The Best Places in Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Winner · Top Mixologist/Bartender · Kyla Hein

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Winner: Barter & Shake · Outstanding Hospitality Group

A fully plant-based burger shop where the patties, cheese, and buns are all vegan, yet every meat-eating friend you drag here tends to go quiet mid-bite. Counter service, casual prices, shopping plaza setting. The menu runs from a straightforward classic to pineapple or jalapeño-topped builds, with loaded fries worth the mess. Phoenix New Times has named it among the top burger joints in the metro two years running, vegan or otherwise.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Vegan Burger · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Vegan Restaurant · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The top 10 burger joints in Phoenix

Life-sized Spider-Man watches you eat your burger, which feels about right for a counter-service spot where the menu hangs on the wall and you can hear the flat-top sizzling from the register. The patties come on sweet King's Hawaiian rolls, loaded with things like mac and cheese or pastrami, while Marvel films loop on the TVs and kids work free arcade games. Gyros and other diner bites round out the menu for anyone not in a superhero mood.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Restaurant to Take a Geek · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The top 10 burger joints in Phoenix

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

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In Scottsdale

The attached market selling frozen pierogi and chilled soups to go tells you everything about the vibe here. This casual Ukrainian family restaurant in Mesa treats borders as a loose suggestion, pulling in beef goulash, plov over cumin-scented rice, pork schnitzel, and thick, buttery pierogi that pair well with griddled sausage. The chicken Kiev arrives loaded with dill and herb butter. Unpretentious, generous portions, and priced like someone actually wants you to come back.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Eastern European Restaurant · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Eastern European Restaurant · Best of Phoenix

Portraits of the late Queen and Buckingham Palace ephemera cover every surface, which tells you exactly what kind of pub this is. Footy on the TVs, jerseys and flags around the bar, bangers and mash from the kitchen, and a tap list that runs well past Guinness. The native-English owner has a story involving Bar Rescue's Jon Taffer that he'll gladly share on the patio, in language the royals would find bracing.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best British Pub · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best British Pub · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Wine Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Place to Take a Wine Geek · Best of Phoenix
3. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

Some Scottsdale hotels park the hot tub by the pool, which means sharing the water with strangers and their unexplained rashes. Scottsdale Parkview puts one in your room instead, spacious enough for two, in full view of the TV and the windows, the latter detail left to your judgment. It's a hotel that won a Phoenix New Times Best of Phoenix nod for exactly that setup, which tells you where the priorities are.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Hotel Rooms With Ensuite Hot Tubs · Best of Phoenix

Enormous screens cover the top half of a high-ceilinged room, with smaller ones tiling every corner so there is no bad angle on the game. Backyard is a sports bar and casual eats spot in north Phoenix, with a long beer list, wings, burgers, and pizza keeping things low-key. There is also a dog park on the premises, because apparently watching the game while your dog runs laps was a need that went unmet for too long.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Sports Bar · Best of Phoenix

The bureks sell out before the lunch rush is over, which tells you something about this family-run Balkan restaurant in north Phoenix. The menu runs to exactly the kind of southeastern European comfort food that improves overnight, including a goulash with mashed potatoes that does most of its best work as leftovers. Silky veal soup, warm lepinja flatbread, and a pastry case for dessert round out a meal that requires zero willpower to finish.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Balkan Restaurant · Best of Phoenix

A taco shop with a salsa bar that Phoenix New Times named the city's best in 2025, including a cilantro crema and a strawberry salsa that have no business working as well as they do. The menu is short, tacos and quesadillas and burros, but the kitchen pulls from across Mexico: cochinita pibil, Oaxacan black mole, Mexico City chicken tinga. Order the pecan horchata with fresh fruit before you leave.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Salsa Bar · Best of Phoenix

The DJs here spin actual vinyl, which means you hear the crackle before the beat drops. Spin Room is a music-driven cocktail lounge tucked into the CityScape complex downtown, built around a proper turntable setup and a crowd that came to dance. Sets run heavy on R&B, hip-hop, funk, and soul with a nostalgic lean. The full bar keeps things accessible, with cheap beers alongside named cocktails that match the throwback energy.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Vinyl Bar · Best of Phoenix

Doug Robson built his name on Mexican food at Gallo Blanco and Otro Cafe, then opened Tesota and threw the rulebook out entirely. The menu roams from poke to pasta to Asian noodles to chicken wings without apology, and the sunny Camelback Road room, all natural light and colorful paintings, makes the whole thing feel coherent somehow. A comfortable, come-as-you-are restaurant where the logic is less "theme" and more "make it well."

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Restaurant With a Little Bit of Everything · Best of Phoenix

The Ra Ra Room is a supper club tucked inside PHX Arena where entry runs $15,000 a year in membership fees, which means most people get in by befriending someone richer than themselves. Major Food Group runs the room, and the menu leans heavily on steaks and Italian. The real closer is the candy alcove at the end of the night, a small room stocked with lollipops, peanut brittle, and jelly beans that guests take home freely.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Restaurant You Can’t Get Into · Best of Phoenix

1. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix
2. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Brewery · Best of the Valley

1. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

A wine bar where you skip the sommelier entirely and pour your own glass from a sleek, self-serve kiosk loaded with 24 options, several of them from Arizona. You fund a chip card at the bar, pick your wine, choose one, three, or five ounces, and push the button. Former schoolteachers run the place, which might explain why the whole system is genuinely easy to figure out after one drink, or even before.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Wine on Tap · Best of Phoenix
2. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

The draw at this Thai bar and mookata spot is the tabletop grill sunk into a pot of bubbling broth, where you cook your own meal at the table. It lives on the patio behind Lom Wong, small and casual, with craft cocktails doing serious work alongside the smoke. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List, which is a lot of attention for a patio bar where dinner is technically a DIY project.

1. The New York Times 2024 · The Restaurant List
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Cook-It-Yourself Restaurant · Best of Phoenix
3. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

1. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

1. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

1. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

The house margarita comes classic or customized with a rotating cast of infusions, watermelon and mezcal being a popular pairing. This Jalisco Mexican restaurant on Main Street splits its attention evenly between the kitchen and the bar, with a cocktail program run by a veteran Valley bartender. The food leans into both traditional plates and the occasional fusion detour, and the whole thing has a chic, polished room that feels a little more considered than your average neighborhood spot.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Margaritas · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix Magazine Street Corn Queso · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Most Creative Use of Tallow · Best of the Valley
2. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Pork Jowl · Best of the Valley
3. Phoenix Magazine Pork Belly · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

A blue-and-gold accent wall is doing a lot of work inside what looks, from the parking lot, like absolutely nothing. This Mexican neveria in a north Phoenix strip mall serves raspados in flavors that run well past the usual strawberry and tamarind, and the horchata version, cold and cinnamony, has a following. Elote bowls round out the menu. Phoenix New Times named it the city's top neveria.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Aguas Frescas · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Neveria · Best of Phoenix

The wooden furniture and décor came over from Ethiopia, and the feel of the room followed. This kitchen and bar on McDowell Road serves Ethiopian combinations the right way, on a wide round plate loaded with stews, greens, and a scoop of homemade cheese that cools things down. The injera does its job as utensil and bread at once. Order for the table and let it fill up; solo dining works, but barely.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Ethiopian Restaurant · Best of Phoenix

Those signature mason jars show up in restaurants, corner stores, and gas stations across the Valley, which tells you something about how Phoenix feels about this lemonade brand. Every batch is boiled and hot-filled the old-school way, skipping preservatives entirely. Classic lemonade anchors the lineup, but prickly pear and rotating seasonal flavors keep regulars checking for the next drop. Find it at their Phoenix shop or grab a jar wherever you already are.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Lemonade · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Burger Joint · Best of the Valley

A zoot suiter painted on the exterior wall does the welcoming at this variety shop on McDowell, where oldies blast and the shelves run deep with lowrider clothing, posters, accessories, and original Homies figurines packed in tight. It's a corner store rooted in Chicano and lowrider culture, the kind of place that feels less like retail and more like dropping in on someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Chicano Shop · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Place to Have Quiche for Breakfast · Best of the Valley

The shelves here hold Virgin of Guadalupe candles alongside powders for luck or love, Florida water, and statues of the Seven African Powers, which gives you a sense of the range. This is a Mexican botanica and natural remedies shop serving practitioners of Catholicism, Santería, and a few other traditions, as well as anyone whose lung tea is running low. The staff fields questions without making you feel like an outsider, which helps when you're not sure what you need.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Yerberia · Best of Phoenix

The side-pull tap that delivers a European-style pour with an extra few inches of foam is a good signal of what kind of taproom this is. Catalyst leans into big, playful styles, including sours, imperials, and hoppy IPAs, alongside a rotating cast of more traditional options. An in-house kitchen called S.A.L.T. handles food, and there's a generous patio when the weather cooperates, which in Tempe is most of the year.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best New Brewery · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Most Surprising Spot for an Espresso Martini · Best of the Valley

The green chile enchiladas arrive with a tight zigzag of crema piped over the top, which tells you something about how seriously this neighborhood Mexican spot takes even the modest stuff. Chef Leo Madrigal slow-cooks the pork barbacoa-style until it's yielding enough to disappear into the green chile sauce. Corn tortillas, beans, pico-topped rice, melted cheese, the whole plate quietly assembled and not trying to impress anyone, which is exactly why it does.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Return · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Sanctuary for Food Nerds · Best of the Valley

A bakery and coffee café where a pastry chef known for laminated doughs and a coffee roaster behind some of the Valley's better seasonal lattes have joined forces, with a bread baker trained at San Francisco's Tartine rounding out the team. The collaboration covers a lot of ground, and the range of talent in one room means you can justify a second order before you've finished the first.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Collaboration · Best of Phoenix

A counter-service wing spot on the west side where the fryer does most of the talking. Wings come out plump and crisp, then get sauced or dry-rubbed, and the curry dry rub has a way of turning fingers an incriminating shade of yellow. The rest of the menu leans into the fryer too, with onion rings, egg rolls, and beignets to round things out. Phoenix New Times named it the best chicken wings in Phoenix in 2025.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Chicken Wings · Best of Phoenix

A small-batch ice cream shop inside a converted Quonset hut in Gilbert's Barnone complex, with a rotating handful of flavors that leans toward combinations like date and orange blossom or strawberry and rose water. The menu is short by design, and classics like mint chip share the case with vegan sorbets. You won't find thirty tubs here, which turns out to be beside the point when each one is this carefully made.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Ice Cream · Best of Phoenix

A hot dog shop tucked inside a bar on 16th Street, Der Wurst builds every preservative-free sausage on pretzel buns from a local bakery and links from Schreiner's Fine Sausages down the road. The menu leans into German biergarten energy, loaded dogs pulling from flavors across cultures, with names that will make your grandparents set down their reading glasses. Phoenix New Times named it the city's top spot for hot dogs in 2025.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Hot Dogs · Best of Phoenix

There's no sign out front, which is either a design choice or a test. Dick's Hideaway is a small New Mexican-leaning bar and grill tucked along 16th Street, where seated at the bar you can feel the heat off the open-flame grill. The bloody marys and margaritas have a following, and the green chile burger earns its real estate on the menu. Getting a table for five on a Friday requires more optimism than planning.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Actual Hidden Gem · Best of Phoenix

A bacon-wrapped hot dog forced into a charred, fluffy split-top roll under a parking lot tent, open from six in the evening until two in the morning. This beloved outdoor cart has been a late-night Phoenix institution forever, and the Sonoran hot dog it serves, loaded with beans, grilled onions, guacamole, cotija, and a generous zigzag of mayonnaise, is about as close to an Arizona signature dish as anything gets.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Sonoran Hot Dog · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Sonoran Hot Dog · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Mexican Sushi · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Mutant Tacos: Shrimp Tacos · Best of the Valley

A three-tiered cake stand of sandwiches, scones, and petits fours, served on antique bone china, is the move at this afternoon tea room tucked into the small desert town of Carefree. Thirty-plus loose-leaf varieties anchor the menu, and the kitchen also runs a proper lunch of jacket potatoes, smoked salmon quiche, and tea sandwiches. There's even a scaled-down Nursery Tea for children who have outgrown imaginary cups but not PB&J.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Tea Room · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Workday Lunch Break · Best of the Valley

A gelato shop in Old Town Scottsdale where the owner brought recipes from his hometown in southern Italy and hasn't wavered since. The flavors run classic, almond with orange, hazelnut, milk cream, plus dairy-free fruit options, and the affogato is the move if espresso is involved in your afternoon. The crowd is half tourists already pretending they're somewhere else, and the gelato gives them a reasonable case.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Gelato · Best of Phoenix

The flatbread menu alone runs past thirty varieties, which tells you something about priorities at this Levantine restaurant and bakery in Tempe. Manakeesh, slow-cooked meats, hummus, and baba ganoush fill out a menu rooted in the kind of food that takes real patience to make. The kenafa, a cheesy semolina pastry dessert, is the thing people come back for. Casual, inexpensive, and easy to overorder.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Middle Eastern Restaurant · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Middle Eastern Restaurant · Best of Phoenix

The faux-elegant dining room sets an ambitious tone for an all-you-can-eat Asian seafood buffet, and Harbor mostly keeps up with it. Fresh oysters, soft-shell crab, rolls, sashimi, and nigiri anchor the spread, while crab rangoon and pork buns handle the comfort-food side. The soft-serve machine is conspicuously absent, but a freezer case of single-serving treats softens the blow. Phoenix New Times named it the city's top Asian buffet in 2025.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Asian Buffet · Best of Phoenix

A one-pound schnitzel is quietly doing a lot of the marketing here. Haus Murphy's is an old-school German restaurant in Glendale that has been around forever, serving bratwurst, sausage samplers, and house-made sauerkraut to a crowd that has clearly memorized the menu. The patio strings up lights and leans into a vaguely Bavarian mood, and the bar stocks the oversized bottled biers to match. Call ahead for a table.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best German Restaurant · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Vegan Spread · Best of the Valley

A purple orchid tops every plate, which tells you something about how seriously this Thai street-food truck takes its work. Hiw Kaow roams the Valley without a permanent address, serving pad Thai with a Lao influence, crispy whole chicken wings, and a papaya salad sharp enough to make you check the truck's next location before you've finished eating. Follow its schedule; it moves around.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Food Truck · Best of Phoenix

While the internet fell for drip-cheese quesabirria, the regulars in South Phoenix kept quietly lining up for goat. This South Phoenix Mexican spot has been doing birria de chivo the old way, slow-roasted in banana leaves with an adobo that gives the meat a gentle gaminess you don't find in the viral stuff. Order it in consommé, on fresh-pressed tortillas, or as birria tatemada, pressed on the griddle with fat skimmed off the broth until it crisps.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Birria · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Birria · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Birria · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Japanese Curry · Best of the Valley

The vintage gas station theme, complete with retro signage and pedal cars, gives this Tempe Italian ice shop a cheerful reason to walk in. Joe's makes its Philadelphia-style ices in-house from whole fruit, and the difference shows up in every flavor. A drive-thru keeps things moving when the Phoenix heat turns urgent. The lemon is the crowd favorite for good reason, though the menu runs long enough that picking is half the fun.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Italian Ice · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Italian Ice · Best of Phoenix

A carniceria in a strip mall on Indian School Road that makes its own tortillas and salsa so your carne asada night is genuinely a one-stop situation. Hand-selected cuts run from marinated ranchera to Wagyu, and the cases are kept spotless. Staff can talk you through any of it without skipping a beat. A family-run neighborhood butcher shop that takes the grill seriously.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Carniceria · Best of Phoenix

A cozy, tiled dining room in the Cave Creek hills serving classic French fare across brunch, lunch, and dinner, the kind of place that still does cherries jubilee without irony. The menu runs from croque monsieur to crepes in béchamel, onion soup to crème brûlée, and the whole thing feels like it's been there forever because it has. The drive from Phoenix is real, but so is the feeling that you've wandered somewhere far less frantic.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best French Restaurant · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Use of High-Quality Meat Trim: Steak Tartare · Best of the Valley

Nearly two-thirds of the world can't digest lactose, and this funky scoop shop in Uptown Phoenix has quietly built its menu around that fact. Almost everything is lactose- or dairy-free, served in a room full of neon paintings, mannequin heads, and board games that make it feel less like an ice cream shop and more like a very chill art installation. The mango sticky rice sorbet and the Gansito cake-inspired flavor are the ones regulars debate. Pints available for the road.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Tummy-Friendly Ice Cream · Best of Phoenix

Counter service Hawaiian barbecue tucked into the shipping container courtyard at the Churchill, just off Roosevelt Row. The move is a mixed plate piled with kalbi short ribs, kalua pork, and teriyaki chicken, everything sitting on rice with a scoop of mac salad alongside. It's the kind of meal that's better shared, partly for variety and partly because the portions don't encourage restraint. Phoenix New Times named it the city's top Hawaiian restaurant in 2025.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Hawaiian Restaurant · Best of Phoenix

The tortilleria runs all day, turning out fresh corn and flour tortillas while the panaderia stocks pan dulce, bolillos, and pasteles. Los Altos Ranch Market is a full Mexican grocery and mercado, with a butcher counter, seafood section, house-made tamales, and a lunch counter called La Cocina serving cheap tacos and tortas. The stores are massive, the prices are not, and the Phoenix New Times has named it the area's top Mexican grocery store five of the last six years.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Mexican Grocery Store · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Mexican Grocery Store · Best of Phoenix

Sixteen floors up in the Omni Tempe Hotel, Lucero puts enough distance between itself and the pool that it actually feels like a rooftop cocktail bar rather than a pool deck with ambitions. Craft cocktails and food, indoors at the bar or outside on couches around fire tables, with views stretching all the way to State Farm Stadium. The Phoenix New Times named it Best Rooftop Bar in 2025, which tracks for a spot this good before an ASU Gammage show.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Rooftop Bar · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Veggie Burger: Hot Juan Black Bean Burger · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Molcajetes · Best of Phoenix

A 17,600-square-foot pool area anchors this sprawling dayclub and nightclub on Scottsdale's main party corridor, where the outdoor scene runs on cabanas, three bars, and a taco stand beneath what's reportedly the Valley's largest LED video wall. When the sun goes down, the indoor club takes over with a vortex-shaped dance floor and the kind of bottle service that keeps the staff very busy. The crowd skews young, attractive, and aware of both facts.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Bar for Bachelor Parties · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Cheap Margaritas · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Cheap Margaritas · Best of Phoenix

The jerk seasoning hits you before you've placed your order at the counter, which tells you most of what you need to know about Ms. Martha's Caribbean Kitchen. This small counter-service spot in a renovated Spanish Colonial building serves oxtails slow-cooked until tender and drenched in savory caramel sauce, wings in a rotating lineup of flavors, and curry goat alongside rice and peas or plantains. A neighborhood lunch crowd that knows exactly what it's doing fills the room fast.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Caribbean Restaurant · Best of Phoenix

A renovated house on North 7th Street is now a vegan ice cream, coffee, and pastry shop where the Tsoynami, a housemade soy-based ice cream in over 20 Blizzard-style flavors, is the thing people come back for. The affogato, ice cream and chocolate syrup drowned in espresso, is a strong supporting argument. Cupcakes, cookies, and rotating daily specials round out the case for plants as dessert.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Vegan Desserts · Best of Phoenix

Bike racks out front, canal path out back, and enough cold beer in between to make the math work. OHSO on Central is a casual brewery and pub where cyclists roll in mid-ride for burgers, sandwiches, and whatever's on tap, then roll back out again. The walls are covered in bike decor, the patio is built for lingering, and nobody is keeping score on how long you stay.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Bike-Friendly Brewery · Best of Phoenix

A crepe shop where a slice of choco flan cake sometimes ends up folded inside the crepe, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe. Olla Olla runs both sweet and savory, leaning into a Latino-meets-French sensibility that feels natural rather than gimmicky. The parking lot doubles as a venue for live music and markets, so on any given weekend the crowd is half here for breakfast, half for whatever else is happening.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Place for Crepes and Community · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Sweet-Savory Breakfast: Fried Chicken with Deep-Fried French Toast · Best of the Valley
2. Phoenix Magazine Chicken-Fried Chicken with French Toast · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

A West Valley brewpub that treats its kitchen with the same seriousness as its taps, Peoria Artisan Brewery makes its bar food from scratch, which is not a given at a place where most people came for the pint. Expect thick Arizona Angus burgers, dry-rubbed wings, and fat pretzels with cheddar fondue. Behind the kitchen, a speakeasy-style chef's table runs a separate, more ambitious menu for nights when a burger won't cut it.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Food at a Brewery · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Prosciutto · Best of the Valley
2. Phoenix Magazine Charcuterie Board · Top 100 Dishes of Arizona

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Tinned Fish Selection · Best of the Valley

Pozole comes in red, green, and white here, and the red is the one to get: a steaming bowl big enough to require planning, with chunks of pork and hominy swimming in a broth that actually has some heat to it. Cabbage, avocado, and radish go in, lime and cilantro finish it off, and suddenly whatever was wrong with your day is negotiable. A casual pozoleria on East Van Buren that the Phoenix New Times named best pozole in the city.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Pozole · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Cold Brew: Chocolate Peanut Butter Shaker · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Cold Brew: Chocolate Peanut Butter Shaker · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Cold Brew: Chocolate Peanut Butter Shaker · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Cold Brew: Chocolate Peanut Butter Shaker · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Cold Brew: Chocolate Peanut Butter Shaker · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Cold Brew: Chocolate Peanut Butter Shaker · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Cold Brew: Chocolate Peanut Butter Shaker · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Cold Brew: Chocolate Peanut Butter Shaker · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Cold Brew: Chocolate Peanut Butter Shaker · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Cold Brew: Chocolate Peanut Butter Shaker · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Cold Brew: Chocolate Peanut Butter Shaker · Best of the Valley

The sourdough starter here has a name, Harriet, and she has been busy. Proof is a community bakery that mills its own locally grown heritage grain on-site, which gives the loaves a depth that pre-bagged flour just doesn't reach. Country loaves, English muffins, and twice-baked croissants are the draws, and the lines at Valley farmers markets tell you what to expect before you arrive. Multiple Phoenix-area locations now, with more on the way.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Bread · Best of Phoenix

The coin-operated carnival scale near the door is either a warning or a dare, depending on your confidence level. Regio's is a casual Mexican breakfast-and-lunch spot tucked practically under the SR-51 overpass, brighter inside than the exterior suggests. Breakfast runs all day, the burritos are large enough to count as a structural element, and they come out hot and genuinely juicy. Phoenix New Times gave it Best Breakfast Burrito in 2025.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Breakfast Burrito · Best of Phoenix

The meat and cheese counter anchors this Italian deli in West Phoenix, where a full antipasto bar, housemade sauces and dressings, and shelves of pasta and olive oil fill out the rest. Sandwiches are built to order, and the Italian bread carries them better than the alternatives. Homemade lasagna, meatballs, and cannoli round things out for anyone who came in for cold cuts and left with dinner.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Italian Deli · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Italian Deli · Best of Phoenix

Colorful tiles, rough-hewn furniture, and a small waterfall with fish in the pool beneath it set the tone at this Sonoran Mexican spot on McDowell. It's been around forever, and the room has the comfortable confidence of a place that doesn't need to try hard. The chimichangas have taken home Phoenix New Times honors two years running, which tracks for a kitchen where the frijoles alone could change someone's afternoon.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Chimichanga · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Chimichangas · Best of Phoenix

A wall of more than 60 HD screens anchors the bar area at this sports bar and pizzeria in northwest Phoenix, with another 40 or so scattered through the rest of the room in case you were worried about missing a corner of the game. Pool tables, dart machines, and touch-screen games fill the gaps, and karaoke nights give people somewhere to put all that energy after the final whistle. The pizza is the alibi; the spectacle is the point.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Sports Bar · Best of Phoenix

The coffee bar lives inside a furniture showroom, so you're welcome to settle into a display sofa while you drink. The thing that earns attention here is the cold foam, a thick mashed-banana crown with vanilla and agave that sits heavy on a latte or cold brew like it means business. Foam skeptics tend to announce, unprompted, that it tastes like banana pie on their coffee. They're not wrong.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Cold Foam · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Jewish Deli · Best of Phoenix

Cynthia Quezada runs this pop-up esquites stand out of a home near I-17 and Dunlap, pink apron and crockpot at the ready. She'll scoop the corn into a cup, box, or over a chip bag, then send you to a condiment bar stocked with key limes, salsas, and spices to finish the job yourself. Her 145,000 TikTok followers already know all this. The Styrofoam cup buried under cheese and crema is the whole point.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Esquites · Best of Phoenix

The pepper grinder is a yard long and bright red, which tells you everything you need to know about the vibe here. Sexy Roman is a hotel restaurant inside the W Scottsdale that has fully committed to the bit: espresso martinis arrive with gold-dusted beans, the seafood tower exhales cold smoke, and a drink cart appears when you flip your table light from white to red. It's theatrical on purpose, and the room plays along.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Pepper Grinder · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Milkshakes · Best of the Valley

Pink booths, a soda fountain counter, and ice cream sodas that have been drawing Scottsdale families for what feels like forever. This old-school ice cream parlor is better known for sundaes than sandwiches, but the lunch menu holds its own: turkey salad with avocado, tea sandwiches, chili with cheese. The kind of place where saving room for dessert isn't advice so much as the whole point of showing up.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Old-School Ice Cream Parlor · Best of Phoenix

A conveyor belt sushi spot where the plan is simple: sit down, grab whatever rolls past, and stop thinking about your day. Plates are color-coded by price, and the belt moves fast enough that you can take the edge off with salmon nigiri before you've even decided what you want. There's a full menu too, if you'd rather order, but half the fun is watching the Philly Roll clear the final corner and head your way.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Revolving Sushi · Best of Phoenix

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Ice Cream · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Ice Cream · Best of the Valley