Four years after founding Native Art Market in Old Town Scottsdale, Denise Rosales knew there was more to offer. Showcasing the state’s indigenous tribes through the lens of art and dance wasn’t a complete picture. What about food, too?
The Frybread Lounge opened in late August, right next door to Native Art Market. It’s open for lunch and dinner six days a week (closed Tuesdays).
“We brought to Old Town Scottsdale the authenticity of cultural experiences and our dancers,” says Rosales, who is the co-founder and owner along with her adult children. “We had always talked about how it would be cool to have an indigenous restaurant. We are the first and only indigenous-owned restaurant in Old Town Scottsdale."
While she knew sourcing from indigenous farmers and food artisans would be easy due to connections already made through Native Art Market, the missing piece was a chef who could weave it all together by developing a menu.
Rosales spoke with Sean Sherman, chef and owner of Owamni in Minneapolis, which won a James Beard Foundation Award for Best New Restaurant in 2022, and also operates Indigenous Food Lab in that same city, with an eye on training future indigenous chefs. Sherman was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and is Oglala Lakota Sioux. “He said he’d love to help get us started,” says Rosales.
This included hiring Darryl Montana as chef. Montana is a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, in the Sonoran Desert, 132 miles south of Scottsdale. “He was in Minneapolis [working with Sherman at Owamni],” explains Rosales, who says he was in Arizona visiting family in July when they spoke with him about opening The Frybread Lounge. “It was just fantastic timing.”
While she always wanted to see a restaurant next door to Native Art Market, Rosales didn’t think she’d be the operator. “When the space became available, we were looking for someone else to run it,” she says. “I have very little kitchen experience other than my own home and gatherings on the Navajo reservation, but nothing like a restaurant. We were looking for somebody who had more experience. We couldn’t find anyone right away. I finally said, ‘We’ll do the project and find our way around it.’”
What sets The Frybread Lounge apart is sourcing indigenous ingredients not just from Arizona, but across the U.S.
“Darryl was actually well connected to these resources because of Owamni,” says Rosales. “That was our concept: working with different communities. It brought all the indigenous culinary people together.” For example, wild rice from Minnesota’s Red Lake area, elk from Montana, and bison from throughout South Dakota and Montana.
Closer to home, heirloom tepary beans are sourced from Ramona Farms on the Gila River Indian Reservation 39 miles south of Scottsdale. Blue cornmeal and juniper ash stem from the Navajo Nation, also in Arizona. Blue Bird Flour made by Cortez Milling Co. in Cortez, Colorado, is used to make the frybread, including for frybread tacos. “The producers are not indigenous but it’s very common for the Navajo people [to use],” says Rosales. “We understand that it’s not indigenous produced.”
How this translates into the menu is creating somewhat familiar dishes that surprise diners. On the Rez Charcuterie Board are indigenous meats such as boar and elk, plus salami, jams, and pickled onions. For the Res Dog, “the hot dog is wrapped in fry bread. It’s a different experience,” says Rosales. “The bison hot dog tastes so different than a regular hot dog. It has more of a beefy taste.”
Hominy corn is an ingredient on the menu—in the Three Sisters Salad and Calabacitas on Wild Rice—that represents unaltered, unprocessed food. “Hominy corn is actually a corn that hasn’t been modified. It’s in its original state,” says Rosales.
While the space is not as large as Native Art Market, which can host dance performances, solo artists such as singers and flute players accompany the dining experience. “It gives artists in the music world more opportunity to showcase their music,” says Rosales. “It gives a more authentic feel.”
To make this a full-service restaurant, there’s a full bar. Spirits are culled from throughout the Southwest, like Rolling Still Vodka, a woman- and family-owned distillery in Taos, New Mexico, sourcing ingredients from small, family-owned farms. Their lavender vodka is in the restaurant’s “Canyon Winds” cocktail. Similarly, Canyon Diablo Spirits and Distillery in Flagstaff, Arizona, supplies its Desert Rain Gin for a cocktail called “Painted Desert.” Non-alcoholic drinks include piñon coffee roasted in New Mexico and inspired by piñon nuts, and Sweet Wandering herbal tea (sweet grass, sweet clover, milky oat top, damiana and hawthorn leaf and blossom) from Anahata Herbals in Minnesota.
To help bridge the gap, if diners haven’t sampled indigenous food before, waitstaff are trained to answer questions, and printed materials on the table feature fun facts about indigenous foods.
Whenever possible, Montana chimes in, moving out of the kitchen and into the front of the house.
“Darryl actually comes out to the table and talks to people about the food and explains where the food comes from and how it’s sourced,” says Rosales.
It’s that direct link to the restaurant that keeps diners coming back. “It’s something different, something new," says Rosales. "It’s an experience for them."
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