The 100 Best Places to Drink and Stay in Phoenix

A metal beaded curtain on the fourth floor of a downtown Marriott is not where you expect to find one of the country's better cocktail bars, and yet here we are. The menu arrives illustrated like a small field guide, one drawing per drink. The cocktails run from riffed classics to things you won't find elsewhere, with bar snacks serious enough to anchor a full evening. It won the Spirited Award for Best U.S. Hotel Bar in 2025, and a James Beard semifinalist nod followed.

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Winner · Best U.S. Hotel Bar
2. The Pinnacle Guide 1 Pin
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Hotel Bar

Cocktail menus organized light to full-bodied are a small kindness this bar extends before you've even ordered. Highball is a dimly lit cocktail bar on the second floor of a historic building in downtown Phoenix, doing the speakeasy thing with genuine commitment. Housemade ingredients show up throughout a lengthy menu where the flavor combinations tend toward the unexpected. A James Beard Outstanding Bar semifinalist, and a first-date spot that actually earns the designation.

1. Spirited Awards 2025 · Top 4 Finalist · U.S. Bartender of the Year · Libby Lingua
2. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar
3. Imbibe Where to Drink in Phoenix

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

The cabin is dressed in burnt orange and warm walnut, the windows show a looping blue-yonder reel, and a flight attendant is rolling the beverage cart your way. Carry On is an immersive cocktail lounge built around the first-class, Mad Men-era flight fantasy, preflight announcements and all. Reservations drop weekly and go fast, so plan accordingly. The Spirited Awards named it a Top 10 U.S. Nominee for Best New Cocktail Bar.

1. The 50 Best Bar Design Award
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best New Bar · Best of Phoenix
3. Imbibe Where to Drink in Phoenix

A hotel-within-a-hotel tucked behind The Phoenician, The Canyon Suites earns its Forbes Five Star as a quieter, more insular retreat from the main resort's bustle. Earth-toned rooms lean into the Sonoran setting, a private palm-fringed pool runs serene enough to hear pages turning, and the Canyon Lounge keeps a fire going for when the desert night reminds you it can actually get cold.

1. AAA Five Diamonds
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Winner: Barter & Shake · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Bar Team
3. Foodist Awards 2023 · Winner · Most Creative Handcrafted Cocktail

The digital windows scroll through passing landscapes while you sit inside a wood-paneled Presidential Pullman car that never moves, which is either the concept or the joke, possibly both. Platform 18 is a reservation-only immersive cocktail bar built around Prohibition-era drinks and Roaring Twenties New York. The Pinnacle Guide awarded it 2 Pins. Book ahead; walk-ins go nowhere fast.

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Winner: Barter & Shake · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Bar Team
3. Foodist Awards 2023 · Winner · Most Creative Handcrafted Cocktail

White-brick walls and wrought-iron accents give this luxury hotel a European resort feel that sits a little incongruously at the foot of Camelback Mountain, which is sort of the whole point. The ownership group includes an NBA star and a country legend, and the crowd has taken note. Art Deco rooms come stocked with hand-selected books, five restaurants range from poolside to rooftop, and the spa is serious about it. A Forbes Four Star and a Michelin Key.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. AAA Four Diamonds
3. Michelin Guide 1 Key

The whole room is built to look like the cargo hold of a 19th-century ship, portholes and all, which sets the stakes early at this immersive tiki bar on Indian School. The cocktail menu runs from classics to the team's own riffs on the genre, leaning into the full theatrical bit without apologizing for it. Phoenix New Times named it the city's top tiki bar, and the Spirited Awards put the bar team among the top four in the U.S.

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Winner: Barter & Shake · Outstanding Hospitality Group
2. Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 4 Finalist · Best U.S. Bar Team
3. Foodist Awards 2023 · Winner · Most Creative Handcrafted Cocktail

The annual menu at this downtown Phoenix cocktail bar arrives as a lavishly illustrated tome, and the bar takes its ice quality as seriously as its recipes. Ross Simon's self-stated motto is "whimsical as fuck," which coexists happily alongside one of the coldest martinis in the city, served in red-leather booths under tall ceilings. A Spirited Awards Regional Top 10 Honoree, it draws a queue worth joining online before you arrive.

1. The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
2. Imbibe Where to Drink in Phoenix
3. Eater The Best Bars in Phoenix

A converted cottage on McDowell Road that smells faintly of old rugs and good intentions, Sauvage is a natural wine bar and bottle shop where the list leans toward obscure regions and the staff will talk you through all of it. Charcuterie and tinned fish are always on hand, and local chefs occasionally pop up to cook. Esquire named it one of the best bars in America, which the room, unhurried and candlelit, seems entirely unbothered by.

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America
2. Eater The Best Bars in Phoenix
3. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

Two bars for the price of one obsession: an energetic street-level cantina with patio and a reservation-only basement room for quieter, deeper agave rabbit-holing. A food truck parks outside when hunger arrives. The agave selection runs wide enough that the bartenders will happily guide you in, and the cocktails, like a mezcal-and-pistachio-milk situation, suggest this is not your average tequila shelf.

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner · Outstanding Bar/Nightlife Experience
2. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Most Creative Handcrafted Cocktail Program
3. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Agave-Based Cocktails · Best of Phoenix

Casitas scattered across 40 desert acres make it easy to forget the other 209 guests exist. This Forbes Four Star, Michelin Key resort sits at the foot of Pinnacle Peak, where saguaros do the landscaping and Troon North's two golf courses are practically at the door. The pool is a genuine refuge from the Scottsdale heat, the spa runs Four Star as well, and Talavera handles dinner. Phoenix is a short drive whenever the desert quiet starts feeling too quiet.

1. AAA Five Diamonds
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
3. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Rows of towering palms line the drive up to this Spanish colonial resort sitting at the base of Camelback Mountain, and the inside follows through: Oriental rugs, deep saturated colors, and none of the beige Southwestern pastels you'll find everywhere else in Phoenix. Stone paths wind through orange groves and tucked-away courtyards. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key. It reads less like a hotel than like a very grand private home someone forgot to lock.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
3. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A Havana-via-Hemingway resort sitting just off Scottsdale's main drag, where the whole premise is that you're not in the Arizona desert, even when the Arizona desert is right there. Eight acres of hammocks and two pools, one with a sandy beach, do a lot of convincing. Rooms run Art Deco and mid-century, heavy on walnut and brass. The on-site restaurant serves Cuban-American food, and yes, craft cocktails arrive in pineapples.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. AAA Three Diamonds
3. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The rooftop lounge and the sandy palette both nod to Camelback Mountain, which gives this modern Hilton a more coherent design identity than most hotels in the Phoenix sprawl. Rooms are contemporary and quietly comfortable, with Cobre Kitchen + Cocktails and the open-air Outrider Rooftop Lounge on site. The real advantage is the address: Old Town Scottsdale is one of the few genuinely walkable neighborhoods in a metro that treats sidewalks as a theoretical concept.

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Five Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Esquire The Desert Martini · The Best Martinis in America
2. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Most Creative Handcrafted Cocktail Program
3. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

A faded pink building off Seventh Avenue, formerly a tax office, which tracks: there's something a little bureaucratic about a jukebox this good. Inside, the bar is cheap, loose, and happy to stay that way, with Scrabble at the booths and beers that don't require a budget meeting. The patio shifts into DJ territory after dark, and the rotating calendar of themed nights keeps regulars checking Instagram like it's homework.

1. Imbibe Where to Drink in Phoenix
2. Eater The Best Bars in Phoenix
3. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

A boutique hotel in a downtown Phoenix high-rise, which tells you something about how much the city center has changed lately. Rooms feel pulled together rather than chain-generic, and the location drops you into a neighborhood that has sprouted college campuses and light rail where there used to be very little reason to linger. A good base if you want Phoenix proper rather than a resort bubble somewhere out in the sprawl.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Three Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A waterfall that ignites with flames at night sets the tone for this sprawling desert resort, where four themed pools compete for your attention and two championship golf courses fill the gaps. At 950 rooms across 300 Sonoran Desert acres, "going back to the room" barely narrows things down. Eight restaurants mean you can avoid ever leaving, which, in Phoenix in July, is a feature not a flaw.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

Tucked between Mummy and Camelback mountains on 125 sprawling acres, this Scottsdale resort has been converting desert skeptics into desert devotees for generations. The 453 casitas and suites come with private patios, because nobody actually stays inside here. Golf, a spa, seven restaurants, and a pool complex keep the days full, but the move is a morning coffee somewhere among the flowerbeds while the birds sort out their business.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

Perched at the base of Camelback Mountain, this Scottsdale resort is less a renovation of the old Rat Pack haunt that once stood here than a complete reinvention, the original having been nearly leveled before the reboot. The result is a sleek, contemporary desert property where the mid-century glamour gets reimagined rather than preserved. It holds a Michelin Key, which in resort terms means the vibe and the views both earn their square footage.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Retro doorknob tassels stand in for standard "do not disturb" signs, which tells you pretty much everything about the vibe here. The REMI. is a hotel in North Scottsdale built for the kind of people who consider the pool deck a social obligation. Rockwell Group did the interiors, all leather headboards and powder-blue velvet, and the Allegra rooftop bar pulls sunset crowds on the 12th floor. Kauboi's yakitori-meets-sushi terrace and the F-16 diner round out a property that locals treat like a neighborhood.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The textile-block facade here carries a Frank Lloyd Wright fingerprint, which is a good conversation starter at check-in. The Arizona Biltmore is a grand historic resort in Phoenix's Biltmore district, a neighborhood the hotel effectively named. Old-money Arizonans and the occasional president have been regulars for generations, and the stained-glass skylights make it feel less like a hotel lobby and more like a very comfortable monument.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
3. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Luxury Resort · Best of Phoenix

You reach it by taking the middle elevator in the Ten-0-One Building down to the basement, which sets the tone before the doors even open. Rough Rider is a cocktail bar with a full food menu, done up in dark wood and high ceilings, somewhere between a Victorian gentlemen's club and a downtown Phoenix speakeasy. The drinks lean into the era with names like Happy Birthday Mr. President, and the kitchen sends out a raw bar and a bone-in pork chop that suggest nobody phoned it in.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Underground Restaurant · Best of Phoenix
2. Imbibe Where to Drink in Phoenix
3. Eater The Best Bars in Phoenix

A rooftop pool heated against the desert night, with cocktails and small plates at the poolside bar, is a reasonable argument for booking a room. The Camby is a design-forward hotel in Phoenix's Biltmore District, where rooms face either the city grid or the mountains depending on your preference. Downstairs there's a full dining room and a bar serving spiked teas for surviving the afternoon heat with dignity.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Three pools, one of them adults-only, and a complimentary nightly happy hour that arrives before anyone asks: Andaz Scottsdale is a resort that makes a convincing case for never leaving the property. The bungalow-style rooms keep things low-key and airy, the spa and a well-regarded restaurant called Weft + Warp are on-site, and the whole setup is designed so that the city outside quietly stops mattering.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
3. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Staycation Spot · Best of Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner · Outstanding Bar/Nightlife Experience
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix
3. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In Scottsdale

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

Sitting on Gila River Indian Community land about twenty miles outside Phoenix, this resort takes its setting as a design brief rather than a backdrop. The Pima and Maricopa tribes shape everything from the spa treatments to the restaurant menus, two Troon-managed golf courses look out over the Sierra Estrella Mountains, and an equestrian center will put you on a horse if the pools and wildlife trails haven't already claimed your afternoon.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

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

Arizona-focused taproom on Indian School Road where the tap list reads like a field guide to the state's small producers: Superstition Meadery, Stoic Cider, Wren House, Arizona Wilderness, all alongside limited releases from further afield. The vibe is beer-geek friendly without being beer-geek insufferable, and the staff can actually explain what's on without making you feel like a tourist in your own city.

1. Eater The Best Bars in Phoenix
2. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Five Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Five Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

Shelves of wine bottles line every wall of this small, happily unpretentious wine bar tucked into a strip mall on Indian School. The vibe is couch-and-conversation, the kind of place where you sit down next to strangers and somehow end up closing it down with them. The food menu runs to pimento cheese and Moroccan spiced meatballs, which is a perfectly reasonable way to soak up a second pour. Phoenix New Times named it one of the top 100 bars in the city.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Bottle Shop · Best of Phoenix
2. Eater The Best Bars in Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. Eater The Best Bars in Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

The walls at this dim Roosevelt Row cocktail lounge are lined with polaroids of patrons who've shed a little more than their inhibitions, all tasteful enough that you'd call it art if pressed. The drinks from the veteran team change often and lean experimental, which pairs nicely with the dark, slightly conspiratorial atmosphere. Named a Regional Top 10 Honoree at the Spirited Awards, it earns the recognition without trying too hard to.

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist · Top Mixologist/Bartender · Brenon Stuart
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Cocktails With a Side of Tasteful Nudity · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds

1. AAA Three Diamonds