Editor's note: Tucson bursts with exciting restaurants that have brought widespread attention to our city. Today, we begin an occasional series on the chefs who have helped shape that national reputation. First up: Suzana Davila, with Café Poca Cosa.
Step into Tucson's famed Café Poca Cosa first thing in the morning, and it feels like the party has already started. Latin jazz blares an infectious beat through the sleek, gray-and-burnt-orange restaurant nestled on an otherwise-dreary corner of Downtown.
Employees, friends and delivery people drop in — and sometimes it's hard to tell which is which. An impromptu dance has started in one corner; black-clad servers duck around to dust blinds and place cruets of salad dressing on the chocolate wood tables in anticipation of lunch. Spanish and English mix in conversations.
Here's where you'll find one of Tucson's top chefs, cafe owner Suzana Davila, swooping through her empire, tossing orders and distributing hugs, her chef's whites topped with a triple-strand necklace and a jaunty linen newsboy's cap. "It's food and music and color and life in general," Davila summarized her ruling passion. "To get up in the morning and say, 'What a wonderful day! Let's do it!' "
People are also reading…
From the tall vases filled with pomegranates and dried orange and red flowers to the little embroidered baskets holding tiny corn tortillas, this restaurant at 110 E. Pennington St. forms the natural habitat of a former model who has made an international reputation for her very particular ideas of great food and how to serve it.
"She actually feeds on the frenzy of a busy, crazy restaurant environment," said Arnaldo Mendez, who has known Davila since 1989. "That's when she feels best."
There's the chalkboard menu that changes twice daily, for lunch and dinner. There are the famous 26 different moles, at least a couple of which usually star at the table. Huge mixed salads of greens, fruits and veggies decorate every plate. The lethal cinnamon-laced chocolate mousse elicits moans from diners. Chef Davila herself — the president, secretary and sole stockholder in Café Poca Cosa Inc. — may be busing tables or straightening chairs.
And there are the things you don't find at Café Poca Cosa. No appetizers. No side dishes, except for rice and beans served family-style. No choice of foods on the famous Plato, a chef's choice of three dishes (although if your server happens to overhear you longing to taste a certain dish, it may just happen to appear).
In the catchphrase of the moment, Davila says her food "is what it is. If you want a plain chicken breast, I'll make you a reservation somewhere else. You are here for the experience." She added, "You come to Café Poca Cosa, forget about what you had anywhere else."
"She is such a unique individual, and her restaurants are the embodiment of her soul, her dreams and aspirations," said fellow restaurateur Janos Wilder, owner of Janos and J-Bar at the Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa in the Catalina Foothills. Wilder has been a customer since Davila opened a hole-in-the-wall eatery almost two decades ago.
The holder of those dreams came to Tucson as a teenager some 35 years ago. Her father was in the restaurant business in Guaymas, Sonora, and her parents wanted education and a chance to learn English for their six children.
Suzana, the eldest daughter, launched a successful Tucson-based career as a fashion model. Nineteen years ago, she bought a tiny cafe on South Scott Avenue and went into the restaurant business with her father.
The little breakfast and lunch spot soon overflowed, drawing everyone from construction workers to Wilder. A couple of years later, Davila moved into a larger restaurant across the street, into a hotel at 88 E. Broadway. But Little Poca Cosa Café stayed in the family — today two of Davila's sisters run the eatery in new (but still cramped) quarters at 151 N. Stone Ave.
Davila bloomed in the funky restaurant space of bright colors, mismatched furniture and masks on the walls. Profiles and recommendations — a cover story in More magazine, blurbs in The New York Times, even in German guides to the Southwest — followed.
She became known as a demanding boss — but those who last appreciate her flexibility. One longtime employee compares the kitchen atmosphere to being at his grandparents' house, complete with a contingent of cooking aunts.
Hector Boneo, a friend since the little cafe first opened, admits he was reluctant to go to work for Davila — he came on part time in the kitchen in 1999 and full time in 2001 and is now a server.
"I had to understand, once you work for her, who the boss is," the Hermosillo native explained. "This place is unbelievably busy. You have to understand, she's a perfectionist. Sometimes we laugh, and sometimes we fight. It's like working for your mother. It's a roller coaster ride — it's up and it's down, but in the end, you've had fun."
When the hotel that housed her restaurant closed to convert to condos in 2005, Davila had plenty of opportunities to flee Downtown, but she chose to stay.
The new cafe opened on Feb. 23 of last year. Mayor Bob Walkup promptly gave Davila a Heart of Downtown Award to thank her for staying. He says he drops by to eat at least once a month — he always orders the "chocolate chicken," aka mole negro.
To anyone habituated to the old Poca Cosa, the new one is a shock. With its charcoal, chocolate and deep orange palette, its sleek lines and architectural touches, the new Poca Cosa is very uptown, very chic and not at all traditional Tucson.
But it somehow is very Davila.
"There's something about her that's very special; I see it time and time again. She attracts attention because she is a beautiful woman. . . . But she also likes the attention and knows the attention is drawn to her," Mendez said.
Offstage, Davila is private, and becoming more so. Since moving to a home in a historic Tucson neighborhood in 2003, she no longer allows publications to photograph her living space.
She's not a joiner — you won't find her name on the boards of restaurant associations or most other groups. What little free time she has tends to be spent with family. Daughter Shanali Stockstill is the Poca Cosa pastry chef; son Christopher Stockstill tends bar in the evenings.
But she gives a great deal to charity, in her own time and own way. She has built houses in Mexico and trained women from Oaxaca to run a restaurant. When she found a poor church congregation holding services in a cardboard box in her hometown of Guaymas, she built them a church, dedicated to Father Kino. Homeless passersby in Downtown Tucson may get a plate of food.
One recent morning at Café Poca Cosa, Davila called out delighted greetings to a young man who dropped in to visit. She sponsored his immigration as a teenager. Now he's a paramedic.
Mendez treasures her friendship. "A few days ago she comes in, says, 'I have something for you.' It was a cymbidium orchid plant just dripping orchids. Having her as a friend is like having this amazing cymbidium orchid in my life every day. She just brings amazing joy and beauty to my life."
Suzana Davila
• Age: 52.
• Family: Grown son and daughter.
• Home: Midtown.
• Culinary school: None, learned from father.
• Favorite Color: Red.
• Car: Lexus SUV.
• Favorite Holiday: Thanksgiving.
• Favorite restaurant: The Dish.
• Last meal: Mole, toasted tortillas, a huge salad with vegetables and vinaigrette and "I'd jump to my face in chocolate mousse."