What it is
Gallo Blanco is a taco cantina on a corner of Pierce Street in the Garfield Historic District, the neighborhood of early-1900s bungalows a mile east of downtown Phoenix’s core. It is owned and run by Doug Robson, a chef born and raised in Mexico City to a French-Vietnamese mother and a Scottish-English father, who came to Arizona for the Scottsdale Culinary Institute, cooked with Robert McGrath and at Michael’s at the Citadel, ran the kitchens at La Grande Orange and Chelsea’s Kitchen in Arcadia, and launched Gallo Blanco in 2009. The menu is street tacos, tortas and bowls, a weekend brunch that starts at 8, an unusually deep vegetarian section and a full bar, served fast in a room and a shaded patio that fill with the neighborhood. Robson also opened Otro Cafe in central Phoenix in 2013.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Scottsdale has plenty of cantinas, and our best Mexican restaurants note ranks them, from The Mission down. They are, nearly all of them, restaurants for a night out: big rooms, big margaritas, prices to match. Gallo Blanco is the other thing, a neighborhood cantina with a chef in the kitchen and neighborhood prices, a brunch that competes with anything on our brunch list, and a patio where children are expected. Do not drive 22 minutes for it alone. Drive 22 minutes for a downtown morning or afternoon, the Heard, Roosevelt Row, a day game, and make this the meal, because it will be the cheapest good one of the trip.
The practical version
Open daily, from 11 on weekdays and 8 on weekends, until 9 or 10 at night; brunch Saturday and Sunday 8 to 4; happy hour 3 to 6. Street parking on Pierce and the surrounding blocks. Walk-in friendly outside the weekend brunch rush. Twenty-two minutes from Old Town via McDowell Road; the light rail is a fifteen-minute walk, so this is a car trip.
When to go
October through April for the patio, which is the restaurant’s best room and the reason the neighborhood eats here. Weekend brunch is the signature meal and 8 AM, when the doors open, is the time: the patio is in shade, the kitchen is fresh, and the 10-to-noon wait has not formed. On weekdays, the happy hour from 3 to 6 is the value hour and the room is quiet. Summer moves everything inside, where the room is fine and the air conditioning is strong; brunch still works, just early.
What to order
Tacos first, two or three kinds across the table, with whatever the kitchen is doing with vegetables; the vegetarian list here is a real list, not a token, and it is where Robson’s cooking shows most. Tortas for the hungry. At brunch, order from both sides of the menu, the egg dishes and the tacos, and share. The bar does a proper margarita and the beer list is Mexican and local. Two people eat and drink well for the price of one Scottsdale cantina entrée with a cocktail.
With kids
This is the downtown Phoenix restaurant we send families to. The patio, the speed of the kitchen, the tacos, the neighborhood streets: all of it works with children, and weekend brunch is full of them. Matt’s Big Breakfast is a five-minute drive west if the group wants pancakes instead, and the Children’s Museum of Phoenix is between the two.
The neighborhood
Garfield is one of the historic districts that ring downtown Phoenix, a grid of restored bungalows and small Victorian cottages from the 1890s through the 1920s, with a few corner businesses, of which Gallo Blanco is the anchor. It is quiet, walkable, and a good illustration of what the inner Phoenix neighborhoods have become over the past two decades. Roosevelt Row and the light rail are a mile west; the Heard Museum is ten minutes by car.
The story
Doug Robson’s path to a cantina in Garfield ran through Scottsdale and Arcadia. He left Mexico City for San Antonio, then came to Arizona for the Scottsdale Culinary Institute, and spent his early career in the Valley’s serious kitchens, with Robert McGrath, the James Beard Award winner whose Roaring Fork defined Scottsdale’s Western-fine-dining moment, and at Michael’s at the Citadel in Pinnacle Peak. He then ran two of Arcadia’s defining restaurants, La Grande Orange and Chelsea’s Kitchen, before launching Gallo Blanco in 2009 with the idea of cooking the casual food he grew up with at a neighborhood price. Otro Cafe followed in central Phoenix in March 2013. Gallo Blanco’s move to the corner on Pierce Street made it the restaurant that proved the Garfield District could support one, and the neighborhood has filled in around it.
The Scottsdale connection
Robson is, in a real sense, a Scottsdale-trained chef: the culinary school was there, the formative kitchens were there and in Arcadia, and the restaurant he built is the thing Scottsdale’s own cantinas are not, which is cheap, chef-driven and built for a neighborhood rather than a night out. Our what to eat in Scottsdale note explains how the city’s Mexican dining skews toward the resort guest; Gallo Blanco is the counter-example twenty minutes away, and Bacanora, across downtown on Grand Avenue, is the other one, at the opposite end of the price scale.
Getting there
From Old Town, west on McDowell Road about seven miles to 9th or 10th Street, then south four blocks to Pierce Street; the restaurant is on the corner, with street parking on Pierce and the cross streets. The Garfield District’s streets are narrow and residential, so park considerately. The nearest light rail stop is at 12th Street and Washington, about a fifteen-minute walk, which makes this a car or rideshare trip; our getting around note has the math.