Chantico is a Mexican style restaurant, bar, and event space located in Phoenix Arizona close to the Biltmore area. Chantico is a sister restaurant of Ocotillo in Phoenix and Starlite BBQ in Scottsdale. The signs for Chantico are easy to miss when you are driving up Camelback Road to get there but when you see a large building with lots of trees and plants that resembles Ocotillo you are there.
Chantico is large with three main dining rooms, a few patios, a bar (maybe more bars?) and I noticed another smaller dining room. It looks like this when you walk in and you are asked if you want to sit at a table or a booth.
Behind this glass wall are the tables and behind this room is a patio. To the right is a large dining room that was closed at brunch time. The booths are in a bar area.
On the brunch menu are a long list of appetizers that sound like things that you might find on Ocotillo’s menu sometimes such as – a fancy detailed Chantico salad, spicy halibut ceviche, a beet dish, short rib appitizer, charred sweet potato, and grilled cauliflower.
The brunch dishes offer lots of variety……..You can get entrees like an anchiote chicken or a grilled New York steak. They have blue corn pancakes. They offer Mexican style dishes and some include eggs like burritos, chicken flautas, tyludas, chimiquiles, a shrimp relleno, and a pibil sandwich. If you order the Chantico Breakfast you get birria tacos, broth, scrambled and a beverage of coffee, agua fresco, or horchata. If you order the tacos you get three tacos that come with sour cream guacamole and your choice of sangria, Mexican beer, or a margarita.
Then they serve us fresh hot chips and salsas.
The chips are delicious. One salsa taste like ground tomatillos. The other salsa taste just like enchilada sauce.
We ordered and I picked the crispy chicken tacos and I picked the margarita that came with the tacos.
The margarita is really good! It’s made with fresh tasting juices. It’s better than some $12.00 margaritas from some places and it’s included with the $15.00 tacos..WOW!
We did order a grilled cauliflower appetizer but our brunch items came out first.
My husband tried the pibil sandwich.
It’s anchiote pork, scrambled eggs, grilled onion on a roll. It’s suppose to be spicy with habanero sauce but either they were extra light with the sauce or maybe the sauce might have been forgotten? A-OK here.
I got the crispy chicken tacos.
I got three good sized very crispy tacos with a good amount of sour cream and guacamole. This is a very large portion of food for brunch. The chicken in the tacos is tasty and crispy. (this is a lot of food and drink for only $15.)
It a good amount of breast meat fried crispy with skin topped with some shredded cabbage…..These tacos are kind of plain but you can add some of the salsas from the chips to add some additional flavors.
Then our grilled cauliflower arrives. Our server was very apologetic about forgetting to order the cauliflower. He said he was taking it off our bill. I said that he didn’t have to take it off but he did anyway.
The cauliflower has mole negro, tomatillo pico, cilantro and crispy corn on it. This is tasty and spicy……My husband added that this was much spicier than the pibil sandwich he had.
This was a little taste of brunch at Chantico in Phoenix AZ.
www.ChanticoPHX.com
Everything is subject to change
