japanese technique.

Latin flavor.

Acid.

Heat.

Crunch.

It doesn’t fit neatly into one culinary box, and that is precisely the point.

Another returning favorite.

The salmon tacos combine yuzu kosho aioli, grapefruit, Cara Cara orange, and pink peppercorn on flour tortillas. The current menu lists them at $24. Vecina

That citrus does a lot of work.

The salmon and aioli make the dish rich, but the grapefruit and orange pull it back toward bright and fresh.

This is where Scottsdale starts to influence the menu.

Chef Fox has openly said he wants this dish to go toe-to-toe with Arizona steakhouses.

It is a 16-ounce mesquite-grilled prime carne asada ribeye with charred green onion, habanero pommes purée, and chimichurri. Axios

And honestly, putting a serious steak on this menu makes perfect sense in Scottsdale.

But this is still Vecina.

So instead of béarnaise and creamed spinach, you get mesquite, habanero, chimichurri, and that unmistakable Latin influence.

That is a much more interesting way to enter Scottsdale’s crowded steak conversation.

The current menu includes dishes such as:

White Bean Purée with crispy short rib and herb salad

Papas Verde with green chorizo, fingerling potatoes and tomatillo salsa

Elote with chorizo butter and lime crème fraîche

California Sea Bass Ceviche

Gambas al Ajillo

Duroc Pork Belly Tacos

Skirt Steak Tacos

Smoked Half Chicken

Adobo Duroc Pork Chop

and a limited-quantity Hiramasa Collar. Vecina

This is why I would tell readers not to go to Vecina expecting everyone to order an individual entrée.

The menu is much more fun when the table shares.

Order a few things.

Pass them around.

Argue about who gets the last bite.

That seems to be exactly how Vecina wants you to eat.

The grill is more than a cooking tool here.

It is part of the restaurant’s identity.

Chef Fox told Axios that the new kitchen gives him more room to experiment, and the larger McCormick Ranch space allows Vecina to lean even harder into mesquite-fired cooking. Axios

That smoke shows up across the menu without making everything taste the same.

The point is not simply:

“Look, we cooked this over fire.”

It is using smoke as another ingredient.

That's one reason Vecina feels different from many Scottsdale restaurants in the broadly defined “Latin-inspired” category.

The cocktail program moved too.

Beverage director Sloane Van Zanen brought over favorites including the Spicy Margarita and the grapefruit-rosemary Paloma, along with seasonal cocktails.

There is also a fun little McCormick Ranch connection.

Axios reported that Vecina planned a frozen cocktail inspired by Z’Tejas, the restaurant that occupied this space before it.

That is the kind of detail I like.

You don't need to erase a building's history to make it your own.

Sometimes acknowledging what was there before makes the new restaurant feel more connected to the neighborhood.

This may be one of the biggest advantages of the Scottsdale location.

The patio overlooks the lake, giving Vecina a setting the original Arcadia restaurant never had.

And now that Scottsdale patio season is arriving, that becomes a pretty big deal.

Mesquite-grilled food.

A Paloma.

A table overlooking the water.

McCormick Ranch has no shortage of restaurants, but that combination makes Vecina stand out.

I expect the patio will become one of the restaurant's most requested spaces once the weather fully cooperates.

This is the question that interested me most.

Many restaurants lose something when they expand.

Part of what makes the first location special is often the fact that it is small.

The limitations become part of its personality.

Vecina’s original Arcadia space had exactly those limitations.

Chef Fox has said the new Scottsdale restaurant was an opportunity to create things they simply didn't have room for there, while still protecting the neighborhood feel that made Vecina work in the first place. AZFoothills.com

That is a tricky balance.

The Scottsdale location is clearly more ambitious.

But it doesn't seem to be trying to turn Vecina into something completely different.

It feels more like:

One detail I love from Axios:

The dining room plays the same cumbia and Latin music that the cooks listen to in the kitchen. Axios

That sounds small.

But restaurant atmosphere is built on small decisions like that.

It keeps the room from feeling overly polished or corporate.

It still has some life.

Vecina coming to McCormick Ranch makes a lot of sense.

The original Arcadia restaurant built its reputation on food that doesn’t fit neatly into one category - mesquite smoke, Latin flavors, Japanese techniques, bright citrus, chiles, and dishes designed to be passed around the table.

Now Chef James Fox has a much bigger kitchen, a larger dining room and a lakeside patio to work with.

What interests us most is that the Scottsdale location doesn’t seem like a watered-down expansion built simply to duplicate what worked in Arcadia.

It looks like the opposite.

The larger kitchen has allowed Vecina to broaden the menu, lean further into mesquite cooking, and add dishes that make sense for Scottsdale, including that 16-ounce carne asada ribeye.

Taking over the old Z’Tejas space at McCormick Ranch gives the restaurant something completely different from the original location, room to become a true neighborhood destination.

That may ultimately be the biggest story here.

Vecina started as a relatively intimate neighborhood restaurant and earned national attention without trying to become a giant concept.

Now Scottsdale gets to see what happens when that same idea is given a much bigger stage.

The karaage is an obvious starting point.

Then the Faroe Island salmon tacos.

And if we’re sharing with the table, that mesquite-grilled carne asada ribeye is going in the middle.

Add a Paloma, grab a patio table when the weather cooperates, and you've got everything you need to make this a serious McCormick Ranch regular.

Vecina didn’t come to Scottsdale to simply open another location.

It came here with more room, more firepower, and a chance to show just how far the concept can go.

That keeps it clearly as Forking Scottsdale's editorial take, while avoiding any language that suggests you and Connie personally ate there or experienced the service. It also avoids awkwardly announcing that you haven't visited yet.

8300 N. Hayden Road
Scottsdale, AZ 85258

480-672-9522

Hours:
Daily: 4-9 p.m.

Vecina’s own website currently lists 4-9 p.m. daily. Experience Scottsdale lists 3-9 p.m., so I recommend using the restaurant’s hours unless Vecina confirms otherwise directly. Vecina

Happy Hour:
Daily: 4-6 p.m. Vecina