Plant-Centric…

Mesa Verde charts new culinary ground

Chef Greg Arnold and architect Jason Akraa, had a very important common vision when they set about opening their own restaurant: They wanted to create every last detail…from the menu, to the kitchen design, to the building itself, from scratch…”Custom made through and through,” they say. After more than a year of construction, vendor tastings and interviews for the ultimate staff, mesa Verde, featuring farm to table vegetarian food with a modern flair, was born. “opening a restaurant with the original architect is simply amazing,” says Arnold. “We solved design problems way ahead of time and got a space that is open, functional and pleasing to the eye. I’ve cooked in cramped, dark spaces before and the food probably suffered. This is a great space for creating great flavors.”

And flavor is what you get at mesa Verde. Arnold says his menu completely changes the common stereotypes of bland tasting vegetarian grazing and promises to “blow people’s minds” with his long list of locally sourced, flavor packed ingredients that gives his style a very modern version of vegetarian, plant based food. “I wanted to get the most out of the natural flavors using simple, but effective techniques that I’ve been lucky to learn from working with the best chefs in the world. I use whole foods cooked with love and I never try to mask the natural flavors.”

The flavors are a unique blending of entire mediterranean region. “It’s from morocco, egypt, South of france, Sicily… the whole middle east and then bringing those flavors all together, which is what’s unique. It’s not Spanish foods and it’s not middle eastern. It’s a mix of everything.” early crowd favorites include: fig, hummus and caramelized onion flatbread pizza that simply bursts with flavor! Arnold uses a gluten-free flour to make the crust much like the recipe called for hundreds of years ago as it was passed from generation to generation. “The sauces I make come from basic techniques that have been passed down from