The Best Places to Eat and Drink in Phoenix

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

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

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

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

The homemade pita, puffy and fresh, is the detail that keeps ASU students coming back across generations at this no-frills Tempe restaurant and grocery. Shawarma, falafel, kebabs, and baba ghanoush fill the menu at prices that don't require a financial aid disbursement. Baklava in pistachio and Arizona pecan closes things out. The strip-mall setting is deeply unromantic, which seems to be the point.

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Phoenix

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

1. Phoenix New Times Our top 12 favorite sushi restaurants in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times Our top 12 favorite sushi restaurants in Phoenix

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

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

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

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

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

1. Eater Navajo Taco · The Most Iconic Dishes in Phoenix

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

The delivery vehicle is called an Emergency Donut Vehicle, which tells you everything about the vibe here. This 24-hour doughnut shop leans hard into nostalgia and spectacle, piling its yeast and cake rings with candy bar crumbles, cereal, roasted marshmallows, and glazes in colors not found in nature. The flavors skew s'mores and Little Debbie rather than artisan restraint, so come hungry for dessert energy at any hour you please.

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

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Koffee Kolsch · Favorite Local Craft Beer

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Koffee Kolsch · Favorite Local Craft Beer

1. Phoenix New Times Our top 12 favorite sushi restaurants in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times Our top 12 favorite sushi restaurants in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times Our top 12 favorite sushi restaurants in Phoenix

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist · Top Arizona Brewery, Winery, or Distillery Experience

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist · Top Mixologist/Bartender · Brenon Stuart

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants In Scottsdale

A strip mall Mexican restaurant where everything, walls, floors, booths, even the plates, is painted black so the food glows against it like a still life. The brothers who run Lujos took over their parents' spot and rebuilt it almost entirely. The regular menu covers tacos, burritos, and quesadillas, but there's a permanent off-menu section worth asking about, including birria enchiladas drowning in red sauce with crema and guacamole. Wash it down with the horchata.

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

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

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist · Top Arizona Brewery, Winery, or Distillery Experience

1. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Best New Restaurant

The bubble-ring shape of a mochi doughnut, six or eight chewy spheres connected in a loop, is practically engineered for the "just one more piece" problem. MochiDot is a local dessert shop making them with rice flour for that signature springy chew, with flavors that rotate by season, running from Oreo to vivid purple ube to Lotus Biscoff. Bring someone to share with, or don't and pretend you did.

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

1. Eater The Best Bakeries in Phoenix, Arizona

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

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

1. Eater The Best Bakeries in Phoenix, Arizona

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

Prep & Pastry is a sunny, white-washed brunch spot near Fashion Square, the Scottsdale outpost of a Tucson original, with a menu that runs to dossants, which are exactly what they sound like. Expect a cast iron duck confit, a chickpea scramble, and a Monte Cristo built on herb brioche French toast with pineapple and jalapeño mascarpone. It opens at 8 a.m. daily, and Eater has put it on a list of Phoenix brunches.

1. Eater The 15 Best Brunches in Phoenix

1. Eater The Best Bakeries in Phoenix, Arizona

The giant rooftop donut made Randy's a Los Angeles landmark long before the chain showed up in the Valley, and the Gilbert shop carries the same energy: a bright display case packed with vivid, glazed options and a drive-thru line that moves faster than you'd expect. It's a classic donut shop, which means cheap, cheerful, and open early. The maple cake and cinnamon crumb cake are the regulars' picks, but the matcha raised donut is hard to walk past.

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

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

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

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

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

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Winner: Strawberry Marzipan Shortcake · Most Delectable Dessert

Sophia's Brunch Counter is a counter-service daytime spot in a curved, metal-wrapped building that looks like it was meant for something with more ceremony. Inside, a chalky green marble counter and a lot of plants set a slow, airy, vaguely coastal mood. The menu stays small, bouncing between comfort food and lighter plates, with espresso up front and a little wine and cocktails behind it. Eater put it on its list of Phoenix's best brunches.

1. Eater The 15 Best Brunches in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The 10 best new Phoenix restaurants of 2025

1. Eater The Best Bakeries in Phoenix, Arizona

A family-owned donut shop in the West Valley that keeps things classically in their lane: yeast, cake, apple fritters, bear claws, and a roster of filled options generous enough to cause real indecision. The vanilla cream version rolled in toasted coconut is a regular argument-settler. Smoothies and ice cream round out the menu for anyone who wandered in looking for something else and stayed for the donuts anyway.

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

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

1. Eater The Best Bakeries in Phoenix, Arizona

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

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Potato Pureé · Best Dish in a Supporting Role

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

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

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

A tiny donut shop tucked into a shopping center off Hayden, where the menu categories are literally named Classy, Fancy, and Schmancy, so expectations are appropriately calibrated. Yeast donuts, cake donuts, mochi donuts, fritters, and seasonal pastries all share the case, and the creme brulee donut gets a kitchen torch before it reaches you. Phoenix New Times put it on their list of the Valley's top dozen donut shops.

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

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

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

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

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

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Food Pioneer · Mark Tarbell

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

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

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

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

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