The Best Places in Phoenix

Guinness signs and hand-drawn maps of Ireland cover the walls of this Irish pub and restaurant in the far western suburbs of Phoenix. Fish and chips, corned beef and cabbage, and a full Irish breakfast on weekends anchor the menu. Bartenders know regulars by name, and the event calendar stays busy with live music, karaoke, and trivia nights, which is a lot to offer a neighborhood that doesn't always get this kind of attention.

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Irish Pub · Best of Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

The floor doesn't fill until after midnight, which tells you everything about the kind of night Karamba is built for. It's a Latino gay nightclub where dancers in little more than underwear work elevated platforms while the DJs do the heavy lifting, threading reggaeton into club classics into top 40 without a seam. The pours are generous enough that an Uber home counts as planning ahead, not an afterthought. Phoenix New Times named it the best after-hours dance spot in town.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best After-Hours Dance Spot · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best After-Hours Dance Spot · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

The sour program leans into nostalgic flavors both real and invented, with a pastel blue Star Wars-inspired sipper sitting comfortably beside a margarita sour. This neighborhood craft brewery in northeast Phoenix rotates its taps aggressively, and the owner's laugh tends to reach you before he does. Food trucks cover the kitchen gap while a ramen bar next door remains perpetually forthcoming. A good room for people who treat tap lists the way others treat wine menus.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Place to Take a Geek Who Loves Beer · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

A dark, sleek wine bar in Old Town Scottsdale pouring from Arizona's Willcox region, which Wine Enthusiast has been calling the next Napa with a straight face for years. Co-owner Pavle Milic also runs the beverage program at Charleen Badman's FnB, so the pedigree is real. Bar staff are genuinely gregarious about helping you navigate a glass or flight, while regulars who never need to ask fill the other stools.

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Tasting Room · Best of Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Piano Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

Cash only, dark inside, and on any given night you might have to squeeze past a metal band unloading gear in the parking lot just to get through the door. Palo Verde is a Tempe dive bar where construction workers in hi-vis vests share the rail with ASU newcomers and neighborhood lifers. Drinks are cheap and poured strong, and the bartender has your order memorized before you've taken your jacket off.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Dive Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

A craft brewery taproom in north Scottsdale that solved the age-old standoff between beer nerds and sports fans by simply installing TVs everywhere. The brewmaster leans toward classic European styles, rotating Czech lagers, English milds, and an Oktoberfest marzen through the taps. The covered patio connects to a permanent BBQ food trailer, so there's no reason to leave at halftime. Phoenix New Times named it Best New Brewery of 2025.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best New Brewery · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

The 12 tap handles are mounted in a repurposed fire truck behind the bar, which tells you everything you need to know about the vibe. Roosters is a country bar that's been an East Valley institution forever, with a red-and-black checkered dance floor, pool tables, live music most nights, open mics, and karaoke. A second stage and beer tubs sit out on the smoking patio. Strangers introduce you to their friends before the first round is done.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Bar for Country Music · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

Pint glasses hang from the ceiling and dollar bills plaster the columns at this Irish pub tucked into the back of a downtown Phoenix hotel. The menu runs shepherd's pie, fish and chips, and beef stew, with Guinness on draft doing most of the heavy lifting. A jug of apple pie shots on the bar suggests the night can go a few different directions. Phoenix New Times named it one of the top 100 bars in the city in 2025.

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Irish Pub · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

Eighteen floors above Mill Avenue, this open-air rooftop bar and pool lounge sits atop The Westin Tempe, claiming the highest perch of any outdoor bar in the Valley. The bar itself is the only covered spot up there, so order first, then wander the full 360 degrees: A Mountain one way, the Mill Avenue Bridge glowing at night the other. Seasonal cocktails and local Arizona beers do the heavy lifting, with flatbreads and tacos for ballast.

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Rooftop Bar · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Rooftop Bar · Best of Phoenix

Shrek raves, all-trans oil wrestling, and Christmas burlesque in July: the weekly calendar at this LGBTQ bar on 7th Avenue reads like a dare. The dance floor splits the difference between intimate and actually dancing, surrounded by decor that suggests Dracula discovered neon. The back patio exists for the moment you want to learn someone's name. Karaoke, drag brunch, and gothed-out Wednesday nights fill in the gaps.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best ’80s Night · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

Named for the roadside pit stops where Indian truck drivers fuel up on cheap, filling food, this casual Punjabi restaurant in Tempe takes the concept seriously: long menu, affordable prices, homemade breads, and tandoori meats that smell like someone's actually cooking back there. The thali is the move if you want the full picture, chai and dessert included. Street snacks, deep-fried things, and curry round out a menu that rewards indecision.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Neighborhood Indian Spot · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The 10 best Indian restaurants in Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times Our top 10 favorite restaurants in Tempe

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix
2. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Second-Hand Name · Best of the Valley

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

A red light on a side street marks the entrance, and from there you're following the speakeasy script to the letter: website password, narrow hallway, bookcase door. What's behind it is a dark cocktail bar with leather seating, Victorian details, and locked cabinets of private-label spirits. The drinks lean technical, with bacon fat-washed bourbon and toasted tortilla bitters among the building blocks. The kind of place that makes suburbanites feel delightfully conspiratorial.

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Speakeasy · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

A photo wall of Diana Taurasi greets you at the door, which tells you everything about what kind of sports bar this is. Planted in Phoenix's Melrose district, Title 9 is a beer bar and grill built around women's athletics, with imagery spanning players to sports journalists across every wall. The color palette reads as a quiet nod to the lesbian pride flag, a detail that fits the neighborhood perfectly.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best New Sports Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

The cocktail list pulls from the shelves around you, which tells you exactly what kind of place this is: part upscale liquor store, part proper bar, and committed to being both at once. Depending on which Phoenix-area location you land in, the extras might include a golf simulator, pinball, a pizzeria, or a cigar lounge. The drinks run from spritzes to stirred classics, and the bottles for sale are genuinely worth browsing.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Liquor Store · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Liquor Store · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Eater Sonoran Hot Dog · The Most Iconic Dishes in Phoenix
2. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Phoenix

The cemita poblana here comes stuffed with thinly pounded, breaded beef cutlet, which tells you immediately what kind of restaurant this is. El Rincon Poblano is a family-run Mexican spot in a strip mall off Thomas Road, with Pueblan art on pastel walls and a menu that goes well past mole. The taco arabe, pork carved off a trompo and folded into a near-translucent flour tortilla, is a lesson in where al pastor came from.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Pueblan Restaurant · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Pueblan Food · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The 10 best Mexican restaurants in Phoenix

A glass-enclosed bar stocked with specialty bottles sits inside what looks, from the outside, like a busy takeout window. George Yang's is a full-scale Chinese restaurant with spinning lazy Susans for big groups, cocktails for date night, and a sprawling menu that runs from orange chicken to a Kung Pao three-seafood dish that earns its own conversation. The kind of place that handles both a family reunion and a Tuesday equally well.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Canto-American Chinese Food · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The 10 best Chinese restaurants in Phoenix

A mirrored peacock spreads its feathers behind the bar, setting the tone for what this North Scottsdale spot is going for: upscale Indian dining with cocktails, high ceilings, and a room dressed for date night. Curries run from butter chicken to lamb vindaloo, the dal makhani is rich enough to warrant extra naan, and the shareable starters give you an excuse to linger. Phoenix New Times named it the city's top upscale Indian restaurant in 2025.

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

The lazy Susans are built into the tables, which tells you this is a big, convivial Chinese restaurant in Mesa that expects you to arrive hungry and in numbers. The menu swings wide, from Hunan-style heat and dry pot to roasted duck and dumplings, with enough Americanized classics to keep the table's one holdout happy. The takeout bags flying out the door suggest the neighborhood has already figured this place out.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Chinese Restaurant · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The 10 best Chinese restaurants in Phoenix

The rice gets as much attention as the fish, which tells you something about how seriously this strip-mall sushi spot takes its craft. Tucked into an Ahwatukee shopping center, Sushi Nakano turns out Edo-style nigiri and sashimi with meticulous sourcing and clean technique. American-style maki are on the list too, but catch the chef on a quiet night and ask what he's feeling, and the room rewards the curiosity.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Sushi · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times Our top 12 favorite sushi restaurants in 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

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist · Most Creative Handcrafted Cocktail

Mole negro shows up on nearly everything here, the rich, dark kind that takes days to make and coats burritos and chilaquiles alike. Alebrijes is a casual Oaxacan cafe in Litchfield Park with indoor tables, bar seats, and a shaded patio, the sort of place where the specials board does the real work. Concha French toast and coffee cocktails share menu space with pozole. Expect a wait, which the regulars seem entirely unbothered by.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Pazole · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The 10 best Mexican restaurants in Phoenix

Shokupan, the pillowy Japanese milk bread, is the anchor of this quiet strip mall pastry shop near Fujiya Market. The egg salad sandwich built on thick slices of it has a following all its own, and the matcha rolls, red bean buns, and strawberry cakes lean subtle rather than sweet. A couple of tables invite lingering over green tea cheesecake, but the filled crepes and melon pan tend to disappear early, so arriving with a plan is not the worst idea.

1. Eater The Best Bakeries in Phoenix, Arizona

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

A Bosnian bakery tucked into a North Phoenix strip mall, where burek, those spiral coils of housemade phyllo filled with beef, cheese, or spinach, arrives golden and still warm from the oven. Mornings also bring kifli, glossy pretzels, and soft rolls alongside sweets when available. Regulars fill the small space sipping coffee and talking in Bosnian, which tells you most of what you need to know. Hours are short and seating is limited, so treat it like a farmers market: go early, go often.

1. Eater The Best Bakeries in Phoenix, Arizona

A cash-only donut shop in South Phoenix with a name that sets expectations high and a vanilla-glazed old-fashioned that does not blink. The craggy cake ring stays light enough that the glaze is doing structural work, which is either alarming or impressive depending on your engineering background. The butterfly, a folded cinnamon roll under glaze and buttery crumble, gives you something to do while you think about ordering another old-fashioned.

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

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

The panda doughnut, a vanilla-glazed ring with split Oreos standing in as ears, is about as adventurous as this donut shop gets, and that's a compliment. Blooming Donuts keeps things traditional, turning out yeast and cake doughnuts that are sugared, glazed, or sprinkled. The cake variety has a crisp shell and a tender crumb that does most of the talking. Phoenix New Times named it Best Doughnuts in 2025. Pair one with the iced matcha boba latte and call it breakfast.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Doughnuts · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times A delicious dozen: The 12 best doughnut shops in the Valley

1. Phoenix New Times Our top 10 favorite restaurants in Tempe

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In Scottsdale

Mirror-glazed, multilayered pastries from a chef whose résumé includes Chez Panisse, Tartine, and Noma, now available at a small South Scottsdale walk-up bakery open Wednesday through Saturday evenings. Mark Chacón's desserts were already circulating through Phoenix's better cafes before he opened this shop, so the crowd showing up already knows what it wants. Top sellers go fast, which at these hours is less a warning than a scheduling note.

1. Eater The Best Bakeries in Phoenix, Arizona

A donut shop in Old Town Scottsdale that leans into vintage furniture and bright walls, making it feel more like a coffee shop than a bakery. The donuts themselves split the difference between cake and yeast, landing somewhere denser and breadlike, which gives toppings like strawberry shortcake crumbles or Lucky Charms marshmallows something to push against. The pizza donut and mac and cheese fritter are exactly as committed to the bit as they sound.

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

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Phoenix

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