The Best Places to Eat in Scottsdale

The Thumb is a north Scottsdale gas station where you pump gas outside and order brisket by the platter inside, under a chandelier that looks lost. Counter service, cash-register prices, and a gift shop and coffee bar to browse while your number comes up. The beans are so meaty they flirt with chili. Phoenix New Times has named it one of the Valley's top barbecue spots, which is a sentence about a place with a fish tank.

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

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

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

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

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

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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

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 Magazine 2025 · Best Tinned Fish Selection · 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 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

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

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Dinner and a Show: Flamenco Dancing · Best of the Valley

A second-floor patio perched over an active runway, with the McDowell Mountains catching the changing light behind it. Volanti is a casually chic restaurant inside the Scottsdale Airport, drawing both departing travelers and locals with no particular gate to catch. Lunch, dinner, happy hour, and weekend brunch are all on offer, but the real argument for coming is a table outside, where you'll stop mid-conversation to watch a small plane land.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Place to Watch Airplanes and Eat · Best of Phoenix

Roses in vases, white wicker chairs, and a playlist parked somewhere between Britney and Beyoncé set the tone at this wine bar in Scottsdale's Old Town. The menu runs through tasting flights, wine cocktails, and frosés, with flatbreads and avocado toast for ballast. The New York Times once named Scottsdale the second-most-popular bachelorette destination in the country, and Wine Girl is doing its part to keep that ranking intact.

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

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Neighborhood Coffee Shop: Scottsdale · Best of the Valley

1. Phoenix Magazine 2025 · Best Neighborhood Coffee Shop: Scottsdale · Best of the Valley

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1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Breakfast Sandwich · Best of Phoenix

A black-and-white dining room tucked into the Scottsdale Waterfront strip mall, where the guacamole arrives studded with pomegranate seeds and warm steak cubes, which sounds like a gimmick until it doesn't. This modern Mexican restaurant runs from quesabirria tacos to charred octopus, and the cocktails come dressed with flower petals and charred cinnamon sticks, because subtlety is apparently optional. The flan, cracked with caramel shards, lands the ending.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Guacamole · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Guacamole · Best of Phoenix

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A wing shop that keeps the menu short by design, Valley Wings puts its energy into texture: the skin cracks, the meat stays juicy, and the honey hot flavor threads sweet and heat together without either one winning. The Phoenix New Times named it Best Chicken Wings in 2024. Three metro Phoenix locations means it's rarely far away, which is convenient, because once you know the order, the craving has a very specific address.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Chicken Wings · Best of Phoenix