The Best Places 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. 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. 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

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. 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. AZ Central The 100 Best Metro Phoenix Restaurants

1. Phoenix New Times These Valley smokehouses serve the best barbecue in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times These Valley smokehouses serve the best barbecue in Phoenix

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 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
2. Phoenix New Times Where to find the best ice cream in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times Where to find the best ice cream 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

1. Phoenix New Times Steamed, boiled or fried: Where to find the best dumplings in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times These Valley smokehouses serve the best barbecue in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times These Valley smokehouses serve the best barbecue in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times These Valley smokehouses serve the best barbecue 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

1. Phoenix New Times Where to find the best ice cream in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times Where to find the best ice cream in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times Where to find the best ice cream in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times Where to find the best ice cream in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times Where to find the best ice cream in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times Where to find the best ice cream 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

1. Phoenix New Times Steamed, boiled or fried: Where to find the best dumplings in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times Steamed, boiled or fried: Where to find the best dumplings 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

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

This is a gelateria in a Shea Boulevard shopping center, where you order on an iPad before you ever meet a human, which feels very Scottsdale until the scoops arrive. Flavors lean adventurous, with mesquite honey lavender and a ricotta studded with fig sharing the case with mint cookies and cream. You can taste before committing, and each cup or cone gets a crisp wafer on top. Cheap enough, casual enough, flip-flops welcome.

1. Phoenix New Times Where to find the best ice cream 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. 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. 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. Foodist Awards 2023 · Finalist: Common Ground Culinary · Outstanding Hospitality Group

1. Eater Cheese Crisp · The Most Iconic Dishes in 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
2. Phoenix New Times Where to find the best ice cream in Phoenix

The team behind downtown's cocktail bars Wren & Wolf and Carry On pivoted to daytime, and the result is a doughnut shop tucked into the warehouse district just south of Phoenix, connected to a church in a pairing no one planned but somehow makes sense. Brioche rounds and tall, croissant-style hybrids share the menu, with creative coffee alongside. The crowd skews early and purposeful, the way people get when pastries are involved.

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

Cryin' Coyote is a casual Cave Creek smokehouse that took over from a longtime local barbecue joint, and the ribs are the order, with good char and fat rendered down to something rich. The sides lean Southwest, so a chile relleno-style rice casserole fills in for the mac and cheese. Save room for the Texas sheet cake, which sneaks in cinnamon and ginger, a small act of rebellion in a state that takes its brisket seriously.

1. Phoenix New Times These Valley smokehouses serve the best barbecue in Phoenix

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

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

1. Eater The 38 Best Restaurants in Phoenix

Din Tai Fung is a dressy dumpling house at Scottsdale Fashion Square, where a glass window lets passersby watch the kitchen staff fold each dumpling by hand. Inside, a bonsai-style tree anchors the dining room, and nearly every table has a silver steamer of soup dumplings and a diner learning about molten broth the hard way. Reservations are less a suggestion than a survival strategy, and 2:30 on a Tuesday is a fine time to eat.

1. Phoenix New Times Steamed, boiled or fried: Where to find the best dumplings in Phoenix

The glazed donuts here come out warm if you time the drive to east Mesa right, and that detail explains most of what you need to know about this family-owned donut shop. The menu stays classic on purpose: pillowy raised donuts, apple fritters, old-fashioned buttermilk bars. No novelty toppings, no Instagram bait. Phoenix New Times named it Best Doughnuts in 2024, and the regulars in line at opening would find that completely unsurprising.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Doughnuts · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times A delicious dozen: The 12 best doughnut shops in the Valley

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 · Brunch With a Punch

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

The Kilt Lifter Scottish Ale has been filling pints here long enough that it's practically a local institution, and the Mission Revival warehouse it lives in only adds to the effect. Four Peaks is a full-scale brewpub with a cavernous brick interior, a sprawling patio, and a menu that covers wings and nachos but also green chile mac and cheese for anyone who needs more than bar food. Spring training crowds and ASU students pack the place, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe.

1. Foodist Awards 2023 · Winner: The Joy Bus · Favorite Local Craft Beer
2. Eater The Best Bars in Phoenix

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

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 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. Phoenix New Times These Valley smokehouses serve the best barbecue in Phoenix

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

Kofu Dumpling House is a casual dumpling shop tucked into a quiet strip mall in Mesa's Asian District, in a plaza that used to be anchored by a grocery store. The menu runs from steamed dumplings to folded wontons to pillowy buns, and the Red Chili Wontons arrive in a bowl of chile oil so bright it looks like a dare. Order at a table, wear whatever you like, and expect to need a napkin.

1. Phoenix New Times Steamed, boiled or fried: Where to find the best dumplings in Phoenix

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

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

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
2. Phoenix New Times Where to find the best ice cream in Phoenix

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. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Best New Restaurant