Tuesday, August 14, 7:00 P.M.
Members $85, guests $110

When Lenard Rubin named his latest culinary endeavor Medizona, fans and patrons knew they were in for something different. What exactly did the imaginative Rubin have in mind with his Mediterranean-inspired Southwestern cuisine? Picture starting with a salad of baby greens,goat cheese, almond-honey brittle, and balsamic-cactus vinaigrette; moving on to eggplant-lamb tacos or rabbit baklava (Zagat described the two as "strictly swoon material"); and finishing off with prickly pear tiramisu. Beginning to get the idea? As Elin Jeffords wrote in Arizona Food & Lifestyles, "Lenard Rubin goes where few other chefs dare, and he does it with consummate skill."

Rubin has a long history in what folks from Phoenix and environs affectionately call "The Valley." He has put in time in the kitchens of nearly every posh hotel in the area, including The Phoenician, The Ritz-Carlton (in Phoenix and in Boston, too), and the Inn at McCormick Ranch. The chef is as adventurous personally as he is in the kitchen. In the 1990s, he accepted an unusual job offer at the Nevsky Palace Hotel, a Russian landmark. He later moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow, where he oversaw 26 restaurants for Rosinter Restaurants. In 1997, Rubin returned to Arizona for a job as chef de cuisine at the lavish Scottsdale Princess Resort. Two years later, he gave up his comfortable corporate/resort cooking career to open a solo venture—Medizona.

In very short order, Medizona was named Best New Restaurant by several Valley publications, including Phoenix Magazine, The Arizona Republic, New Times, Get Out, and citysearch.com. National critics took notice, too. Last year, the place won a coveted spot on Esquire’s Best New Restaurants list. Explaining his choice, John Mariani praised Rubin’s "intense, gutsy cooking." Rubin, he noted, "works a Mediterranean palette with finesse and daring." Howard Seftel of the Arizona Republic agreed: "Meet daredevil Lenard Rubin. This chef’s new restaurant...takes chances and the diners are the winners."
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