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Inside Barrio Cafe in Phoenix: Chef Silvana says cooking was her 'calling'

After 16 years, the renowned chef at Barrio Cafe is adding a little something extra to the restaurant's popular Cochinita Pibil dish.

Today in AZ's Jimmy Q is bringing a special treat directly to your screens to start your workweek. He's going inside popular restaurants around the Valley and bringing these must-eats to your Monday.

The first stop is the kitchen at Barrio Cafe in Phoenix where head chef and owner Silvana Salcido Esparza is busy perfecting her craft.

Chef Silvana recently took a 17-state barbeque tour. And after 16 years, the renowned chef is adding a little something extra to the restaurant's popular Cochinita Pibil dish: smoke.

Silvana added a smoker box to Barrio's kitchen in order to get "even truer to the pit cooking that they do in Yucatán."

"I lived in Yucantan for a few months cooking with a Mayan family, learning how to cook their ancestral dish Cochinita Pibil," Silvana said. " But I always felt like I couldn't get the flavor 100 percent right because it was missing the number one ingredient in my opinion, smoke."

You can try Chef Silvana's new way of preparing Cochinita Pibil and all of the other delicious dishes at Barrio Cafe at 2814 N. 16th Street in Phoenix.

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