The Top 100 Places to Eat Near Fire at Will

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Winner: Cast Iron Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist: Hush Burger · Most Crave-Worthy Burger
3. Foodist Awards 2024 · Winner: Hush Burger · Standout Signature Dish

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Maggiore Group · Outstanding Hospitality Group

A strip-mall address in Scottsdale is doing its best to throw you off, but step inside Course and it's a full tasting-menu restaurant, white-tablecloth intentions and all. The kitchen runs a rotating seasonal menu, five courses on weeknights and eight on weekends, with a James Beard semifinalist nomination for the chef and another for pastry. The Pinnacle Guide awarded it one Pin for 2026.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
2. USA Today Restaurants of the Year
3. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner · Exceptional Culinary Experience

1. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bakery
2. Phoenix New Times The 10 best breakfast spots in Phoenix
3. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

A banana leaf-wrapped branzino arrives at the table and you unwrap it yourself, releasing a cloud of curry-leaf steam. Indibar is a fine dining modern Indian restaurant, all desert neutrals and Art Deco curves, with the white-glove service of a high-end resort. The kitchen applies globe-spanning fine dining technique to tandoori and regional traditions. A James Beard Best New Restaurant semifinalist in 2026, and named by USA Today among its Restaurants of the Year.

1. USA Today Restaurants of the Year
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Phoenix New Times The top 50 restaurants in Phoenix right now

The oxtail Italian beef sandwich, melting with cheese and spiked with giardiniera, tells you right away what kind of chef is running this upscale New American kitchen. Hush is an intimate room in a Scottsdale strip mall, open kitchen sending smells out front, nostalgic rock at a volume that invites conversation. The menu shifts often, but the kitchen's touch with vegetables, fish, and meat stays constant. Reservations through Tock are a smart move.

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Winner: Cast Iron Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Phoenix New Times The top 50 restaurants in Phoenix right now

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Maggiore Group · Outstanding Hospitality Group

The broad patio sweeps out from a small turquoise-trimmed adobe inn with the Camelback range as a backdrop, which is doing a lot of work before the food even arrives. Lon's is a white-tablecloth Southwestern restaurant in Paradise Valley, seasonal and quietly inventive, with weekend brunch drawing the kind of crowd that lingers over customizable margaritas and monkey bread loaded with caramel and cream. The bar is serious, the mountain views are free.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner · Ultimate Patio Atmosphere
3. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Sticky Toffee Pudding · Most Delectable Dessert

The shelves of imported flour, olive oil, and canned goods are the first thing you navigate on the way to ordering lunch, which about sums up what Andreoli is: a north Scottsdale Italian grocer where the sit-down dining room is just as serious as the pantry. The chef hails from Calabria but ranges freely across the regions, and the whiteboard specials tend toward the kind of dishes that take some explaining. A James Beard nominee.

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Nominee · Best Chef: Southwest · Giovanni Scorzo
2. Phoenix New Times The top 50 restaurants in Phoenix right now
3. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner · Exceptional Culinary Experience
2. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Chef · Christopher Gross
3. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Phoenix Magazine Lobster Tarte · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Food Pioneer · Matt Carter
2. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Italian · Best of the Valley
3. Phoenix New Times The 12 best restaurants in Scottsdale

The line outside most mornings tells you what kind of place this is before you even smell the smoke. Little Miss BBQ is a Central Texas-style barbecue shop where the brisket gets sliced to order with a thick smoke ring, and the Thursday-only pastrami runs a deep, almost beet-red from its pepper rub. The Michelin Guide gave it a Bib Gourmand, and the team behind it earned a James Beard semifinalist nod.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Phoenix Magazine Pastrami · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona
3. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best Chef: Southwest · Scott Holmes

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants
2. Phoenix New Times The 10 best Indian restaurants in Phoenix

A tamale shop that sells exactly one thing, in more than twenty flavors. The family operation skips lard, gluten, and preservatives, and the masa shows it. Standards like beef red chile sit alongside spinach and cream cheese, a rotating monthly special, and dessert tamales for when you've already committed. Find them at the North Phoenix storefront on Cave Creek Road or at area farmers markets if the drive feels ambitious.

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Tamales · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Tamales · Best of Phoenix

Rotating TV screens overhead walk you through the menu before you've even sat down, which sets the tone for this welcoming Indian restaurant on the east side of Phoenix. The family behind it grew up in the restaurant business back in India and brought that instinct for hospitality with them. Dosa arrives shattering crisp, the malai kofta is deeply comforting, and the staff nudges you toward something unfamiliar if you let them.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Halal Restaurant · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Chai High · Best of the Valley

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner: Genuine Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Foodist Awards 2024 · Finalist: Genuine Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Food Pioneer · Matt Carter
2. Phoenix Magazine Dungeness Crab Salad · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist · Top Mixologist/Bartender · Abby Kate Larson

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Phenomenal Fast Casual Concept

1. AAA Four Diamonds

1. Wine Enthusiast Top 50 New Restaurants

A red mirrored hallway leads you down into this speakeasy-style cocktail lounge beneath a north Scottsdale restaurant, which is exactly the kind of entrance that makes people feel they've earned their drink. Inside, gold ceilings, red velvet drapes, and live music set a mood that commits fully to the bit. The cocktails lean sweet-and-savory strange, and small bites keep the evening going. Phoenix New Times named it Best Bar in 2025.

1. Industry Excellence Awards Bar of the Year
2. Sunset Better Bars · Where to Eat and Drink
3. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner · Iconic Speakeasy Experience

A wood-fired oven big enough to anchor the room sets the tone at this Neapolitan pizza restaurant in Scottsdale, where the dough is certified by the Verace Pizza Napoletana Association, which is Naples's way of saying they're watching. The menu fans out across Italian regional cooking, with a lean toward pasta, but the Margherita is the honest measure of the place. Outdoor spaces and a lively room mean the noise level is part of the deal.

1. 50 Top Pizza 50 Top Pizza USA Excellent Pizzerias

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Food Pioneer · Matt Carter

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner · Emerging Restaurant of the Year

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Finalist · Uniquely Arizona

The steaks arrive already drenched in butter, with truffle butter on standby if you feel that wasn't enough of a statement. Steak 44 is a high-end steakhouse on the north side of Phoenix that somehow sidesteps the usual corporate-vault atmosphere, landing closer to a neighborhood spot where the bar fills with regulars and families stake out booths for birthdays. The menu wanders past its brief with soft-shell crab in vanilla tempura alongside the expected shrimp cocktail.

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Steakhouse · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Steakhouse · Best of the Valley

The chef still works the line most nights, which tells you something about a creative restaurant that's been an Old Town Scottsdale fixture long enough to feel inevitable. Vegetables are taken seriously here, pulled from Arizona farms and steered through a menu that drifts from the Sonoran Desert to the Levant without announcing itself. The wine list leans hard into Arizona producers, and the tucked-away bar is a fine place to work through both.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Arizona Wine Selection · Best of Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Top Sushi Restaurant
2. Phoenix New Times Our top 12 favorite sushi restaurants in Phoenix

1. USA Today Restaurants of the Year
2. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants
3. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Milkshakes · Best of Phoenix

Chris Bianco's trattoria keeps a rotating pasta menu built around local flours matched to specific shapes, which sounds precious until you taste it. The kitchen runs classic cacio e pepe alongside whatever Arizona's season hands them, and the drink program goes equally deep into esoteric Italian amari and house-made liqueurs. The New York Times put it on their restaurant list, and the room feels like it earned that quietly.

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Food Pioneer · Chris Bianco
2. The New York Times The Restaurant List
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants
2. Phoenix Magazine Kash O'Bademjan · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

The tortas here are the size of a small architectural project, stacked high on soft telera rolls with combinations like fried beef, ham, egg, chorizo, and avocado all grilled together. This casual Mexican sandwich shop in Sunnyslope sprawls through several rooms, and the menu takes real time to navigate. The juice bar deserves equal attention, especially the agua cremosa, a condensed milk and fresh fruit drink that arrives under a paper umbrella, which feels right.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Tortas · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Tortas · Best of Phoenix
3. Eater Nopales Asado · The Most Iconic Dishes in Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Ultimate Patio Atmosphere
2. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The 10 best Chinese restaurants in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AAA Four Diamonds

1. AAA Four Diamonds

Leather booths, stone and copper accents, and woven rugs on the wall set the tone for a sit-down New Mexican restaurant that skews considerably more swanky than the cuisine's roadside reputation suggests. The marble bar is massive and the patio invites lingering, especially at brunch. Green chile shows up in nearly everything, from eggs Benedict to a pecan-wood-grilled cheeseburger, and the dinner menu runs to rack of lamb and enchiladas.

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Uniquely Arizona
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best New Mexico Cuisine · Best of Phoenix

Two-thirds of this coffee shop's floor space belongs to the roasting operation, not the tables, which tells you everything about where the priorities are. Bags of beans, multiple roasters, all the gear, and baristas who actually want to talk through the difference between a washed process and an unwashed one. The website specifies that specialty coffee newcomers are in a safe place here, and they mean it.

1. Phoenix New Times The 10 Best Coffee Shops in Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The 10 best coffee shops in Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist: In-Good Spirits · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Phoenix New Times Our top 12 favorite sushi restaurants in Phoenix

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist · Brunch With a Punch
3. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In Scottsdale

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist · Brunch With a Punch

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants
2. Phoenix New Times The top 10 burger joints in Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner: Genuine Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Foodist Awards 2024 · Finalist: Genuine Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Maggiore Group · Outstanding Hospitality Group

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Maggiore Group · Outstanding Hospitality Group

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Winner · Brunch With a Punch

Seafood flown in daily from both coasts and the Sea of Cortez keeps this polished seafood restaurant on Camelback Road from feeling like a landlocked afterthought. The dining room leans comfortable and upscale, the kind of place where booths fill with date-night couples while the bar handles happy hour with enough seriousness to earn a Best Happy Hour nod from Phoenix New Times. The cocktail list gets the same care as the fish.

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Finalist: Voodoo Fried Rice · Best Dish in a Supporting Role
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Happy Hour · Best of Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner: Double Burger · Most Crave-Worthy Burger
2. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants
3. Phoenix New Times The top 10 burger joints in Phoenix

Challah soaked in Grand Marnier, griddled until the sugar crust cracks like a crème brûlée top, is the thing people come back for at this Southern brunch spot in Scottsdale. Catfish and grits, chicken and waffles, and a waffle so light it barely holds its own weight round out a menu that swings comfortably between sweet and savory. Weekends bring a DJ and mimosas on every table; weekdays are quieter and the wait is shorter.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Brunch · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Brunch · Best of Phoenix

Six seats at the omakase counter is all you get, so book ahead. This intimate sushi shop in a north Phoenix strip mall, wedged between a frozen custard chain and a hearing aid center, runs a 12-to-14-piece nigiri tasting menu six nights a week. The chef, Osaka-born, keeps the fish list tight and seasonal. Walk-ins can still order nigiri and rolls at the surrounding tables, or take the omakase home packed into a bento box.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best High-End Takeout · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times Our top 12 favorite sushi restaurants in Phoenix

Floor-to-ceiling glass walls frame a sweeping Phoenix skyline view, which does most of the decorating in this contemporary fine dining room beside the historic Wrigley Mansion. The chef runs a live-fire kitchen where modern French technique shapes the menu, prix fixe on weekdays and a full tasting menu on weekends. The full-service bar has a direct sightline into the kitchen, so you can watch things catch fire while sipping something civilized.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Finalist: Genuine Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Lobstah Roll · Standout Signature Dish

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Common Ground Culinary · Outstanding Hospitality Group

Five varieties of mole anchor the menu at this Oaxacan restaurant in Sunnyslope, where a string-lit patio softens the strip-mall surroundings considerably. The cocktail list leans heavily on mezcal, with rare agave spirits showing up across most of the drinks. Phoenix New Times named it the city's top Oaxacan restaurant, and the mole negro has a following of its own.

1. Phoenix New Times The top 50 restaurants in Phoenix right now
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Oaxacan Restaurant · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Mole · Best of Phoenix

The Original Chopped Salad has its own Facebook page, which tells you something about the regulars here. Citizen Public House is a polished American restaurant in Old Town Scottsdale that manages to feel genuinely comfortable despite looking like it shouldn't. Classic dishes get quiet, confident upgrades, the room runs warm without trying too hard, and the kitchen keeps the kind of hours that make it useful for more than just dinner plans.

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist: In-Good Spirits · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Salad: The Original Chopped Salad · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The 12 best restaurants in Scottsdale

Red lights, pool tables, a game room, and flatbreads until 2 a.m.: The Little Woody refuses to be just one kind of place, and Arcadia has loved it for years because of that. It's a dive bar with cocktail lounge bones, where dart nights blur into dancing and the Gun Shy Sour keeps the bourbon crowd happy. Weekend nights draw a younger crowd who treat the arcade games as warmly as the drinks.

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner: Genuine Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Foodist Awards 2024 · Winner · Outstanding Bar/Nightlife Experience
3. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Outstanding Bar/Nightlife Experience

1. Phoenix New Times The 10 best breakfast spots in Phoenix

Cactus, olive trees, cream umbrellas, and a fountain doing its thing: the patio at Lon's is the whole reason to come for weekend brunch. The Old West dining room inside is a backup plan, not the goal. Southwest staples like chilaquiles and huevos rancheros share the menu with oysters and salmon Benedicts, which is a range that sounds odd until you're sitting there with a blood orange mimosa and stop caring.

1. Phoenix New Times The 10 best brunch restaurants in Phoenix

The name means "far from home," which tells you something about what the chef is doing here. This central Phoenix Thai restaurant draws on Bangkok street food and the cooking of the Isan region, with a tight menu of small plates, noodles, and skewers that reads like a personal dispatch rather than a crowd-pleasing survey. The cocktail program is serious enough to make parking on this stretch of Osborn Road feel like a design choice. A James Beard semifinalist, 2024.

1. USA Today Restaurants of the Year
2. Foodist Awards 2023 · Winner · Best World Flavors
3. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Mango Sticky Rice · Most Delectable Dessert

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Exceptional Culinary Experience
2. Phoenix New Times The top 50 restaurants in Phoenix right now
3. Phoenix Magazine Hiramasa Ceviche · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist: In-Good Spirits · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Phoenix Magazine Original Chopped Salad · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner: Genuine Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Foodist Awards 2024 · Finalist: Genuine Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants
2. Phoenix New Times The top 10 burger joints in Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Finalist: Voodoo Fried Rice · Best Dish in a Supporting Role
2. Phoenix Magazine New Orleans Shrimp and Grits · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

The box says "We are not affiliated with other Rainbow Donuts" before you've even opened it, which tells you something about the regulars here. This North Phoenix donut shop runs a classic menu of yeast and cake donuts, maple bars, fritters, crullers, and cinnamon rolls, all leaning fluffy and fresh without the cloying sweetness that plagues lesser cases. The Tiger Tail, chocolate and vanilla dough twisted together and glazed, is the one to start with.

1. Phoenix New Times A delicious dozen: The 12 best doughnut shops in the Valley

Tyson Cole's Austin-born Japanese fine dining concept has colonized Old Town Scottsdale, and the food makes it hard to resent the expansion. The menu runs well past sashimi and nigiri into tempura, grilled meats, and crudo, and you can order à la carte, build a tasting menu with your server, or hand over full control with an omakase. The room runs on polished service and the kind of care that makes a chain feel like a local obsession.

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner · Top Sushi Restaurant
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Place to Take a Foodie · Best of Phoenix

Desert-toned walls and a condensed, always-shifting wine list set the mood at this neo-bistro and wine bar on Seventh Street. The team pulls from old and new world bottles for both pours and a rotating spritz selection, while small plates from the kitchen give you a reason to stay for another glass. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar, it draws the kind of crowd that actually talks to the table next to them.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. The Infatuation The 20 Best Restaurants In Phoenix
3. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times A delicious dozen: The 12 best doughnut shops in the Valley

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist: In-Good Spirits · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Salad: The Original Chopped Salad · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix Magazine Lucky 7 Cereal Bowl · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

1. Phoenix New Times The 10 best breakfast spots in Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Food Pioneer · Chris Bianco
2. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Artisanal/Fancy Pizza · Best of the Valley
3. Phoenix Magazine Francesca's Meatball Sandwich · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

Cajeta pancakes topped with banana, crème fraîche, caramel, and candied peanuts are doing a lot of the heavy lifting at this colorful, homey Mexico City-style brunch spot in uptown Phoenix. The chef behind Gallo Blanco brings the same seriousness to chilaquiles and thick, crackling papas fritas. Weekend waits get real, so the attached coffee bar next door exists to make the line bearable. The salsas are not messing around.

1. Phoenix New Times The 10 best brunch restaurants in Phoenix
2. Eater Chilaquiles · The Most Iconic Dishes in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Upscale Indian Food · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The 10 best Indian restaurants in Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Finalist · Uniquely Arizona

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Common Ground Culinary · Outstanding Hospitality Group

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In Scottsdale

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Common Ground Culinary · Outstanding Hospitality Group

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Common Ground Culinary · Outstanding Hospitality Group

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Common Ground Culinary · Outstanding Hospitality Group

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Espresso Martini · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best New Pizza Hot Spot · Best of the Valley
3. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In Scottsdale

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Phenomenal Fast Casual Concept
2. Foodist Awards 2024 · Finalist: Thai Peanut Poke Bowl · Standout Signature Dish
3. Phoenix New Times The 12 best restaurants in Scottsdale

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner: Double Burger · Most Crave-Worthy Burger
2. Phoenix New Times The top 10 burger joints in Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner: Genuine Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Foodist Awards 2024 · Finalist: Genuine Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group
3. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

A globe-hopping dinner spot in Old Town Scottsdale built as a love letter to Anthony Bourdain, which means handmade pasta shares the menu with egg yolk nigiri and bison ribeye without any of it feeling like a theme park. The warm, conversation-friendly room earns its vibe. The bar team applies something closer to lab technique to the cocktails, and the mocktail program picked up a Phoenix Magazine Best of the Valley nod, which is a sentence Bourdain would have found deeply funny.

1. Phoenix New Times The top 50 restaurants in Phoenix right now
2. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Mocktail: Smartest Cocktail in the Room · Best of the Valley
3. Phoenix New Times The 12 best restaurants in Scottsdale

The burgers get a splash of red wine on the flat top, which is either the gimmick or the whole point depending on how you order. Harvey's is a neighborhood dive bar on 16th Street, bright green walls, pool table, jukebox, and cheap burgers that come with fries. Weekend happy hour runs weekend mornings, and last call stretches to midnight. The regulars who never needed a menu figured all this out a long time ago.

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Hamburgers · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The top 10 burger joints in Phoenix

1. Eater Tequila Sunrise · The Most Iconic Dishes in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Coffee Flavors · Best of Phoenix
2. AZ Central Best Uptown Phoenix coffee shops for working or studying · The ultimate guide to the best Phoenix cafes
3. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Music Playlist · Best of the Valley

A moody Old Town Scottsdale cocktail bar where the olive oil-washed dirty martini is only the beginning. The menu swings between arancini for two and a full table spread of ceviche, burrata, and pasta, and it changes often enough to reward regulars. The duck bolognese tossed with mafaldine and garlic crumble has become something of a signature. It reads equally well as a date bar or a group dinner, which is a harder trick than it sounds.

1. Phoenix New Times The top 50 restaurants in Phoenix right now
2. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Most Luxurious Meat Board · Best of the Valley
3. Phoenix New Times The 12 best restaurants in Scottsdale

Jackfruit quesabirria tacos with plant-based mozzarella are the headline at this vegan Mexican taco shop in the Arcadia neighborhood, a casual counter-order spot where the menu reads like any solid taqueria, right down to the bucket of Modelos. Burritos come stuffed with rice, beans, fries, and your pick of plant-based protein, which is either very 2010s or exactly what you wanted. The kind of place carnivores get dragged to and then quietly admit was fine.

1. Phoenix New Times The top 50 restaurants in Phoenix right now
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Vegan Mexican Food · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Vegan Mexican Food · Best of Phoenix

The family owns a 68-foot harpoon fishing boat that works the Pacific for swordfish, which is a more convincing sustainability pitch than a wall decal. This fast-casual seafood spot in Uptown Plaza keeps the fish never-frozen and the menu wide, running from poke bowls and swordfish tacos to grilled oysters and a lobster BLT on weekends. The chef earned a James Beard semifinalist nod in 2026, which is notable for a counter-service fish place.

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Finalist: Thai Peanut Poke Bowl · Standout Signature Dish
2. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Phenomenal Fast Casual Concept
3. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Emerging Restaurant of the Year
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Pizza With Puppies · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix Magazine 20-Layer Short Rib Lasagna · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times The top 10 burger joints in Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Emerging Restaurant of the Year

Thirteen seats arranged at an L-shaped bar set the scale here: this is a reservation-only omakase counter in Old Town Scottsdale, two seatings a night, no improvising. The chef behind it, Shinji Kurita, is a name Phoenicians say with a certain reverence. Courses run for about two hours, and the sake list includes a bottle priced like a used car, should the mood strike. A James Beard semifinalist for Outstanding Restaurant.

1. James Beard Awards 2022 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurant
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
3. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Japanese Restaurant · Best of Phoenix