Two Kitchens Built Around Fire Are Remaking North Scottsdale Road

"I've been doing this long enough to know you don't rush fire," KUZA executive chef Erik Davila told Arizona Foothills Magazine a week before his restaurant opened. "Cooking over charcoal takes patience. We're keeping the food focused on simplicity and technique. Let the fire do the work."

That quote also describes what is happening to a short stretch of Scottsdale Road north of the Central Arizona Project canal. Two addresses there have changed hands within weeks of each other. One was a day club and the other a chain Italian grill. The new tenants are a Japanese robata room and the first U.S. outpost of a rustic Sonoran kitchen whose hometown version cooks over mesquite. If you live in North Scottsdale, the reason to drive to this part of Scottsdale Road at dinnertime has changed. It is now the cooking.

Three Addresses on One Stretch

Here is where things stand as of September 30, 2026.

Quiriego is on the northeast corner of Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard, just north of the CAP canal. KUZA and The Americano are a few doors apart farther north, at 17767 and 17797.

KUZA Puts the Grill in the Middle of the Room

KUZA comes from Clive Collective, the hospitality group behind Cala. It opened September 16. The menu is built around a binchōtan-fired robata grill, a raw bar and sushi. The open kitchen puts the fire at the center of the dining room, and seafood arrives from Tokyo twice a week.

The dishes that have gotten the most attention so far:

• Chicken Negima, glazed again and again and turned over charcoal until the sauce caramelizes
• Market Robata Prawns with a red kosho-yuzu glaze and house-smoked sea salt
• Spanish Grilled Octopus, slow-cooked, then charred on the robata and served with harissa honey and a Japanese-inspired aguachile
• Chutoro Tataki and Iberico Pork Dumplings among the starters
• Grilled lion's mane mushrooms, A5 Wagyu, and a prawn roll filled with robata shrimp, scallion, cucumber and radish sprout

Clive Collective co-founder and managing partner Mikis Troyan said the group "wanted to create something immersive; an experience built around the theater of live fire, exceptional ingredients and a dining room that evolves as the night goes on." Forking Scottsdale went to the private preview and came away with the same impression. Their First Look describes a dark room, music, cocktails and "that glowing robata grill putting fire, smoke, and a little theater into dinner." They summed it up by saying KUZA "isn't really trying to be another traditional sushi restaurant. It's trying to be a night out."

KUZA is also the first opening from the slate of new restaurants and bars Clive Collective announced in May 2025. The rest of that slate is somewhere else. Ada, Love Call and a spin-off called Kuza Tori are planned for downtown, and a second Cala is planned for the Paradise Valley Mall redevelopment. For now, this stretch of Scottsdale Road has the group's flagship robata room, and the downtown version will come later.

What Used to Fill Suite 100

The space KUZA moved into had a very different job. Chauncey Social was an indoor-outdoor concept that Phoenix New Times called "part restaurant, part day club, all vibe." It belonged to Evening Entertainment Group, the company behind Bottled Blonde, Backyard, Casa Amigos and RnR Gastropub, and it closed on April 1, 2025.

That makes about seventeen and a half months between Chauncey Social's last day and KUZA's first. The building is still a place to spend an evening. What draws you there has moved from the patio scene to the grill.

KUZA also lands right next to the busiest nightlife on the block. Tell Your Friends opened in May 2024 underneath The Americano at 17797 N. Scottsdale Road, and you reach it by a hidden staircase. The bar launched as a partnership between Creation Hospitality, which owns The Americano and Mora Italian, and Clive Collective. Chef Beau MacMillan created its small-bites menu. The Americano opened in February 2020.

With KUZA open, a single parking lot now covers a steakhouse-style dinner room, a basement cocktail bar and a robata grill. You can plan an evening across all three without moving the car.

Quiriego Carries a Hermosillo Kitchen North

The second change is at the canal end of the stretch, and it is the one with the longer backstory. Quiriego is taking over the former Carrabba's Italian Grill at 17007 N. Scottsdale Road. The Arizona Republic describes it as an upscale Mexican restaurant opening its first U.S. location.

The original Quiriego is in Hermosillo, Sonora. It is part of a complex called Marsella 45 and Casa Abeyta, which combines a boutique hotel with a restaurant serving rustic Sonoran cooking. According to Proyecto Puente, a Sonora news outlet, the project belongs to the Abeyta family. Mario Abeyta leads it with chef Carlos Abeyta and other relatives. The restaurant is named for El Quiriego, the Sonoran town their grandmother came from.

The Hermosillo location is housed in a historic home that once belonged to former Sonora governor Álvaro Obregón Tapia. The family bought it in 2013 and 2014 and spent several years turning it into a hotel and dining space. Proyecto Puente describes the kitchen this way:

carne asada, tortillas de harina hechas a mano, chiles asados y el uso de leña de mezquite

That translates to carne asada, handmade flour tortillas, roasted chiles and mesquite firewood. The concept has already expanded beyond Hermosillo to Mexicali, and Scottsdale is its first move into the United States.

The Scottsdale menu hasn't been published, so it's too early to say how much of that mesquite cooking makes the trip. The restaurant's own site describes it as a cocina rústica, "traditional flavors rescued and cooked with the freshest local ingredients of the day." The site lists three parts to the concept: rustic Sonoran cooking, signature cocktails and wines, and a bakery making traditional breads and desserts. Put that next to KUZA's binchōtan grill, and the two biggest arrivals on this stretch are both kitchens where the cooking method is the main draw.

Where Each One Stands Today

The timing is still moving, so here is the status of each address on the last day of September.

1. KUZA is open. It has been serving since September 16, and reservations are on OpenTable.
2. Quiriego has started its soft opening. Katz Design Group confirmed a September 28 soft-opening date to Forking Scottsdale. On September 28, Scottsdale Scoop ran the item under the headline "Quiriego Restaurant Opens in North Scottsdale," and by September 29 local coverage was describing the restaurant as open. The restaurant's site at quiriegorestaurant.com still reads "Opening Soon" and offers an email signup for a notice "right when our doors open." Check the site or call ahead for hours and reservations during these first weeks.
3. The Americano and Tell Your Friends are unchanged. Book ahead for Tell Your Friends. Reservations were recommended when it opened, and Phoenix New Times expected it "to be a scene."

The timing also lines up with the rest of the Scottsdale dining calendar. Forking Scottsdale's September 17 issue covered KUZA's opening, Vecina's arrival in McCormick Ranch the next day, and the start of Arizona Restaurant Week, all in a single week. With Quiriego's soft opening coming twelve days after KUZA's debut, this stretch picked up two new places to book in less than two weeks.

If you're watching how restaurant turnover along Scottsdale Road affects the neighborhoods around it, or you'd like a local read on the corridor before your next move, Brent Votroubek follows these openings closely and is easy to reach. Let's Connect.