Renowned Local Chef Commissions Artists for New Restaurant

Longtime chef and restaurateur Christopher Gross is something of an Arizona legend in his own right. And in his latest restaurant concept, Christopher’s at the Wrigley Mansion. Gross is incorporating art from another longtime Arizona original — Cosanti Originals.

Gross, highly attuned to presenting his dishes with the utmost attention to detail, has commissioned Cosanti, once home to pioneering architect Paolo Soleri and still touted for the collectible ceramic and bronze windbells and other unique handcrafted goods that are handmade there to date, to create some of the restaurant’s table wear. Spencer Smith and Chris Hardy created the ceramic wine coasters as well as bronze cloches that will be used for tableside presentation in the restaurant by way of the time-honored tradition that Cosanti artisans have been using since 1955, carving their own design motifs into each singular piece, making each one a true original.

The wine coasters used tableside at Christopher’s were made by a ceramics artisan at Cosanti with a unique hand-carved design boasting “C144” — the letter representing the C in “Christopher’s” and the numeral “144,” the mathematical interpretation of Chef Christopher’s surname, Gross. Adding geometric designs inspired by aerial geometric land grids and abstract angular shapes, the decorative and functional tile wine coasters are exclusive to Christopher’s.

Serving as an homage to Cosanti’s curved windbell shapes, the bronze master artisan at Cosanti created bronze cloches exclusively for Christopher’s to be both beautiful and functional. When lifted tableside to present a dish, the cloche is revealed to be a fully functional bell. Its unique design is inspired by the distinctive keystone at the summit of the domed ceramics studio at Arcosanti, the urban laboratory built by Soleri, which lies midway between Phoenix and Sedona. These unique Cosanti elements add a finishing touch of distinct Arizona flare to the presentation at Christopher’s at the Wrigley Mansion, another significant Arizona landmark with a legacy of its own.

Kelly Bird, Director of Marketing and Communications for the Cosanti Foundation and Cosanti Originals, is available to speak further about this collaboration of these Arizona legacies — Christopher Gross, the Wrigley Mansion and Cosanti — for news stories and television segments during which she can showcase similar and other unique masterpieces from the Cosanti Originals gallery.