BY JUSTIN LEE 34 JAVA MAGAZINE
Something happened to Flagstaff. Once a repository for all-too-familiar roadside eateries and any-town franchises catering to unconcerned lowlanders on layover, Flagstaff is now enjoying a very big moment in food. From dining to booze and of-the-moment culinary culture, if you don’t already know—go. It’s an insider’s paradise no more. The corporate dining scourge along the city’s main drag, Milton Road, remains inescapable for those who eschew thoughtful effort, but a few turns off-track open up a high-spirited mountain city on the rise. Restless, talented young chefs, resourceful culinary minds, and forward-thinking entrepreneurs are gravitating and taking root in a community once established as a dining afterthought, even for locals. For weekend pilgrims throughout Arizona, particularly those from the Phoenix area, Flagstaff has always been the effortless promised land: a quiet, even-tempered alpine go-to that is both a high-altitude shield to the summer’s frying sun, and a winter reward when 85 degrees in December feels like punishment for our sprawling suburban sins. Where Sedona feels exploited, Prescott is swamped in nostalgia, and the White Mountains in the eastern part of the state are, well, not ready for prime time, Flagstaff has always been the youthful, approachable choice in the middle—a simple transaction, the reward being the escape, and the contrast being the scenery and weather. Now, it’s also a dynamic place to eat and drink well. One commendable, if not oversold, trend at restaurants in buzzier markets is the idea of farm-to-table. At many of Flagstaff’s most relevant restaurants, both highend and everyday, before your food ever touches the plate, there’s a good chance that it isn’t just sourced in Arizona—it’s likely grown, foraged or plucked from within a few miles of your table. This fundamental ethos of food sourced locally and ethically is thankfully much more than menu rubber-stamp in Flagstaff. Beyond customary staples like local produce or farm-raised meats and poultry, Flagstaff chefs and restaurants want more to play with—from increasingly popular late-monsoon mushroom foraging to ingredients more fragile and temperamental, such as bitter greens, wild berries, edible flowers and, yes, crayfish. As the seasons change and bloom, it’s now a sport among top local chefs to explore the nature that surrounds them in a sort of rigorous experiment to find out what “Flagstaff food” truly means. Flagstaff’s most revered fine-dining altar to what can be used, deliciously abused and reimagined when it comes to northern Arizona’s bounty, Coppa Cafe has become a case study in tireless culinary creativity and experimentation. With menus that change as often as the weather outside, chef and co-owner Brian Konefal, along with his enthusiastic team, orchestrates one of the state’s most influential foraging programs. Konefal, in an act of bright-eyed determination, rummages neighboring foothills, valleys and forests almost daily for inspiration. Ingredients that don’t make that night’s cut often become laboratory-like fodder JAVA 35 MAGAZINE