Fine Foods, Spirits & Specialty >>

• Best Bread Bakery
  Willo Baking Company
  534 West McDowell
  602-254-0005
  Need to stock up for your next Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes? The angel-kissed golden crust of the bread churned out seven days a week at Willo is a real miracle in itself. This small boutique bakery uses no sugar, meat or dairy products in preparing its heavenly roll call. We're especially... More >>
• Best Mexican Bakery
  La Purísima Pasteleria
  Short of driving three hours to Nogales, La Purísima is the most authentic south-of-the-border-style bakery you're likely to find. Among its straight-from-the-oven offerings are pan dulce, a traditional slightly sweetened bread. Other Mexican taste-tempters include libros and orejas... More >>
• Best Wine Store
  Sportsman's Wines, Spirits and Other Flavours
  3205 East Camelback
  602-955-7730
  "It doesn't matter how a wine is drunk, as long as you are." So said legendary culinary writer M.F.K. Fisher. She was kidding. Great wines are serious stuff, and no one knows that better than the oenophiles at Sportsman's. The Staff here is the most knowledgeable in town. We've never been... More >>
• Best Middle Eastern Grocery
  Yusef's Middle Eastern Restaurant, Grocery & Deli
  15236 North Cave Creek Road, Phoenix
  602-867-2957
  Yusef's is the one-stop-does-it-all shop for exotic Middle Eastern cooking ingredients -- so essential if you're in the throes of planning a big Ali Wood-style bash. Though it may be short on veiled belly dancers, Yusef's does manage to cram in hundreds of fresh, frozen, canned, bottled and... More >>
• Best Place to Find the Wurst
  Schreiner's Fine Sausage
  3601 North Seventh Street
  602-265-2939
  Better cancel that flight to the Bavarian Alps you booked because you're craving authentic, homemade European-style sausages. They're being stuffed and cranked out right here in the Valley by Schreiner's, whose funky smokehouse store has remained virtually unchanged since it opened in 1958.... More >>
• Best Brew Pub
  Four Peaks Brewing Company
  1340 East Eighth Street, Tempe
  480-303-9967
  This is getting annoying. Four Peaks is the Tiger Woods of Valley brew pubs, consistently topping every local publication's "best of" lists despite facing ever-increasing competition. This year, the Tommyknockers Brewery & Pub chain opened a franchise near Bank One Ballpark, and damn, it was... More >>
• Best Selection of 40-Ounce Malt Liquor
  Roland's Market
  1505 East Van Buren
  602-353-9737
  With its high alcohol content and low cost, a 40-ouncer of malt liquor is simply the cheapest way to get tanked. So it's no surprise that this bitter, golden blend is readily available in areas where most pants pockets jingle with welfare coins, minimum-wage earnings and the grimy coin of... More >>
• Best Home-Delivered Certified Organic Produce
  Boxed Greens
  480-557-7060
  Remember when deliverymen brought glass bottles of milk and fresh loaves of bread right to your doorstep? Neither can we. But even if you aren't old enough to conjure up those comforting memories, you can indulge your nostalgia for the Good Old Days you never knew existed by calling Boxed... More >>
• Best Ice Cream
  Mary Coyle Ice Cream
  5521 North Seventh Avenue
  602-265-6266
  Everyone's heard of the proverbial "golden oldie." And if you've lived in the Valley any length of time, you're already well aware of our own "colden oldie." That would be Mary Coyle Ice Cream parlor, the local ice cream standard by which all others are judged. For 50 years, Coyle's take on... More >>
• Best Bagels
  Chompie's
  3202 East Greenway Road
  602-971-8010
  (and other Valley locations)
  Man does not live by bread alone. He needs a good bagel, too. For more than two decades now, Chompie's has been surpassing our bagel expectations with always -- always -- the best bagels we've ever found in this town. Chompie's was king of the bagels before the doughy works of art were cool... More >>
• Best Cheese Selection
  Duck & Decanter
  1651 East Camelback
  602-274-5429
  Tired of cheese choices at your local grocery store being limited to Cheez Whiz, Velveeta and boursin-in-a-box? Cheeselike food substances are conspicuously absent at Duck & Decanter, whose long list of not-for-the-lactose-intolerant dairy specialties would turn the head of even a hardened... More >>
• Best Puerto Rican Pastries
  K-Rico Cafe & Bakery
  1133 East Glendale Avenue, Phoenix
  602-285-9490
  K-Rico Cafe & Bakery is tiny, but those with a nose for things sweet should keep sniffing 'til they find this tropically appointed strip-mall storefront. Owner Elsie Lara, a native of Puerto Rico, packs a lot of fabulous Caribbean-style pastries into her shop. It's worth a cross-town trek to... More >>
• Best Place to Get Free Potato Chips
  Wild Oats
  13823 North Tatum
  602-953-7546
  (and other Valley locations)
  Most people go to Wild Oats for the organic fruits and vegetables. We go for the potato chip samples. During a recent visit, five different flavors were presented for our gustatory inspection: sweet potato chips, cheese puff chips, garlic-flavored chips, blue chips and corn tortilla chips,... More >>
• Best Grocery Store Takeout Pizza
  AJ's Purveyor of Fine Foods
  7141 West Ray, Chandler
  480-705-5323
  (and other Valley locations)
  When the dinner hour is approaching and we have to stop off at a grocery store to pick up a few things anyway, we welcome the grab-and-go meal ideas designed to make our hectic lives easier. But since discovering that some AJ's feature hand-tossed cooked-to-order pizzas, we have taken those... More >>
• Best Place to Find Fresh Fish
  99 Ranch Market
  COFCO Chinese Cultural Center
  668 North 44th Street
  602-225-2288
  Fish don't get much fresher than when they're flopping around in a tank of water, like they do at 99 Ranch Market. This upscale Asian supermarket's large aquarium tanks virtually teem with live catfish, tilapia, freshwater blue eel and Dungeness crab. And if you just can't bear the thought of... More >>
• Best Place to Buy Aardvark to Zebra
  Gourmet Imports
  128 East Wood Drive
  602-863-1478
  You're planning on throwing an important dinner party for a bunch of fussy gourmets. They're snobs -- you know the type. "Oh, grilled swordfish and Gulf prawns over smoked mussel fried rice and mango papaya relish again?" they sniff. An order from Gourmet Imports will shut their mouths -- at... More >>
• Best Hot Pepper Sauce
  Kim Bong International Market
  2620 West Broadway, Suite 11, Mesa
  480-968-7322
  The first time we heard about "the jerk in the restaurant" 10 years ago, we thought we were being told about some lout on a cell phone. But it was a dish new to the Valley, Jamaican jerked rabbit, served at RoxSand. Today, jerk is available on many menus, usually involving chicken. Basically,... More >>