Nearly 40 years ago, Vincent Guerithault opened his eponymous restaurant, Vincent on Camelback. Over the decades, it has hovered at the top in most listings of “bests” in the Valley, noted for its classic French dishes, Guerithault’s innovative mingling of Southwest flavors and ingredients with some of those foundational dishes, and his award-winning wine cellar.
Begun in an architect’s office building made up of a lot of little rooms, the restaurant has expanded, adding more small rooms while maintaining an intimate atmosphere evoking a comfy country home. A market bistro has been added at the back, and at one time, a farmer’s market operated there as well, until Covid forced its closure.
Today, guests flock to Vincent from across the nation to dine on cuisine prepared by the man the James Beard Foundation named America’s Best Chef, Southwest (1993), and semifinalist for Outstanding Chef (2008 and 2009).
Despite the accolades – the Republic of France named him an Officier de L’Ordre du Mérite Agricole in 2018, and he was inducted into the Arizona Culinary Hall of Fame in 1992 – he and his wife and partner, Leevon, welcome guests with low-key warmth and an atmosphere that is more homey than haute.
And their restaurant has helped spark a remarkable growth in the number and quality of dining places in the Valley, along with a blossoming of purveyors who are providing farm-to-table ingredients that are now menu staples.
Guerithault began his culinary career as a teenager in the low echelons of a classic French restaurant, learning how to prepare vegetables – creating perfectly turned potatoes into olive shapes, dicing precise cubes of onions, carrots and celery for mirepoix, mastering the mother sauces – and other fundamentals of French cuisine.
In the classic career path of his time, Guerithault labored his way up through layers of the kitchen hierarchy, his journey like stepping stones through in some of the finest restaurants in France, including L’Oustau de Baumanière in Les Baux de Provence, and Maxim’s and Fauchon in Paris.
He moved to the United States in 1976 and became sous chef at Le Francais, working under chef Jean Banchet at what was considered one of the finest French restaurants in the nation. Food lovers from across the nation – including this writer – made pilgrimages to Wheeling, near Chicago, for a meal there.
Ten years later, driven to a warmer clime by a particularly glacial blizzard, Guerithault moved to Phoenix, beginning his career in Oaxaca at Pinnacle Peak.
“That was when Pima was a dirt road,” he said. And yet, like in Wheeling, where patrons made a 45-minute drive from Chicago to dine at Le Francais, patrons made the dusty trek from Phoenix.
They were happy when he moved to North Central Phoenix – a much shorter drive.
“We took over in summer of ’85,” he said. “We didn’t know what we were doing. It was kind of scary when you look at it. We had so little money that we bought a lot of used equipment.”
Some of that equipment, now 50 years old, still is in use at Vincent.
“We started very small.”
That included the wine list, which in those early days had a long list of names but might only have a single bottle of the listed wine.
“You sell it, and the day after you have to buy another one,” Guerithault said. That grew, and the restaurant has received the Wine Spectator’s Best of Award of Excellence since 1997.
Guerithault’s experimentation with Southwestern influences, such as the duck confit tamale, was in part due to a very old friend, who had worked with him in those early days at L’Oustau de Baumanière: Wolfgang Puck.
They lost touch over the years, then reconnected in Los Angeles, at Spago. Puck was building a culinary empire and had some advice for Guerithault. “He said, ‘Why don’t you do something different? Don’t just do French, French, French.’ One of the pastry chefs there was from Arizona, and her parents owned a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix, La Piñata. They taught me how to do a tamale. I decided to do a duck tamale. Then a smoked salmon quesadilla.
“We try always to do something a bit different. We have a poblano chile stuffed with a duxelles of mushrooms with goat cheese and beurre blanc. We do a duck confit on the bone with different sauces, and we use the same duck, shredded, in a tamale, with raisins, diced poblanos and served with a little beurre blanc.”
The menu changes daily, and there are still French classics on the menu, such as rack of lamb – but with Southwest touch: pepper jelly. That’s a change from a previous iteration, where the server would ignite a sprig of dried rosemary to add fragrance to the lamb and a bit of wow to the presentation.
Cheesecake with pistachios(photo by Darryl Webb for North Central News) Checkerboard mousse cake, with berries as playing pieces(photo by Darryl Webb for North Central News) (photo by Darryl Webb for North Central News) Floating island with a cloud of caramel strands (photo by Darryl Webb for North Central News)
“Some people would go to the front desk and complain that someone was smoking something illegal,” Guerithault said.
On some evenings, when several tables ordered the lamb – a must-have favorite for long-time guests – the smoke got pretty heavy, so they had to make a change, thus the pepper jelly.
Floating island is a popular dessert, topped with a gauzy cloud of caramel strands, as is the pistachio cheesecake and an ingenious checkerboard mousse cake with layers of white and dark chocolate ganache between the mousse, with berries as playing pieces.
The restaurant added rooms over the years and operated a farmer’s market every Saturday morning for six or seven months every year for 29 years. It closed when COVID hit. “We don’t have enough people do it,” Guerithault said.
Guerithault has expanded his services to include catering and cooking classes. In June, classes include sweet and savory crepes, prepping and cooking duck, classic French sauces, Wellingtons and recipes with chicken. Check the website for dates.
“A lot of people ask how we have lasted 40 years,” Guerithault said. “It’s passion and being willing to work long hours and do creative things.”
A famed Parisian chef told him, “When I go to a restaurant, I want to meet the chef. If the chef is skinny and sad, doesn’t want to be there, the only thing I can do is to turn around and run.”
“You want someone who is happy to be there,” Guerithault said. For Vincent and Leevon, that’s been the case for four decades, and for the food lovers who have followed them all those decades, hopefully more.
Vincent on Camelback, 3930 E. Camelback Road, is open Wednesday through Saturday, starting at 5 p.m. Closing hours vary, depending on demand. For information, call 602-224-0225 or visit www.vincentsoncamelback.com. After a brief break, the bistro will re-open June 3.
