Chilte

Squid ink at the tortilla press

Squid ink darkens the tortilla before Lawrence “LT” Smith, chef at Chilte in Downtown, Phoenix, folds birria into the plate. His station began outside this room, with Chilte Tacos at the Mesa Farmers Market in September 2020, where Smith and Aseret Arroyo worked with a grill and tortilla press after cooking from commissary kitchens in Tempe. The early weeks were thin, sometimes low or no sales, but the hand-pressed tortillas, quesabirria, and chorizo pastor gave the project its first rhythm.

Smith’s path into the kitchen came after football with the Indianapolis Colts and culinary school, then work under Beau MacMillan at elements, Alex Stratta at Match, and at Tempe Public Market alongside Rene Andrade. At Chilte, which opened inside the rehabbed Egyptian Motor Hotel on Grand Avenue in February 2023, that history settles into a controlled kind of movement. Arroyo’s Sinaloan and LA background sits close to the food, along with references Smith and Arroyo draw from Mexico, the Southwest, Guadalajara, the Yucatan, and the Japanese thread present in Sinaloan cooking.

Mole, miso consommé, and heat with a line

The cooking calls itself new school Mexican eats, but the method is more exact than the phrase suggests. Birria tacos arrive on Benny Blanco or squid ink tortillas with queso, onions, cabbage, miso consommé, and salsa guero. Mole de la Casa changes with the kitchen’s hand, carrying flautas du jour, chipotle cashew crema, slaw, onion, and queso fresco. The Southwest Hot Chicken Crunchwrap folds regional spice into a familiar format, then lets the seasoning do the work.

Smith keeps the menu in motion through small plates and à la carte dishes: yuca frites with Buddha’s Hand aioli and furikake, a Santa Quesadilla with hoja santa, queso asadero, chiltepin, and salsa verde, or Argentine prawns in prickly pear chocolate aguachile. Chapulines, Oaxacan ants, huitlacoche, chiltepin, salsa macha, brown buttered hominy, and mushroom miso all belong to the same bench here. The point is not fusion as decoration. It is a search for common pressure points, where acid, smoke, masa, chile, and broth can carry more than one memory at once.

The room inside the Egyptian Motor Hotel

The room has an old Arizona motel charge: compact, bright, a little kitsch, with Egypt meets Mexico detail around the counter and a bar close enough to feel part of the pass. Chilte’s service stays upscale casual, but the food keeps the tempo of a market stand. Plates move quickly. The room answers back.

That setting matters because the restaurant did not leave its first form behind. The tortilla press, the grill, the birria, and the habit of changing course still read in the way the kitchen works. National attention has followed, including Food & Wine Best New Chef recognition for Smith in 2024 and a James Beard Emerging Chef Semifinalist nod in 2024, but Chilte’s clearest argument remains the plate in front of the guest: mole, masa, heat, and the black pull of squid ink birria tacos.