The Brickyard is a cozy, shoebox-shaped restaurant and bar, located on a pleasant stretch of Boston Street in downtown Chandler. At first glance, you might mistake it for any other stylish, trendy restaurant. It’s situated in a handsome, well-worn space where the dominating feature is the red brick of its…

Diner 50 is a funky ’50s-themed breakfast and lunch diner situated amid the drab, sun-bleached junkyards and industrial work yards of 19th Avenue and Buckeye Road, a slice of town where concrete and chain link fence are the prevailing features of the urban landscape. The diner is easy to miss…

The Guilty Pleasure: The Ultimate Sundae Where to Get It: Sweet Republic Price: $12.75 What it Really Costs: Pretty much every last drop of your self-control. The phrase “just one more spoonful” is a lie you will tell yourself, over and over, as you shovel this rich, melty foodstuff into your…

More than 20 new breweries have popped up around metro Phoenix in the past three years, and the local roster of neighborhood tasting rooms and brewpubs only gets longer with each passing season. We are living in what might be the golden age of craft beer in metro Phoenix, and…

The Guilty Pleasure: Cold Brew Coffee Milk Where to Get It: Currently available at various grocery stores around metro Phoenix, and the Danzeisen Dairy creamery store in Laveen.  Price: $3.99 for a half-gallon, plus $2.00 deposit  What it Really Costs: Some serious stomach bloat, if you’re lactose-intolerant.  Over the past…

In the year or so since it’s been open, Mucha Lucha Taco Shop has established itself as a favorite of the local taco cognoscenti, the place to go for a lunch plate of street tacos filled with stewy, drippy guisos caseros, the homestyle Mexican braises that take hours to cook…

If you spend any time traversing the well-groomed streets of Arcadia, you know Buck &Rider. The upscale seafood-centric restaurant lights up a corner of 44th Street and Camelback Road with its electric-blue marquee sign, radiating the sort of magnetic presence of a place that is frequented nightly, and often, by…

The Roca Brothers, chef-owners of the world-renowned El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain, are in Phoenix this week to host three invite-only pop-up dinners at the Four Seasons Resort in Scottsdale. Their restaurant was named ‘World’s Best Restaurant’ by Restaurant Magazine in 2013 and 2015.  The visit is…

On the airy eastern edges of metro Phoenix, about a 40-minute drive southeast of downtown, smack in the middle of one of the fastest-growing suburbs of the Valley, there’s Rhema Soul Cuisine in Queen Creek. Queen Creek may not immediately spring to mind when you think of first-rate soul food,…

What is it like to eat at one of the world’s best restaurants? A handful of lucky metro Phoenix residents will find out next week when one of Spain’s highest-rated restaurants sets up shop in north Scottsdale for a series of invite-only pop-up dinners.  Unfortunately, you’ll have to be a BBVA…

The Guilty Pleasure: Chili cones Where to Get It: Elmer’s Tacos Price: $1.25 – $1.95 What it Really Costs: A shot to your ego, if you’re the kind of eater who normally frowns on Frito pies, fair food, or things served on a stick. You can’t put on any airs…

If you take even a passing interest in Arizona’s culinary scene, you know the name Chris Bianco, the self-made pizzaiolo and restaurateur whose handicraft and devotion to quality ingredients has singlehandedly made Phoenix, of all places, synonymous with world-class pizza. Bianco’s pizza has been lauded as one of the best…

The Guilty Pleasure: Liquid Nitrogen ice cream Where to Get It: Creamistry Price: $4.50-$8.50, not counting add-ons What it Really Costs: Your pants will definitely feel a bit tighter after one of these babies. Sadly, not even science can save you from that.  Made-from-scratch liquid nitrogen ice cream may not…

The first thing you should probably know about CoR Tapas & Wine is that it’s something of a rare species in the metro Phoenix dining scene. CoR is a Spanish-inspired tapas bar, a fact that would not be of special interest, if not for the near-total absence of tapas-style small-plate…

The Guilty Pleasure: Not Your Father’s Root Beer Float Where to Get It: Luci’s at The Orchard Price: $10 What it Really Costs: A fast and furious sugar rush, followed quickly by the feeling of sweet, booze-induced fatigue. You might want to block out some nap time in your schedule…

There are many places for good falafel around metro Phoenix, and even more places for merely passable falafel. Falafel, that crunchy, deep-fried stalwart meze dish of the Middle Eastern table, is one of those foods — like pizza, or maybe a gooey cheeseburger — where even middling efforts usually produce…

The Guilty Pleasure: The Big Buck Burger Where to Get It: Wimpy’s Paradise Price: $10.50 What it Really Costs: Enough protein to put your gut through its paces for hours to come.   There’s something about Wimpy’s Paradise in downtown Chandler that makes you feel like you’re visiting with old friends…

The Camby Hotel, or rather “the Camby,” is a swanky new Biltmore-area hotel that debuted a few months ago in the home of the former Ritz-Carlton Phoenix. The Camby is what marketing folks refer to as a “luxury lifestyle brand,” which is more or less shorthand for a hotel designed…

It’s hard to resist the charms of American Way Market Café, the casual eatery and small artisanal food marketplace located inside the Merchant Square Antiques mall in Chandler. Part bakery, part smokehouse, part ode to vintage Americana, the first thing you may notice about the dining room at American Way…

The Guilty Pleasure: “The Baker” pizza Where to Get It: Boss Pizza Bar Price: $15-$19 What it Really Costs: A starch-on-starch carb overdose.  You know pizza, the most popular and communal of hot, cheesy foods. Pizza endures because it’s not only delicious, but also infinitely personal: You can have one tailor-made…