Chef de Tucson: Sam Allison, Arizona Inn

Tourism in Tucson typically slows in summer and that gives Allison and his staff time to create new menu items.

“The most interesting thing we’ve been working on this week is a new brunch menu with duck confit and waffles,” Allison said. “It’s a take on chicken and waffles, doing duck instead and doing a sriracha maple syrup. That’s where we’ve been this week. It has been all about changing brunch. The summertime allows us to change the menu a little more than we can when it is busy. It’s a more creative time.”

Allison also has been “playing around” with jackfruit. The largest tree-borne fruit in the world, jackfruit is a protein-rich fruit native to South and Southeast Asia. A single fruit can weigh between 10 and 100 pounds. At Arizona Inn, Allison is using it as a meat substitute in chipotle tacos and other dishes.

“It takes on whatever flavor you meld with it,” he said. “It has a very bland flavor and you add to it. A lot of people do it with curry. It has a meaty texture. If you cook it, it has the consistency of pulled pork.

“I like trying new things and incorporating traditional classical dishes and taking a new spin on them, a modern twist on old classics. Like taking beef bourguignon and changing some of the ingredients. Instead of beef, making it kind of a vegetarian style. That is something we were kind of playing with the jackfruit on trying to give it a new flavor.”

Forbidden rice is another ingredient Allison is incorporating into the Arizona Inn menu. A black rice, it has been eaten in regions of Asia for thousands of years. For centuries it was reserved for Chinese royalty. And he just ordered ancho chile powder so the house-made chorizo is prepared in the traditional style.

“We try to change the menu every two or three months and … we try to change the tasting menu every three to four weeks, and in the summer every couple weeks,” said Allison, who has worked at Arizona Inn for 15 years.

He started out as a banquet chef for the Inn, then moved up to sous chef, before becoming executive chef after Odell Baskerville left in 2009.

“I spent most of my life growing up in this place. Everyone is like family here, so it’s nice,” Allison said, who credits Baskerville for much of his success.

Baskerville, who succumbed to cancer July 21, started working at the boutique resort in 1998. He believed that what chefs were doing in New York and California could be achieved in Tucson and he pushed to elevate the menu at the Arizona Inn, Allison said. Baskerville helped the resort earn its first-ever AAA four-diamond ranking for the main dining room.

Baskerville “helped me get where I am today,” Allison said.

What is your earliest food or kitchen memory?

“The earliest thing I can think of is playing in the Playskool kitchen and whenever my friends would come over I would hide it and pretend it wasn’t mine.”

What made you want to be a chef?

“I love cooking. I love food, the camaraderie in the kitchen. It’s a very interesting place to work. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of hours. I loved doing it and it worked out.”

What about cooking do you love the most?

“We create everything from scratch here. All of our stuff is made in-house. All of our desserts are made in-house. All of our sandwich breads are made in-house. That’s kind of nice. We get to design all of our menus using fresh organic produce and organic grass-fed beef. The creativity is every day, always trying to do something bigger and better than what we did the day before.”

What is your favorite ingredient?

“It depends on what we are working on. Some people would say saffron. It’s a really good ingredient to add to a lot of different things. The easiest thing to do would be a rice or risotto, because then it kind of blooms more flavor into it. It is going to change the color. It’s going to change the flavor profile. It is going to give it a spicy flavor, not a hot spicy flavor, but a distinct flavor.”