Food & Drink

The imaginative New Southern food dreamed up and impeccably executed by Chef Stephen Jones is like no other cooking in town, and no other chef feels even vaguely similar. His hot chicken can hang with any fried chicken in Arizona. He also plates creations like tuna crudo with rhubarb vinegar and leaf-thin radish, unreasonably delicious hoe cakes, and a legendary Buffalo cauliflower. There are always next-level ingredients woven through his food in some beautiful, until-then-unknown way: special vinegars, pickles, smoked ingredients, heirloom beans and rice. His cooking has so much richness yet so much lightness and finesse. What’s more, Jones roots his cooking firmly in near and far American history. Posting up at his bar always feels like a celebration. We’re lucky to have the opportunity to eat here in Phoenix.

Few restaurants capture the weirdness of our desert city like Valentine, which has nailed a grand vision of modern Southwestern cuisine. Where to begin with this restaurant? Everything from the pastries to the coffee to the food to the breakfast to the design to the front bar to the back bar is not only on point, but about three levels more thoughtful than expected, creative, delicious, and completely rooted in our region. Donald Hawk (together with a capable team) hits some stunning highs in the kitchen, including an elote pasta, smoked chicken, and a 2.0 version of his splendid brown butter crudo. Antonia Kane bullseyes the baked goods, from heirloom grain cookies to mulberry viennoiserie. Blaise Faber and Chad Price have had this place absolutely humming from its earliest days. We are absolutely jazzed to see where the years take Valentine — and, by logical extension, the cutting edge of Southwestern eating.

In the dark first summer of the pandemic, Chris Bianco took to social media to post inspirational messages and videos. He adapted, rolling out a New York-style pie, relocating Tratto and Bar Bianco, releasing a late-night menu, adjusting again and again and again. Sous chefs and other important cooks in the Bianco micro empire left for new pursuits. Somehow, despite the turnover of key players, quality hasn’t yielded an inch. Pizzeria Bianco still churns out its legendary pizza and even stunning chicken cacciatore and other specials. Pane Bianco remains a sandwich and Sicilian pizza utopia. Tratto still plates pasta at least one tier above any other Italian joint in town. Most importantly, Bianco has remained a kind leader through it all.

By some measures, Rene Andrade isn’t a new chef. He has cooked at big-name restaurants up and down the Valley. Recently, he oversaw the kitchens at Ghost Ranch and the now-closed Tempe Public Market Café. Now, after a mid-pandemic move, Andrade has become an executive chef with a restaurant his way channeling his past and his experiences. This and the wonder of eating at Bacanora feel totally new. Sure, he has had help from friends and family at Bacanora, which has already become one of the most exciting and soulful places to eat in town. For Bacanora and the future that now awaits following this young chef’s career change, Andrade is Phoenix’s best new chef.

Earlier this year, the James Beard Foundation Women of Arizona, a movement that includes 15 female chefs, launched a series of takeout tasting menus across metro Phoenix. Each menu offered a starter, main course, and dessert — a three-course menu from three local chefs, packaging different local restaurant offerings into one meal. Participating restaurants and their respective chefs (and owners) included FnB and Charleen Badman; Songbird Coffee House and Erin Westgate; Maya’s Cajun Kitchen and Maya Bartlett; 24 Carrots and Sasha Raj; Lori Hassler of The Farish House; Lori Hashimoto of Hana Japanese Eatery; Jennifer Caraway, founder of The Joy Bus; The Breadfruit & Rum Bar’s Danielle Leoni, and more — making it one of the most complete who’s-who collaborations of female chefs in the Valley … maybe ever. The group was encouraged by the national group Let’s Talk, part of the James Beard Foundation Women’s Leadership Program, and they still have lots more to do. We’ll be watching — and eating.

Chef Danielle Leoni is a James Beard Award-nominated chef and a pillar of sustainable restauranting in Arizona — dare we say the country. Here’s a quick resume: She holds an Executive Master of Sustainability Leadership from ASU, the James Beard Foundation awarded her a “Seafood Sustainability Seal,” and she’s a member of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Blue-Ribbon Task Force. But none of that mattered when COVID hit. Within weeks, she shuttered her restaurant, The Breadfruit & Rum Bar, penned an open letter to Governor Doug Ducey on behalf of local eateries, and started the Arizona Small Restaurant Coalition. Yet her pandemic work was just getting started. Since then, Leoni and her Breadfruit team have delivered high-quality, locally sourced Jamaican food to A New Leaf and Roosevelt Community Church to feed families experiencing homelessness. She has joined the James Beard Foundation Women of Arizona alliance to promote female-owned restaurants in the Valley. And, during one of the most memorable election days in history, Leoni was part of Chefs for the Polls — a nonpartisan effort initiated by World Central Kitchen that fed voters (for free) at the Camelback Center on November 3.

During the pandemic, Scottsdale Community College faculty member Danielle Carlock got up to some interesting work. Carlock’s sabbatical project was meant to address food insecurity for students through a farmers’ market-style event at SCC, where Carlock would distribute free vegetables and edible plants from the campus food garden. But when SCC shut down due to COVID, she instead expanded the other part of the project: the free Maricopa Native Seed Library, which focuses on native plants — ecologically specific to Maricopa County — and seeds that aren’t readily available at Valley nurseries (many of which Carlock herself collected in the field). These native seeds are free to students, faculty, and the public. They come in packets of 20 or so, which can be picked up or mailed. Food plant seeds include kale, lettuce, firecracker penstemon, white Sonora wheat, Salt River Pima pea, and desert chia. And now, Mesa Community College’s Red Mountain campus is home to many of the parent plants, making it something of a showroom for the seed library.

Co-founded by former Phoenix Mercury player Bridget Pettis, nonprofit urban farming organization Project Roots AZ grows fresh fruits, herbs, and vegetables on land at the Spaces of Opportunity garden in Phoenix and the Local First Community Garden in Mesa. In addition to providing plots for people to farm their own food, the founders and staff of Project Roots AZ make community education a huge part of their activities, offering garden boxes for people to grow their own food on their patios or balconies, conducting gardening and yoga classes, making produce box deliveries, and running a soup kitchen out of their Mesa space. Project Roots AZ’s garden bounties can also be found at the Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market.

Old-school Phoenix foodies might remember the original Christopher’s Restaurant & Crush Lounge, the beloved eatery and bar manned by the James Beard Award-winning Chef Christopher Gross. It was located at Biltmore Fashion Park for a decade till Gross relocated to Wrigley Mansion to run Geordie’s in 2018. (There was also a brief Sky Harbor satellite location, Christopher’s, in 2019). But as of this spring, Gross opened a new restaurant: Christopher’s at Wrigley Mansion. The eight-course tasting menu spotlights seasonal ingredients from a prix-fixe menu at $250 per person, as well as Christopher’s Classic, a lighter tasting menu served at lunch. The 26-seat, 1,500-square-foot space, sitting right next to the mansion, was designed by architect Wendell Burnett, and boasts 180-degree views via floor-to-ceiling windows and a retractable roof. It’s quite an experience, if you can swing it.

We live in an age when so many restaurants just pretend to offer tapas. Pa’La Downtown is the real thing — a creative, Italian-leaning, Japanese-accented, unbelievably interesting restaurant where the only move is to roll up with friends, order a host of small dishes, and split them all. Sure, you could come for an excellent Neapolitan-esque pizza whose crust Claudio Urciuoli has laboriously blended from many kinds of flour and blazed in a tiled, wood-fired oven. Sure, you could come for a sandwich, maybe impeccably sourced tuna on the headiest, airiest focaccia in the Valley. But to experience the full Italy-meets-Japan project of Pa’La 2.0, go small or go home. Jason Alford and Urciuoli plate inventive crudi, beef tataki, scallops with apple miso, anchovy-funked New York strip spiedini, squid and fregola, octopus and yuzu, burrata and tomatoes … the list goes forever on, changing with the seasons, high-end imports, and chefs’ imaginations. 

Instrumental Hospitality’s Southeast Asian-inspired restaurant in Melrose hits best when you’re planted at the dark bar and a drink is plunked before you. The food at Belly can sing. Crab banh xeo has all the sea-sweet notes of the crustacean and the crisp goodness of the rice-flour crepe. Braised pork belly in a clay pot is richer than a pharaoh. Riffs on Southeast Asian tradition tend to be solid. Still, drinks kick up the experience several notches. Cocktails lean strongly tropical and bright: mezcal and rhum agricole, citrus, makrut lime leaf, intense aromatics. Try the Spicy Hydra, a margarita relative with pineapple and a tamarind salt rim, or the Because I Got High, which goes huge with mezcal, green chartreuse, matcha syrup, and coconut.

The photos on Durant’s website are misleading: Durant’s is dark. Really dark, like you need to wait for your eyes to adjust a bit dark. It adds a certain amount of flair and intrigue to your dining experience, as does the way you enter the restaurant through the back door. Once you’re inside, you can sit down and squint at the menu, which is composed of pricey-but-worth-it steakhouse classics like filet mignon, strip steak, and grilled scallops in herb cream sauce. Whatever you choose, don’t rush your meal; the food and the atmosphere invite you to linger in a subtle, classy dining room where you don’t have to see clearly to enjoy what’s on your plate.

You laugh. Isn’t Hillstone a chain? Yes, it’s a chain. And yes, if you glance at the menu, you’ll find a lot of straightforward dishes: wood-fired rotisserie, a French dip, a cheeseburger, some sushi rolls. If you like restaurants where you are afraid to pronounce a menu item, perhaps move along. But if you’re in the mood for the classics done exceptionally well, Hillstone is the spot. We have some recommendations for the (mildly) more adventurous eater, too. The Thai Tuna Roll, which contains macadamia nuts, is one of our favorite things to eat in all of Phoenix. The Thai Noodle Salad, served cold with mango, mint, chopped peanuts, and basil (we swap out the chicken for steak), is an absolute explosion of flavor — the perfect thing to eat on a hot day. The margs, heavy on the Cointreau, are $15 but somehow worth it. And, though we can’t usually afford to hang at Hillstone, we often see people who seem vaguely famous when we do. Like a local CEO, or a guitarist from a famous ’80s band who retired to Scottsdale, or a woman so beautiful she must be a model or the owner of a 500,000-follower Instagram influencer account. Maybe not the crowd you run with. But if you ain’t been to Hillstone, they know something you don’t.

Dom Ruggiero has one of the most diverse skill sets of any chef in the Valley. Beyond being a supremely gifted cook, he has grade-A chops in butchery, smoking food, and curing meat, yet also can rock out inspired vegetable cookery. Ruggiero is an underappreciated, quiet master of pasta, too. At Hush, he can usually be seen in the open kitchen or out in the restaurant delivering plates and chewing the fat with friends and regulars. There is a warmth to Hush that’s as pleasant as the food. It’s a place you want to return to again and again — and yes, it helps that Ruggiero’s oxtail Italian beef, chicken liver pâté, and date cake are already stone-cold Valley classics just a few years in.

FnB could win this category on Charleen Badman’s imaginative modern Arizonan food alone. It also could win on nothing but Pavle Milic’s next-level drink program, highlighted by potable finds from up and down our varied state. Put the two together and you get some black magic. Somehow, Badman seems to get better year after year, turning out stellar dishes like chilled melon soup, lamb ribs over fregola, and Peruvian spring rolls, melding the top, most unusual local produce with her array of global techniques. Milic is a library of knowledge on drinks reaching to the far corners of our state. He sources small-batch ciders from cooler heights where apples grow and even bottles from, yes, Los Milics, his very own Sonoita vineyard.

What do you want? The Pemberton probably has it. This Roosevelt Row entertainment hub, which debuted during the pandemic inside and on the grounds of a renovated 1920 mansion, features a rotating cast of tenants selling everything from craft cocktails served out of a camper (Baby Boy) to vegan pistachio almond ice cream (Melt) to vintage clothes and furniture (Vamp Rodeo, Clubhouse). The Pemberton holds yoga classes on the lawn, hosts live music, and is constantly signing up enticing new tenants, such as NamPik (Thai street food) and Moiselle (a “wine trailer” from sommelier Kristin Humphrey and Grace Perry, of Gracie’s Tax Bar). It is also a scene on the weekends — an excellent spot to people-watch or, who knows, maybe even talk to a stranger when you’re not Instagramming the food.

They mince the pork and pound the curry paste. They add the other aromatic ingredients: makrut lime leaf, lemongrass, cilantro, turmeric. They shape the sausage, a northern Thai staple known as sai ua. At last, they grill links over hot charcoal and slice them on a bias. Alex and Yotaka Martin’s sai ua is explosively flavorful. No surprise there. This is no different from the curries, noodle dishes, soups, laabs, and the rest of the regional Thai deep cuts they lovingly prepare at intimate popup dinners and for preorder takeout. Food geeks have been high on Lom Wong for a year or two now. This is Thai food from the heart, and the stories behind it are on another level.

We could go on for days praising Hearth ’61 at Mountain Shadows. The pedigree of the chefs — a culinary trio that includes luminaries Charles Wiley, one of the great fixtures and masters of resort cooking in Arizona — is part of it. Then there’s the kitchen’s centerpiece, an impressive, wood stone hearth oven that imparts a rustic charm and nuanced smoky flavor to signature dishes like tender short ribs with crispy Brussels sprouts and pork chops dressed up with spicy peaches and beer mustard. Finally, the ambiance: The tight, U-shaped counter is paneled with sleek wood and edged by blue-upholstered chairs. And this being an Arizona resort restaurant, there is Midcentury Modern decor and floor-to-ceiling windows offering scenic views of Camelback Mountain.

Lovecraft’s previous happy hour setup, in which prices rose as the hours wore on, used to be like a little devil on our shoulder: It encouraged us to bounce out of work as early as possible to get the best specials. (Not that we would ever do that.) They’ve switched it up, though, so now whatever time you get there between 3 and 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, you’re going to get the same delicious eats at the same price as everyone else. The food specials are selections from Lovecraft’s New Mexico-inspired menu; the broken chip queso dip (we add brisket) and the green chile stew with a tortilla are favorites. Drink specials cover craft beers, wine, and cocktails. We’ve often gotten started at Lovecraft before 6 p.m. and lingered into the night to enjoy the elegant interior, friendly staff, and jovial atmosphere.

Part informal breakfast spot with lighter plates, part bakery, part coffeehouse where you can eternally linger eating snacks and enjoying a slow caffeine drip, Ollie Vaughn’s punches way above its weight when it comes to morning eating. The croissant creations, like an egg sandwich and a croissant pudding, simply don’t miss. The breakfast sandwich with meat changes all the time and tends to feature banger after banger, like a buttermilk biscuit with ham, eggs, and pimento; or another biscuit sammy with Schreiner’s sausage, green chiles, and eggs. Some of the best baked goods here are classics. Don’t sleep on the workaday strawberry muffin with ample powdered sugar. At Ollie Vaughn’s, the tea selection is just wide enough, and the coffee list covers all the essential bases admirably. 

If you want the full brunch experience, meaning the breakfast cocktails and sticky sweets and wide savory selection and good coffee and a scene, then Tucson-based Prep & Pastry is the spot. The pastry counter of the on-canal Scottsdale location has some circus skills, from a croissant with puff and shatter to passion fruit pavlova and praline eclair. The plated brunch dishes are just as creative. Highlights include a peanut-butter-and-jelly French toast on Japanese milk bread, breakfast poutine with pork belly, and a cast-iron duck confit with cherries and goat cheese that could masquerade as a dinner entree. Drinks are thoughtful riffs on brunch classics, and they tend to disappear fast in the pleasant blur of a meal that reaches everything that the idea of brunch promises, but almost never actually delivers.  

If we have one quibble with our fair metropolis, it’s a shortage of late-night dining options that aren’t a Berto’s drive-thru or a chain diner. Thank goodness for Grand Avenue Pizza Company, then, which satisfies our craving for great food from a locally owned business well into the wee hours of the morning. Grand Avenue prides itself on its ingredients, like its all-natural pizza dough and house-made toppings and sauces. The result is pies a couple of notches above a lot of the pizzas in this town and pretty much anything else you can order at 2 in the morning. We love the Jimmy Legs, which comes topped with pesto, chicken, bacon, onion, broccoli, tomato, cheddar, and mozzarella, but sometimes we prefer to create a pie of our own. Fortunately, Grand Avenue lets us pick our toppings, and the offerings include fresh jalapenos, roasted garlic, and caramelized onions. Whatever time we sidle up to the pizzeria’s order window, we know we’re in for a treat.

Located on the grounds of the historic Hermosa Inn, Lon’s at the Hermosa (and the adjacent Lon’s Last Drop) puts the paradise in Paradise Valley. The white-tablecloth Southwestern resort restaurant is heavy with colorful umbrellas, turquoise and tile accents, and the clinks of silverware and wine glasses — all surrounding the large bubbling water fountain that’s the patio’s centerpiece. Nearby, but in the same courtyard, Lon’s Last has cowboy energy — probably because it’s named for the art on the wall, a Lon Megargee painting of a cowboy watering his horse from his Stetson hat. There are five outdoor fireplaces, lots of beer and whiskey, a wood-burning oven, and house cocktails like The Last Drop (Tucson’s Whiskey Del Bac single malt whiskey, Luxardo apricot, sweet Cocchi Vermouth di Torino, and blood orange). But if you can catch this sprawling patio in the spring, specifically during that week of blooming yellow palo verde trees, expect courtyard-side flowers in just about every color of the rainbow.

You miss the good old days of Tempe. We get it; we miss that golden, grimy era, too. But something had to take over the space once occupied by Sail Inn, the legendary Tempe rock club. We didn’t give The Lodge, a Sasquatch-themed sports bar that opened in 2015 in the location, much of a chance at first. But six years later, we must admit: It’s a damn solid sports bar. The woodsy theme, sure, whatever, it’s fine. The patio’s nice and spacious too. But we go for the grub. We practically lived here during the Suns’ playoff run, during which time we became big fans of the Nacho Mountain (absolutely huge), the chicken tenders (we are tender aficionados, and these are some of the best in town), and the green chile pork stew (endorsed by no less a personage than Guy Fieri on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives). The staff’s super-attentive, and you don’t have to deal with the kind of undergrad nonsense you’ll encounter a few blocks away on Mill Avenue. Change can be bittersweet. At The Lodge, at least it’s also delicious.

Phillip Lewkowicz, vice president of operations for Monarch Hospitality Group, and his family own the high-end Scottsdale spot Café Monarch — an Old Town joint that has won multiple accolades for being the most romantic restaurant in town. Well, until now. Their spinoff, a venture called Reserve, has usurped its parent eatery. As with many luxury products, scarcity is baked into the concept: Reserve serves only 25 diners per night. Guests first pass through a lush, garden entrance, then an interior welcome area, where a cocktail hour with hors d’oeuvres commences. Then it’s on to the courtyard, where dinner is served. A tasting menu of 12 courses is offered, with other bites in between. Three advanced sommeliers help with wine pairings. But the patio, the aforementioned courtyard, is a vision of soft lighting, chattering diners, clinking wine glasses, and romance. It’s truly the best new date night spot in town.

People say you can get a really good porterhouse at any number of places around the Valley. But can you? Not according to us. So we swear by the steaks at this Phoenix perennial, which serves the finest corn-fed slabs of beef in town. The Stockyards’ claim that it’s “Arizona’s Original Steakhouse” isn’t hooey — the restaurant has been with us since 1947, offering entrees with an emphasis on hearty flavors and honking portions. There’s no gourmet trickery here; no mushroom sauces or demiglace to detract from the filets and sirloins, the giant baked potatoes and fresh-steamed vegetables. And if you find yourself wanting to eat a little less food or spend a little less money, don’t sleep on the restaurant’s 1889 Saloon, a side room with turn-of-the-century appeal and a lighter menu of sliders, wings, and even calf fries. What we’re saying is: Take your meat-and-potatoes ass to the Stockyards.

We have one teeny-tiny complaint about Welcome Diner: We don’t get to eat there as often as we want. The retro-style diner is only open for breakfast and lunch on the weekends, which means we usually have to wait till dinnertime to belly up to the counter. But it’s worth the wait. Fortunately, we can order off Welcome’s breakfast menu any time of the day or night. The Whip Toast (French toast with berry compote and whipped cream) is a favorite. But there are no bad choices on Welcome’s tight menu of burgers, sandwiches, hot dogs, and chicken and biscuits. If it’s hot or rainy, we try to squeeze into Welcome’s retro-chic interior, but on crisp fall nights, we love to eat and drink on the patio, where denizens of the Garfield neighborhood gather to enjoy this local treasure.

Since 1964, Elizabeth White’s hallowed soul food joint has catered to the downtown masses. Stepping in for a lunch of classic soul food plates like juicy, shattering fried chicken or stewed oxtails melting off the bone feels like existing inside of a textbook photograph, or stumbling onto a movie set. The Sharpied walls, half-open kitchen, and quick, friendly service feel teleported out of an older age of hospitality. You can’t miss with the food here. Even the stewed collard greens and unadorned black-eyed peas are completely on point. If you want to end a pilgrimage to Mrs. White’s with a bang, finish with the sweet potato pie.

As born-and-raised Southwesterners, we’re deeply envious of anyone who got to grow up eating the kind of food they serve at Flavors of Louisiana. Now that we’ve been initiated in the ways of Cajun and Creole cuisine, we’re hooked. What should we talk about first? Maybe the Dunkin Catfish, two perfectly done strips of fried fish on top of crawfish etouffee-covered rice. Or the Cajun Trio of jambalaya, crawfish pie, and gumbo, which delights the senses and stuffs you to the gills. It’s all excellent, and all served with a smile by Flavors of Louisiana’s charming staff (that Southern hospitality thing is no joke). Resist the temptation to finish your entree; take it home. That way, you can end your feast with peach cobbler or beignets. Or both.

Ever since the pandemic made it much more of an ordeal to travel, we’ve found ourselves frequently thinking about journeys past. When we crave the cheerful din of an English tavern, we head to George & Dragon in central Phoenix. You don’t need to eat anything here to have a satisfying time; a pint of Smithwick’s, some football (meaning soccer) on the TV, and a friendly chat with the chap on the next barstool is a fine way to while away an afternoon or evening. But we recommend sampling the menu: The chicken and vegetable curries are celebrated for a reason, and traditional British fare like shepherd’s pie and bangers and mash pair well with the ciders and beers on tap. Until we can hop the pond again, George & Dragon gives us that British pub experience, right in the heart of Phoenix.

Sure, you got your McCaffrey’s, your Dubliners, your suburban corner pubs. But in downtown Cave Creek’s crowded food-and-drink scene, look for the giant Guinness banner and head toward Mountain View Pub. It has the usual Irish bar traits: imported beers, appetizers, an assortment of antique furniture, an internet jukebox. But there’s also a stage framed by exposed cobblestone, some natural sunlight, and a massive back patio with absolutely breathtaking views of a river valley and the north Valley mountains. To drink, order a margarita, a house favorite that’s served in a Guinness pint glass. To eat? Stay on the ol’ Emerald Isle; we like the Irish breakfast platter, Irish pub nachos, and the Reuben, which is made with corned beef cooked daily in Guinness.

Okay, maybe German isn’t the trendiest cuisine at the moment, but there’s no denying its effectiveness as comfort food. The menu at Haus Murphy’s in Historic Downtown Glendale is stocked with hearty, stick-to-your-ribs fare. We like to start with the giant Bavarian soft pretzel, which comes with butter, mustard, and (for an extra fee) cheese sauce. The schnitzels are the best in town; if you order the sampler plate, you’ll get to try the chicken, paprika, and steak schnitzels, all of which are perfectly fried without being too heavy. Our final bit of advice? Come to Haus Murphy’s on a mostly empty stomach — not just to enjoy the large portions, but also so you can sample the restaurant’s impressive beer selection (and maybe a Black Forest torte).

Inside this lofty temple of breezy, white-painted woods, exposed rafters, and brassy accents, an elegant modern French restaurant hums. It’s not elegant just because of the postcard bar with its smooth hewn-rock top and plant leaves jutting from atop the brass back bar. Francine unites coastal French cooking with strong influences from Spain and southern Italy, the dishes ranging from old to new. Brian Archibald cooks them with a true hand. Some of his highlights are a citrus-touched crab ravioli and a whole branzino baked in a salt crust. Archibald prepares textbook panisse, the classic French chickpea cake, but also mixes it up with dishes such as wood-roasted octopus with chorizo. In 2021, lots of French dining can feel sleepy, but Francine delivers a pleasant, galvanizing shock.

Chef Gio Osso’s restaurant serves funky amari flights. Gnocchi rolled with mesquite flour. Mains like duck breast in black garlic soubise. His skill and point of view in the Italian food arena would be unique for anywhere, and they certainly bring something to greater Phoenix’s somewhat staid Italian food scene. Diners enjoy his fare at an intimate courtyard flanking a boutique inn, white tablecloths under string lights. The menu changes all the time. At any given moment, there are usually just a few pastas. He’ll never cook, say, a classic like amatriciana. As with his take on grilled octopus, one highlighting fennel, chickpeas, and Calabrese chile butter, there’s always some nice modern wrinkle.

Who eats in this Cuban cafeteria in far west Phoenix? Cab drivers. Quiet regulars. People who know the proprietor and watch TV while they wolf down pork steak and flan. The food awaits in warming tins. It is ladled in its fully saucy glory onto your plate, juices running to the rim. The ropa vieja is excellent, the tender braided strings of long-stewed beef sopping with peppery juices. Oxtails are wildly decadent and so slide-apart that they cave under your fork with the most minimal pressure. Even the black beans are fire. This is the kind of Cuban cafeteria you’d expect in New York or Miami, so we’re thrilled Fe La Cubana calls Arizona home.

It sounds like a tree breaking in half — ripping down the middle with a deafening crack. But it’s just Brian Webb hacking the head off a full mahogany-lacquered pig with a cleaver. Webb’s lechon baboy is serious business. He turns the pig for hours over live charcoal, as he learned to from his wife Margita Webb’s family in Lapu Lapu City, in the Philippines. Lemongrass and garlic perfume the meat, tender but for the pieces with crackly bits of skin. At PHX Lechon Roasters, the Webbs also cook to-go meals (on some occasions), including whole kamayan dinners with edible gems like lumpia rich with pork and fried spareribs. Their ube pandesal, soft purple dinner rolls oozing molten cheese, are among the most comforting bites around.

Quality Asian restaurants are no easy find north of the 101, but 3 Regions Vietnamese Kitchen is a glaring exception. Chef Jenna Dao, a native of Hue, Vietnam, prepares dishes from the country’s three primary regions: north, south, and center. Her specialty is a yawning bowl of bun bo hue, a rice noodle soup fragrant with lemongrass and bobbing with tender sails of beef, slivered onion, and deep red chile oil. Her pho is also very good, if, when craving soup, you can turn from bun bo hue. Her banh xeo crepes are crisp, lacy, and crammed with decadent pork. Even her simple bun — rice noodles dipped in fish sauce, garlic, and citrus — feels pleasantly funky and extra refreshing.

Glai Baan, which serves the street food of northern Thailand, isn’t your average Thai restaurant. The menu is fairly small — there aren’t expansive lists of curries and noodles and rice dishes. But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in authenticity and out-of-this-world flavor. Soup isn’t usually a showstopper, but the kao tom moon — a large bowl of rice, chicken broth, ground pork, shrimp, and crispy garlic oil — nearly made us shout with joy the first time we tried it. The kanom jeeb, little pork dumplings with scallion and ginger soy, is another standout dish. The drink menu gets switched up every so often, but it’s filled with creative cocktails with region-appropriate ingredients like lemongrass and Asian spirits. We highly recommend making a reservation and/or calling in your takeout order well in advance; Glai Baan is hugely popular with diners who come from all over the Valley to experience this tiny gem.

What’s on the menu at Justin Park’s rollicking, black-walled eatery in a Mesa strip mall where the East Asian brews and soju cocktails flow? Korean street food, drunken munchies, classics, hybrids, and whatever the hell he feels like cooking. This place is so freeform and YOLO that Park has been known to hook up watermelon with soju and Pop Rocks. The young chef can cook up a storm. Classics like thin, flavor-bursting bulgogi and chewy tteokbokki bathed in fiery chile sauce tend to be right on target. So, too, are his remixes, like a Korean take on elote and a KFC (Korean fried chicken) that sees buttermilk-brined dark meat fried to perfect crispness and juiciness — ideal for sidekicking one or many drinks.

For more than a decade, Lori Hashimoto and her family have run a no-frills Japanese restaurant with uncommon range. The sushi at Hana is first-rate, especially some of the higher-end options. Uni quivers under a quail egg and vanishes in your mouth with the same briny glory of smelling a salt wind off the sea, only far creamier. Toro is so gloriously marbled that it looks more like pork cheek than tuna. Hana can finesse traditional dishes like monkfish liver and many kinds of tempura. The kitchen has all the goodness of the sushi bar, plating bang-up fried oysters, katsu breaded with panko, and even teriyaki that, yes, is well worth ordering.

A surefire way to banish all memories of sticky Americanized Chinese food is to step into this Tempe stalwart and embrace the depth of Sunny and Lulu Zhao’s northeastern Chinese menu. To begin, don’t overlook the drinks. Why settle for water when you can sip plum juice or fresh papaya milk? At Chou’s, noodles and clay pots are just the iceberg’s small tip. The main event is the world of dumplings, most famously pan-fried meat pies whose doughy sheaths give way to hot ground beef. Dumplings contain squash and egg, pork and pickled vegetables. You can go with classic potstickers or tuck into steamed mackerel enrobed in dough. Chou’s has the kind of menu that you could order from 10 times and still have 20 more things to try.

You never know when you’re going to stumble on a gem. One night, we were in the mood for Indian food and wanted to get takeout from a place nearby. The Tasty Touch came up on the Google search, and the rest is history. We’ve been back plenty of times to this strip-mall eatery, where the service is uncommonly friendly and the food is always spot-on. The lamb biryani with caramelized onions and saffron rice is a frequent go-to, as is the chicken saag, chunks of dark meat chicken swimming in a puree of spinach, onion, ginger, and garlic. We love to dip Tasty Touch’s incredible garlic naan into the liquid of the saag, too. There’s so much to explore on Tasty Touch’s menu that we know we’ll be making trips there for a long time to come.

How to make a lifelong Haji-Baba fan: Bring them to the restaurant one time. That’s what happened to us, and decades later, there aren’t many eateries in Phoenix we prefer to this unassuming strip mall restaurant/market. It’s hard for us to order anything other than the chicken shawarma plate, which comes with spiced meat, pillowy basmati rice, hummus, tabbouleh, and Haji’s legendary garlic sauce. But we’ve been known to opt for the gyros, big chunks of meat lounging in a tangy tzatziki sauce. The appetizers are fantastic, particularly the baba ghanoush, which is perfectly smokey and accompanied by a few slim pickle slices. Leave time at the end of your meal to browse the aisles of the market that shares space with the eatery; the flavors you just enjoyed will undoubtedly act as culinary inspiration for your home cooking.

We get it: African cuisine can be a little intimidating to the uninitiated. That’s why it’s such a comfort that the staff at Authentic Ethio African Spices are more than willing to weigh in on your order. This is our go-to, budget-friendly place for Ethiopian food. It’s cozy, affordable, and absolutely delicious. Go with the meat or vegetarian sampler platters. The portion sizes are pretty large, so two people can comfortably share a large entree without going hungry. Sometimes, though, we just make a meal out of the appetizers, like the sambusas (veggie or beef) or the spicy wings in berbere sauce. Authentic Ethio African Spices is currently closed for renovation (you can see the cool new signage when you drive past on McDowell Road), but it’s scheduled to reopen in October. We can’t wait to get back in there.

It might not matter to you that Cafe Chenar in north Phoenix is certified kosher under the supervision of a local rabbi, but it means that thousands of observant Jews have a restaurant they can safely patronize in a city that doesn’t have many kosher options. What definitely should matter to you is that Cafe Chenar is the only place in town to sample Bukharian cuisine (the food of Jews from Uzbekistan). If it sounds daunting, it shouldn’t. This is hearty comfort food that wouldn’t be out of place in a Midwestern kitchen. We love the dumplings selection here, which includes pelemi (meat dumplings in clear broth) and fried potato piroshkis. The Cornish game hen with garlic fries isn’t particularly exotic, but it’s remarkably satisfying. Nothing is too expensive, either, so we suggest showing up with a group and ordering family-style in order to try the full range of what Cafe Chenar has to offer.

Chompie’s is the kind of story we love: A family moves here from New York, opens a deli, and more than 40 years later, they’re beloved a local chain with outposts around metro Phoenix and generations of fans. We don’t even try to make it through one of their “mile-high” sandwiches — the enormous pile of meat is too much for smaller appetites. But we happily chow down on classic Jewish dishes like potato knishes, cabbage rolls, and matzah ball soup (the first thing we run for when we’re feeling under the weather). Chompie’s pays special attention to Jewish holidays, and always has takeout and dine-in specials for Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah, and the like. The Paradise Valley Mall location closed earlier this year when the mall closed for good, but we can’t wait for its new storefront to open near 32nd Street and Cactus Road.

Sapiens Paleo Kitchen is something of a hidden gem. The restaurant is housed in a plaza near McDowell Mountain Regional Park, an incredibly scenic part of northeast Scottsdale. It serves French cuisine on a 100-percent paleo menu — cool on its own — but also from a completely gluten-free menu, from a completely gluten-free kitchen. Here, you can order the Paleo Bread Platter for starters, the Sapiens Burger, Paleo Meatloaf, and the Sapiens Crème Brûlée — all dishes normally avoided by gluten-free diners. The entire menu is built differently (we’re looking at you, hot pink Paleo Dip), because the food here caters to those with specific dietary restrictions — by choice or otherwise. You won’t have to endure the annoying ordering process of special requests and substitutions here. The staff gets it.

Not being vegans ourselves, we were skeptical the first time we accompanied a vegan friend to Verdura for lunch. We left believers. It’s a cliche, but you barely miss the meat when chowing down on menu items like the hearty Rainbow Connection (a veggie sandwich with pesto “mayo” on Noble Bread) or the spicy General Pow Cauliflower with jasmine rice and Korean broccoli. Just make sure you save some room to split the Goth Waffle with your dining companion; we’ve written about this black waffle topped with berries, compote, and shaved coconut before, and we still rave about it every chance we get. And since we enjoy style and substance, we feel compelled to mention that the rock ‘n’ roll-themed decor is just one more thing we love about Verdura.

Green’s “vegan comfort food for the masses” includes delicious and deceptively meaty plant-based versions of carnivorous classics like burgers, Buffalo wings, cheesesteaks, chili, and barbecue sandwiches — all so good most people can hardly believe they’re vegan. That’s the whole point. Green New American Vegetarian owner Damon Brasch wants to offer American classics that every family member can enjoy, including kids (there are faux chicken nuggets, a kids’ burger, and a mini “cheese” quesadilla on the menu). Samosas, smothered fries, and crab puffs are among the savory sides. Herbivores can get their food fixes, too, with Green’s variety of specialty salads and garden burritos. To satisfy a sweet tooth, pop over next door to the Phoenix location and peruse Nami’s menu of soy-based ice cream treats and vegan baked goods.

Nepalese dumplings. Filipino chicken skewers. Cold brew and soursop frozen ice pops. The Uptown Farmers’ Market, held on Wednesdays and Saturdays in the parking lot of North Phoenix Baptist Church, is back, with prepared food vendors firing up the grills and the other stands selling, between them, just about anything you might want from an Arizona farmers’ market. There’s grass-fed beef, heirloom tomatoes, rye bread, hand-pounded salsa. As the seasons change, so too does the glorious rainbow bounty of farm-fresh ingredients. The fruits and vegetables shine at stands like Wong Family Farms and McClendon’s Select. Whether you come by for lobster rolls, pickles, or duck eggs, the community and wonderful vibe at this market managed by Bo Mostow will be a highlight of your week or weekend.

It was big news when Korean-American supermarket chain H-Mart opened its first Arizona location in Mesa last summer, and we’re happy to report that the store lives up to the hype. H-Mart has it all: a dizzying variety of Asian groceries, a not-to-be-missed food court, and killer K-pop playing on the speakers. Sure, it’s no mom-and-pop shop, but it also sells everything you need and everything you didn’t think you needed until you stumbled across it. Stock up on frozen dumplings, chili sauce, rambutan, fresh seafood, outstanding chilled sake, a new rice cooker, and much, much more. On your way out, you can stop by the food court and chow down on Korean, Japanese, and Chinese takeout — including a to-die-for Korean fried chicken vendor.

One of these days, we’re going to head to Lee Lee, fill up a cart with products whose labels we can’t understand, and take our purchases home for some global culinary exploration. But until we conduct that grand experiment, you can just catch us at Lee Lee for our usual purchases, like frozen shumai, Filipino lumpia, containers of fried garlic that go great on everything, Bulgarian red pepper spread, central European meats, Korean ramen, and so much more. We make sure we have extra time to shop when we get to one of Lee Lee’s two Valley locations; we like to stroll the wide aisles at leisure, looking at the unusual products and appreciating the gastronomic diversity of the world we live in.

There’s pizza sauce, and then there’s the house-brand pizza sauce we get from this west-side deli, a Phoenix tradition since 1975. Those in the know about Italian delis — and anyone too lazy to make their own red gravy — will tell you that Romanelli’s pizza sauce is the best in town. So’s the selection of Italian cheeses and cured meats, holiday candies and cookies, olive oils and pastas. They’ll cater your next office party or bar mitzvah, and they’ll serve you a delicious lunch to go, but what Romanelli’s will mostly do is make you want to back up a truck and fill it with provolone balls and mostaccioli, cannoli and pizzelles. Maybe you’ll be inspired to make your own, in which case this family-owned institution sells pizzelle irons, cheese-ballers, and cannoli shells.

Owned by Mahfam Moeeni-Alacron and her husband, Cristobal Alacron, Mingle + Graze was a dream many years in the making. At the shop, which opened in early 2019 in charming downtown Chandler, Moeeni-Alacron uses her expertise to select just the right cheeses for her store and clientele. She also educates people about new flavors. You can build your own cheese board and sample their new cheeses while you’re there. (The pecorino is definitely worth a try.) It only takes a few visits before you become part of the Mingle + Graze community; the owners will know you by name after the first time, and once you’re a regular, the staff will start working on your food as soon as you step into the shop. This is the best place for cheese in town, but cheese is by no means the only offering at Mingle + Graze. The menu is peppered with creative nods to her Persian and his Chilean heritage in the form of sandwiches, salads, and desserts.

In our state, where cattle is one of the five foundational Cs, great steaks are our standard. If you want to grill, smoke, or reverse-sear the best beef you can get your hands on, a trip to Roni Terry at The Meat Market is a must. All beef is grass-fed in Arizona. Cuts include porterhouses and ribeyes but stray into rarer finds like oyster steak and Denver steak. The pork and lamb options are equally heady. What sets The Meat Market apart most of all, though, are prepared goods, including excellent sausages and a budding charcuterie program. Now and then, Terry sources high-end products like veal leg, a cause for celebration for the meat lover.

Chris Nelson willed this once-scrappy-newbie seafood shop into a foundational pillar of Phoenix dining. See the name “Nelson’s” on a menu next to a crudo, grilled octopus, or spot prawns? Pull the trigger. Though we’ve gushed about it over the years, the colors, sheen, and vivacity of marine life in the Nelson’s display case remain a wonder. Nelson overnights fish into the desert from the world’s near and far waterways. Vivid scallops, alien king salmon, pinkish monkfish slabs ready to be baked into osso buco: Some of the fish at Nelson’s is so fresh, so rare, and so removed from the ordinary experience of a fish market (or grocery) that it almost seems fake. Chat up Nellie, though, and he’ll tell you everything about the creature, right on down to the nickname of the fisherman who caught it.

Too many burgers are about the bacon or the chiles, the aioli or the fried egg. The burgers at Stoop Kid are about beef. When you sink your teeth into this bagel shop’s single or double, you can tell that you’re eating an animal. The patties are packed with rich, primal juice. The ratios of the burger emphasize everything just right. The Pobrecito is a proper single patty with American cheese, pickle, onion, ketchup, and mustard, the cookout burger of your youth dialed to 11. The Stoop Burger is bigger and sexier, a tall double spilling cheddar from brioche. Steve McMillen’s burgers are downright flawless — not bad for a bagel joint.

Why not make sandwiches using our metro’s most celebrated bread? The baker behind that bread, Jason Raducha, doesn’t have to try too hard to make a beautiful Italian sandwich on his chewy semolina roll. But he does. He takes a minimalistic approach to making sandwiches, his creations featuring quality ingredients, smart combinations, with no parts out of place. A caprese ditches raw tomato for roasted, mozzarella for burrata, and balsamic vinegar for saba. It’s a more decadent version of the classic. Similarly, he jolts tuna with cabernet vinegar and incorporates potato, making for a fresher, heartier, more sophisticated sandwich. It’s all impressively executed and well-sourced, an ideal older-school sandwich shop for today’s age of eating.

The Beckett’s Table’s grilled cheese isn’t like any you’ve had. It’s a play on textures, turned inside out: a golden bun, topped with roasted strands of asiago, oozing with an international blend of cheeses. The pillowy brioche is stuffed with a gooey blend of manchego, asiago, white cheddar, mozzarella, and fontina. Sharp, mild, zesty, piquant, and nutty dance together. How does Beckett make a fluffy brioche bun work with the softness of the five cheeses? Unlike other grilled cheese sandwiches, where the crunch comes from the outside (toasted bread), here it comes from the inside of the sandwich (crispy pancetta). A tomato and roasted pepper bisque accompanies the sandwich. Pro tip: Try at least one nibble with the sandwich dipped in the creamy soup. It’s a perfect bite.

Hot dogs exist on a spectrum. There’s the sketchy side (gas stations and sporting events) and the gourmet side, which is where Der Wurst hangs out. Every Der Wurst dog starts with a Schreiner’s Fine Sausages product and a local, baked-from-scratch pretzel bun. All the offerings have slightly off-color names; we like the Dirty Sanchez, which comes with chorizo, cheese, and jalapenos; the Schnitzel Licker, a breaded and fried dog with lemon mayo and arugula; and the Strap-On, a vegan hot dog. There are other choices on the Der Wurst menu, too, like loaded fries and desserts, but the creative, delicious variations on the standard hot dog are what keep us coming back.

It has been more than a year since Fry Bread House founder Cecelia Miller passed away, but her legacy lives on in the form of puffy, craggy, golden-crisp frybread. At this legendary Phoenix Tohono O’odham restaurant, long a pillar of the urban Indigenous food scene, frybread comes in so many satisfying ways: in burgers, as tacos, with stews, even laced with warm chocolate sauce for the kind of dessert you involuntarily close your eyes to as you eat, soul awash in hot joy. The frybread here is so great, though, that you can eat it plain — experiencing the full gustatory potential of the dish.

There was a while there when we couldn’t make it through the week without Stacy’s Pampered Pig sandwich (juicy pulled pork and dark-meat chicken), but we’re better now that we’ve acquired an addiction to the fried chicken at this Glendale Avenue food stand instead. We’re not sure what Stacy and company are putting into the breading of their juicy deep-fried hunks of fowl, but we don’t really care, so long as they keep doing it. Their three-piece dinner can be had with collard greens or candied yams, but we’re always tempted to order it with another side of the crispiest, moistest fried chicken we’ve yet to eat.

The food-from-the-fryer desire is very real. Sometimes you need something hot, starchy, and high in sodium. But instead of sliding behind the wheel and sitting in the sad, emissions-pooping drive-thru at some nearby fast-food joint, roll up to The Hudson Eatery & Bar in central Tempe. This newer neighborhood spot serves quality comfort food and bourbon, but the fries are a major bright spot. They’re not too thin, but not a steak fry — these are slender, lengthy boys encased in a nicely crunchy shell. Every piping-hot fry’s surface is heavily textured and simply seasoned with just the right amount of salt and pepper (or so it’s seemed when we’ve had them). These are very good fries — like two full rungs above fast food.

We’re personally of the opinion that there should be far more outposts of Valley Wings around the metro, but until that happens, we’ll gladly make the trip to either the west Phoenix or south Scottsdale locations. How else are we going to enjoy these hot, crispy, perfectly done wings? Each drum or flat is nice and meaty, and the sauces are phenomenal. We’re partial to the tangy Valley Sauce, the more-hot-than-honey Honey Hot, the rich Garlic Parmesan, and the thick Sweet Teriyaki. Order some wings to go, and you’ll get home to find your food perfectly packaged — no accidental mixing of sauces here. Valley Wings also sells chicken tenders and a few varieties of loaded fries, but if you walk out the door with no wings, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

Surprised? Year after year, Scott and Bekke Holmes produce barbecue so good that second best is but a distant speck in their rearview mirror, if visible at all. At the original location, a humble lot not far from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, smokers puff deep into the night, lines form in the morning, and sliced brisket lands on the first blessed tray just after 11 a.m. Barbecue is done in the Central Texas style, meaning beef-centric with a minimal rub and mild smoke to let the greatness of the meat shine. Brisket, pastrami, and beef rib are all outstanding. Even the smoked turkey is uncommonly juicy, a solid 10/10.

Finding burnt ends — the uneven, barky ends lopped off a brisket — on local barbecue menus isn’t easy. But Michael Sloan’s Phat Turtle BBQ does Kansas City-style barbecue; burnt ends are a must. Phat Turtle’s have a heavy smoke and the long, unholy dissolve of wildly fatty slow-cooked meat. You can order them on a plate or platter, caramelized with barbecue sauce for a sweet starter, or chunky and spilling from the bun of a happily sloppy sandwich. Burnt ends are by far Phat Turtle’s best meat, a jiggling cornerstone for this barbecue joint that claims to smoke low and slow in “Kansas City, Arizona.”

We asked a big question in early 2021: Will the next generation of Phoenix pizza be mobile? Thanks to certain juggernauts being knocked out or limited by COVID, that may be the case. Cue Quadro Pizza. Though owner Harry Canelos would bake just 50 pizzas, two nights a week, out of a mobile trailer, his were some of the most memorable in our pizza-crazed desert town. Pies are square, heavy, and sliced into quadrants. Fermentation, up to four days’ worth, is used to develop a crunchy yet soft, airy, and delicious crust. Ingredients include Italian tomatoes underneath Grana Padano cheese — grated on at two separate points in the process. Overall, Quadro is a must-order for local pizza lovers. To grab one of Quadro’s few dozen weekly pies, check in on Canelos after he posts his weekly menu to Instagram at@quadropizzeria.

For the better part of a decade now, Gio Osso has plated some of the Valley’s most progressive Italian food. Now, he also blazes our very best Neapolitan pizza. Osso hews close to the ageless traditions of Naples, birthplace of pizza, including the signature puffy crust, micro-thin center, San Marzano tomatoes, and cooking each pie at volcanic heat. Technically, the pizza is almost without error. Toppings, though, are where Osso truly separates from the pack. He isn’t afraid to do taleggio, truffle, trumpet mushrooms, and arugula. Or stracchino cheese with smoked pancetta, caramelized onion, and chestnut honey. These are heady, old-school ingredients arranged in thoughtful ways — resulting in truly excellent pizza.

The owner of Andreoli, Giovanni Scorzo, grew up in Italy’s far south. The dry goods, pastries, meats and cheeses, and prepared foods he offers all reflect his link to Italy, which hits you with the smell of fresh-baked bread upon entering. Scorzo crafts all kinds of ingredients from scratch, including cured meats, cheese like mozzarella and burrata, and intricate pastries like sfogliatelle. Plated dishes include an all-star lineup of stalwarts from up and down Italy, including handmade ravioli. Slippery, the thin outer noodle soft, the fragrant fillings even softer, Scorzo’s mushroom, veal, squash, and other ravioli channel the Old World. They conjure the humble home kitchens where dough crimps and flour clouds catch the light — the true spirit of pasta.

Lately, charcuterie boards have risen to the level of art: Cheeses, meats, jams, and crackers get displayed so gorgeously that you stop to take a photo before digging in. The Sicilian Butcher definitely understands how a charcuterie board has a chance to make a memorable impression. There’s not one, but four different choices for boards, everything from the Polenta board with meatballs, cheese, and toast points; the Cured Meat and Cheese board, which is accompanied by pickled vegetables and jams; and the over-the-top Sicilian in Strada, which delivers panelli fritters, potato croquette, craft meatballs with polenta, artisanal meats and cheeses, as well as jams. Served on a 5-foot-long board, it can easily feed a family or a group of friends. And while you’re feasting, don’t forget that happy hour is all day, every day; you likely won’t regret pairing your charcuterie with a $6 glass of wine or $5 beer.

A $185 seat at Shinji Kurita’s omakase temple gives you more than a meal. It’s a ticket to a culinary event, a spectacle. Kurita sharpens his knife on the whetstone, whirls chopsticks and pinches food with surgical precision, hand-sculpts blocks of sushi rice with the whole-body movements of a ballerina, and gently brushes immaculate fish with soy-sake reduction and places it before you. Kohada nigiri drips a few dark drops onto its plate before vanishing into your mouth. The fish is incredibly fresh. Even the rice seems to burst with perfect fragrance. The shad is excellent. The eel, too. The eggplant with bonito shavings rocks. Shit, you’ll actually even see fresh wasabi root. Kurita is our undisputed sushi king.

Housed in a wing of the Galvanize co-working space downtown, Kaizen doesn’t look like a sushi restaurant. And yet, it’s handily the best sushi restaurant to have plugged in its rice cooker since the pandemic began. Chef Gustavo Munoz prepares traditional Japanese sushi (maki, sashimi, etc.) but also raw-fish dishes that straddle Japan and the Americas. They’re as brilliant as they are unlikely. Highlights include a scallop number, pearly coins of bivalve bathed in an electric dark green yuzu-and-serrano-charged aguachile, and a Peruvian-Japanese tiradito with similar brightness but much more creamy oomph. Critically, eel, snapper, and other simple nigiri taste clean and fresh. This is your new spot for sushi downtown.

Early in the pandemic, Osaka native Yusuke Kuroda was laid off from his job at the reputed American Japanese chain Nobu. He resettled in Arizona, where he opened Origami Ramen Bar in Ahwatukee, putting his learnings from Nobu and cooking in Japan into long-simmered bowls of noodle soup. For rich miso ramen, the simmering of chicken and pork bones lasts 12 hours. A blend of miso pastes from Hokkaido lends even more depth. One slurp, and a wild flavor landscape of umami comes to life, incredible in its intensity and subtleties. His other ramens are also exceptional, including a paitan that is pretty much chicken soup to the seventh power.

From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, it’s a feeding frenzy at Chandler’s Phoenix Palace. That’s when dim sum is served. During those five hours, a steady offering of delectable Cantonese dishes is wheeled around the dining area’s many tables in a kind of ballet performance of culinary hospitality. With so many choices, it takes no effort to litter your table with used plates as you taste savory dishes like spare ribs, steamed and baked barbecue buns, sesame balls, Chinese broccoli, roast duck, crispy pork, and soy sauce chow mein. And don’t worry, there’s plenty to satisfy your sweet tooth: Creamy buns stuffed with a rich custard and sesame balls filled with sugar and red bean paste are heady, confectionary delights.

These fluffy bao steamed in a Chandler restaurant and at events all over the Valley often are more than bao. They are bao with cute, hilarious, amazing faces. Hello Kitty. Baby Yoda. An Angry Bird with arched eyebrows, all but challenging you to eat him. Mr. Bird, you are doomed, because even the tofu bao here is stellar. Indonesian immigrant Anna Heinback is behind the bao. Though they look new-school, they are steamed in bamboo containers the old-school way. Her char siu (Cantonese-style barbecue pork) and chicken teriyaki make for great munching when walking around a farmers’ market or festival.

What if we told you that one of the greatest grilled meats in our carne asada wonderland is an Armenian kabob? Believe it. Kabob Grill N Go owners Tony and Hasmik Chilingaryan grill flank steak, pork ribs, chicken wings, and the sausage-shaped minced-meat skewer known as koobideh. You can order a skewer. You can throw down and get a whole platter with rice and more. Much of what the Chilingaryans cook is displayed in a glass case. Just one look and a quick soulful smell of the grill, and you’ll be a new regular.

We used to have a friend named Dino, but we stopped speaking to him when he said he didn’t like the gingerbread men at Barb’s Bakery, which has been serving Phoenix for decades. We don’t need negativity like that in our life. What we do need is one of those spicy, warm cookies from Barb’s, and we need one every week. Also a half-dozen of Barb’s butter cookies, iced just so and perfect with a glass of cold milk. Barb’s Orange Dreamsicle cupcake is the best thing we’ve ever tasted, next to her made-from-scratch cinnamon roll, sticky with sweet icing and nearly big enough for two. Except we don’t like to share our stash from Barb’s. Get your own.

A lot of people seem to think “You can’t even tell it’s gluten-free!” is the highest compliment you can pay a gluten-free baked good. We’re here to tell you: It’s not enough for us that our gluten-free goodies pass as “regular” treats. They had better be delicious, too. Sweet Dee’s never fails to live up to our standards; each day, its lineup of pastries includes a number of outstanding gluten-free options. We’ve tried the butterscotch chip brownie, moist and rich; a tart, smooth lemon bar; and exquisite macarons in flavors like matcha and dark chocolate pomegranate. Also gluten-free are Dee’s Nuts (LOL), the bakery’s mini doughnuts. Sweet Dee’s food menu, which offers light fare like quiche, avocado toast, sandwiches, and salads, also notes that any menu item can be made sans gluten. All in all, Sweet Dee’s is where we go for pastries with none of the gluten and all of the flavor.

If you’re lucky enough to get to Essence Bakery just as the pastries have come out of the oven, you’ll smell the chocolate croissant before you taste it. The first bite will stop you in your tracks. Although we’re talking about a pastry made with butter and stuffed with chocolate, Chef Eugenia Theodosopoulos’ pastry is exceptionally airy and flaky. You may have to take a couple of bites to uncover the rich, dark chocolate nestled within the pastry, but your teeth, and soon your fingers, will eventually discover the utter softness within. Before too long, you’ll have devoured the whole thing, leaving only pastry flakes on your shirt and butter and chocolate smeared on your fingertips. You may as well order another — this little bit of pastry heaven only costs $4.

It’s not unusual for a bakery to make an excellent kalamata olive loaf, which Arizona Bread Company certainly does, all chewy and stuffed with olives and sprinkled with cheeses. And there are several local bakeries that offer a really good round raisin challah, too (though none half so dense and tasty as Arizona Bread’s). But can someone please help us find a tastier, more perfect loaf of Italian rosemary bread than the one baked at this longtime Valley favorite? No, never mind. You can’t do it; we’ve tried and failed to find one we like more. Don’t take our word for it — try this aromatic, crusty loaf yourself. And while you’re there, don’t miss an opportunity to take home a hunk of Arizona Bread’s dark honey wheat bread, or to try their Paris-perfect baguette, with its hard, crisp outside and chewy, soft inside.

Step aside, Bonne Maman. Cotton Country Jams is in the house. Amanda Hawkins’ grandmother started this business in 2000; at the time, the only product was wild Maine blueberry jam. Hawkins took over in 2008, and today, she offers jams, jellies, pickled products, and syrups, using mostly local ingredients and Grandma’s recipes. We keep our kitchen stocked with the prickly pear jelly and the bread-and-butter pickles by snapping them up when we spy them at local farmers’ markets. But the crown jewel of the lineup is the fig jam. Made with figs, lemons juice, sugar, citric acid, and pectin, it’s got just the right texture (not too thick, not too thin), flow, and sweetness. You can also find Cotton Country Jam products locally at Woods & Whites, Sphinx Date Co., Noble Eatery, and Pane Bianco.

There is a tragic dearth of good bagels in Phoenix. Luckily, we’ve got Bagelfelds, whose bagels, which are marketed as Brooklyn-style bagels, are phenomenal. Biting into one of these fresh, chewy everything bagels smothered in a garlic pepper smear is a borderline New York experience; it’s even better when you know you have more bagels in your paper bag since you splurged on a dozen. The menu includes flavors like fennel seed and golden raisin, and sea salt, and you’ve also got cream cheese options like lemon herb and honey brown butter. They don’t have a formal storefront, but you can get your Bagelfelds fix at stands at Uptown Farmers’ Market, Downtown Phoenix Public Market, Stoop Kid at The Churchill, and Nelson’s Meat + Fish.

It’s true that acai bowls can be similar, with basic ingredients that are hard to get wrong. They can also be masterpieces of acai goodness topped with the freshest fruit and granola, like those you’ll find at Berry Divine Acai Bowls. A small Arizona chain started by Sedona resident Todd Shreve, Berry Divine has five locations, including our favorite on 16th Street near Barrio Café. Our obsession began on a long, late work night when a colleague introduced us to the idea of an acai bowl for dinner. Berry Divine does the classic bowl that we like just right: photogenic strawberry slices, blueberries, and bananas topped with granola and honey, a dash of protein powder, and drips of honey. They’ve got a full menu of fancier bowls and will customize them however you want. The 16th Street location is more urban-style, with limited seating inside and an outdoor patio adjacent to a tiny parking lot. Whenever we eat here, we have the same thought: Health food shouldn’t be this tasty. At Berry Divine, though, it somehow is.

We admit it: Mary Coyle isn’t the only place in town we eat ice cream. But that’s only because we keep trying to find an ice cream we like better. And we keep failing. It might be that no one else in town has mastered maple walnut, or that no other confectioner has even bothered to attempt salted caramel cashew (a life-changing ice cream flavor in case you’re looking for a new you). Or maybe it’s just that the late Mrs. Coyle’s ice cream recipes are the very best (exactly how much butterfat is in this stuff, anyway?). Every spoonful of Mary Coyle is made in-house, and made as if butter pecan, pistachio, rocky road, and mint chocolate chip are the only things that really matter in life. Which, at least at Mary Coyle’s place, they kind of are.

Since spots like Portland, Oregon’s iconic Voodoo Doughnuts opened in 2003, the game has changed for the oft-one-holed pastry; a slew of spots around the globe have gotten super-creative with their interpretations. That’s all well and good, but sometimes a simple fried dough offering satisfies the doughnut craving like no other. Rainbow Donuts isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. This old-school joint is just concerned with dropping delectable pastries on the daily. Glazed, raised, filled, plain, and sprinkled are mostly what you’ll find in their lengthy glass case. The buttermilk bars are exceptional, too, but if you arrive at Rainbow too far past sunrise, they will have long been sold out. Delicately dense and subtly sweet with a tinge of nutmeg, these hearty bars are enough of a reason to put this shop on your route.

This small-batch craft chocolate shop, owned by the husband-and-wife team Jim and Maureen Elitzak, started as one of Maureen’s hobbies but now creates award-winning bars and bonbons from ethically sourced cacao beans. Check out the brownie flights for sure, but our fave is the award-winning white chocolate bar. Made from only three ingredients (organic cane sugar, cocoa butter, and whole milk powder), it tastes better than any white chocolate you’ve ever had. The secret? They don’t filter out the solids in the cocoa butter. The result? A luscious, caramelly flavor that’ll have you hiding this bar away from your family members.

The best lemons-into-lemonade story we’ve heard in a while belongs to Michael Minnis, who opened a business in the same Mesa strip mall where he was once ordered by the state to submit urine tests for a drug arrest. “I had to piss at the TASC [Treatment Assessment Screening Center] office next door,” Minnis says, “and I saw this building for rent.” His store, originally called the Soda Pop Stop, has evolved from a utilitarian storefront that peddled soda, bottled water, and snacks to the TASC’s pee-in-a-cup crowd to a Valley destination for rare and hard-to-find sodas and snacks. Pop’s Exotics, as it’s now known, services a growing subculture that will pay a premium for white peach Sunkist from China, honey chili Doritos from South Korea, squid-flavored Lays from Thailand, and ketchup-flavored Cheetos from Canada. It’s also a go-to for what Minnis calls “nostalgics” and what some of us refer to as granny-candy: Clark Bars, Chick-o-Sticks, Sixlets. Minnis has also distinguished himself as a savvy internet marketer. He had a few posts blow up earlier this year on TikTok, where he has 125,000 followers and counting.

The lines are always long at Share Tea. Don’t worry, though: the orders are taken quickly, and within a few minutes, your whole crew will be slurping that sweet boba. A bestseller is the Pearl Black Milk Tea, with boba that’s soft and not too chewy and a sweetness level custom-made to match your preferences. We also recommend the Happy Family, which boasts five toppings — red bean, nata de coco, normal pearls, mini pearls, and pudding — in one boba drink. If the mood is for something not-so-milky, an alternate option is mango or peach mojito. You’ll find yourself wanting to come back for more boba, and good news: Repeat customers are rewarded with a stamp card where you get one on the house after buying 10 drinks.

Inside a room that feels like being enclosed in a box of glossy computer paper, Jorge Ignacio Torres oversees the most vibrant coffee program in Phoenix. Futuro exists inside Palabra, the multipurpose downtown space that also houses the eatery Pasado, a hair salon, and rotating displays of up-to-the-minute avant-garde art. The coffee, much of it single-origin, pushes new limits creatively, making you reconsider what coffee can be. Innovative blends like a double espresso with milk and marzipan candy, or cold brew with nectarine, honeysuckle, and cream often come in stemless wine glasses when iced, hand-thrown ceramics when hot. Torres’ beans and whimsical-yet-rigorous flavor weavings have deep roots in Mexico. Classics like cafe de olla and cajeta latte feel brand new.

With two decades of roasting experience and some of the most sought-after roasting machinery in the world in his shop, Kansas transplant Dave Anderson and his Cave Creek crew roll out the red carpet for coffee beans, bringing them to their full pre-brew flavor. He started canning his nitro cold brew a few years ago. It has a deeply frothy head that could give Guinness a run for its money and such an astonishing array of lightly nutty, malty, fragrant flavors that it almost seems like you aren’t drinking coffee — until its buzz zaps you like a thunderbolt. Wake up with one of these, and a big day is pretty much guaranteed.

Pulling up to this sky-blue, cloud-white, wood-paneled coffee trailer with a psychedelic saguaro painted on its door feels like a block party. Whether they’re parked in their customary lot in downtown Tolleson or elsewhere, Raul Chavez and Brittany Martinez-Chavez sling their fun latte riffs to big crowds. They use Quetzal Co-Op coffee and mix espresso-based drinks like a Mexican hot chocolate mocha and a churro latte. Drinks are sweet and iced and giant, the best ones a touch or more crazy. The two also brew mean teas, some from Native Seeds/SEARCH, like prickly pear and desert mint. But the coffees deserve their star turn. They’re just so unique: Mexican in spirit with Akimel O’odham influences and plenty of whimsy.

The intersection of 16th Street and Highland Avenue is a chaotic one, packed with impatient motorists making their way to or from the State Highway 51 ramp a few blocks away. As of this year, though, you can escape to chill vibes inside Moxie Coffee Co., which opened up shop in May inside one of the ground-level retail spaces beneath a luxury apartment complex called The Art on Highland. The coffee shop, owned by Matt Heltzel, is airy, white, and clean, with high ceilings and lots of natural light. It’s also large enough that we’ve never struggled to find a table to work, despite it always being fairly busy there. There are several long tables for collaborative work/study sessions, square two-seaters, a row of high chairs overlooking 16th Street, and some patio seating out front. Plus, the tables are spread out nicely, meaning you won’t be distracted by the next table’s conversation (and you’ll be less likely to get COVID from them). Order a nitro or a New Orleans-style iced coffee (cold brew with chicory and house-made vanilla, topped with cream), arrange your stuff on the table, and breathe in the freshly roasted tranquility. Time to get to work.

Little Wren has grown up. Once a small, charming, upstart brewery operating out of a cramped bungalow, Wren House has multiplied its production capacity with an off-site facility and has opened a biergarten in Prescott called The Prairie Patio. Even with all this, Wren House hasn’t taken even a half-step back in quality or lost a drop of charm. The IPAs leveled up a few years ago. More classic styles like pilsner (Valley Beer) remain first-rate, and Wren still makes what might be the state’s best stout in Jomax. So many classic styles are well executed. So many newcomers are still inspired. Cheers to Wren taking flight.

We’re going to shoot straight with you here: Tombstone Brewing Company isn’t a new Arizona brewery. But it’s new to Phoenix. In October 2020, respected head brewer Weedy Weidenthal took over the fermentation tanks at the old Helio Basin Brewing, expanding the production and style capacity of Tombstone and giving this top-tier Arizona brewery a northern outpost. Tombstone is known largely for its dank, juicy, giant IPAs, doubles and triples with pleasant hoppy nuances despite their power. Tombstone’s range is total. From trendy pastry sours to old-school barley wines and English bitters, the brew crew cranks out reliably delicious beers. In the case of strong IPAs and special releases, they’re often spectacular.

One of the great things about The Shop is how excellent the patio is for kicking it with a brew or many, the hours draining away like the first-rate IPA and blonde lager. The patio’s casual, high-energy atmosphere is made for session drinking: long picnic tables, fun murals, trees wavering in the breeze. It’s all illuminated by hard desert sunlight by day and string lights by night. You couldn’t ask for a better place to attend church — crush a few cans of Church Music, that is — or sip the latest can in the brewery’s Neonic series, a line of fruited sours. Post-COVID, this patio is going to be a blast.

True statement: Everyone goes to Wilderness. The Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co.’s second location, the downtown Phoenix beer garden, turned out to be more successful than its first (which is saying something). Upon opening in spring 2019, it became instantly Phoenix-famous thanks to its biggest draw — the patio. This outdoor beer garden is massive, covered with a thick sunshade, and bird-friendly. (During the pandemic, the team installed native plants to attract native birds and bugs, embracing the brewery’s name.) Inside, you’ll find cold pints of Refuge, the “flagship IPA incepted in our founder’s garage,” the DON’T F#%K IT UP Blonde Ale, the water-conserving, Belgian-style witbier Sonora White, and many more signature brews (as well as cocktails and above-average bar food, heavy on Arizona ingredients).

Longtime craft beer maestro Todd Helton uses 88 pounds of Oregon boysenberries for every batch of his Boysenberry Sour. This brew, the best staple at Helton (yes, better than the pilsner), is made for sipping or flat-out crushing under the desert sun. It’s bright and crisp with a rounded tartness and the lush, mellow fruit of the berries blushing through. This sour is complex yet cohesive. Somehow, it seems to take on a new personality based on the food you eat while enjoying a bottle or two. Sours are a difficult style, and Helton has cemented his year-round staple as the most memorable version made in Phoenix.

By now, many drinkers have heard the legend of Atsuo Sakurai, a sake brewer who traded Japan for Holbrook and painstakingly crafts Arizona Sake — at first out of his garage, now out of a modest sake brewery. Sakurai’s standard sake, his junmai ginjo, is indeed excellent. But one of his rarer bottles, Desert Snow, is even better. Desert Snow is sparkling. In the bottle, this gray-white unfiltered rice brew looks about as cloudy as fresh-squeezed lemonade. All of that extra sediment brings an unreal, milky goodness. The fizz adds liftoff. Sometimes you can find this sake on higher-end menus around town, but you might have to head to Holbrook.

You’ve got an incredible amount of choices at this independent and locally owned wine room that boasts a selection of 125 wines from Italy, Spain, and Australia, as well as California and Oregon. You can order off the menu by the glass or the bottle, or you can take part in what we love best about Sorso: the wine dispensers. Put money on a wine card, then use that card to pick from the 32 wine dispensers around the Sorso dining room. Each wine in the dispensers comes in three sizes/price points — sip, taste, and pour — allowing you to maximize your explorations. Of course, if you’re drinking that much, you should probably eat something, and Sorso’s got you covered with an Italian-leaning menu of bruschetta, salads, sandwiches, and flatbreads. We recommend sitting out on the patio when the weather cooperates; people-watching at Scottsdale Quarter only adds to the experience.

When The Churchill opened, Phoenix got its first new-age natural wine shop. Over the few years since, Sauvage has transformed into something more: an epicenter of cutting-edge wine drinking in Phoenix. Sauvage has channeled the zeitgeist, not by following the national trends but by leading with Chris Lingua’s opinions, tastes, selections, and friendliness. Sauvage stocks experimental liquors from Empirical Spirits and vino from growers who do things the old way, the organic way, which has now become the progressive way. His little shop is like a tiny Valhalla for adults who drink boldly and honestly. Sparkling sangiovese. A deep selection of orange wine. High-end bacanora. Sublime bottles at painless prices. 

Should we tell of all the things we should not have done because of products we bought at Liquor Wheel? The answer is a hard no. So let’s talk about the venerable institution itself, which has been around since the 1950s. We’ve been going there since the late ’80s, and if you’re a longtime Phoenician, you’ve probably been there, too. The Aranki family bought it in 1999 and added title loans to its repertoire, but little else has changed. Its offbeat name, which apparently refers to its drive-thru and is emblazoned in blue-and-red neon, has always made the place stand out as the gritty liquor store it is. The location in south-south-Arcadia is perfect for all the low-rent apartments in the area. And the booze selection will appeal to both sommeliers and the average working man or woman. Going back to the Liquor Wheel is as natural as the Circle of Life.

If you catch Red Feather Café on one of the few glorious days it’s open beneath the soaring water tower in Sacaton, you can grab homestyle chile on frybread or the O’odham tortilla known as c’emet. Sun beams, wind scours, arid mountains loom on the horizon: The setting is a strong seasoning, giving vitality to the traditional Native foods prepared from scratch by Geri and Jerry Leos. Simple frybread and beans? Divine. On Fridays, you can get bowls of soul-filling menudo with hot, fresh-baked bread. Some food trucks have murals and loud music. Red Feather Café has what your soul needs.

Once upon a time, the highways, roadways, and thoroughfares of metro Phoenix were aglow with neon lights. The popularity of the art form faded over the ensuing decades, but has experienced a resurgence in recent years. The historic Gilbert Heritage District embraced the idea with gusto, as more than 20 of the eateries and drinkeries that have debuted in the area since 2014 are adorned with neon elements. Take a spin down Gilbert Road south of Juniper Avenue, and you’ll encounter examples that are fun (Joe’s Real BBQ features animated letters flickering like wafting smoke), funky (the muscular rooster at Lo-Lo’s Chicken & Waffles), or just plain gorgeous (Barrio Queen’s neon-accentuated Catrina). And don’t miss the handful of OG signs that are still around, like the one at Liberty Market dating back to 1958. Cruising this district is an illuminating experience.

We’re not the biggest fans of drive-thrus under normal circumstances. Does this ozone-plagued town need more cars idling and releasing emissions? But COVID has made the drive-thru a little more acceptable. And we could probably stand to get off our climate-change high horse every now and then. Anyway, having spent more time at drive-thrus this past year or so, we can confidently report that the best one happens to be the newish Slice Eat, which comes to us from the owner of the upscale Italian eatery Forno 301. Menu items range from a single, footlong slice of margherita wood-fired pizza to a takeout bowl of fettuccine al burro e Parmigiano to — look out, Dairy Queen Blizzards — fresh pistachio gelato, all of which can be handed over through the window of your Subaru Impreza. Other quick, drive-thru-appropriate orders include cold brew coffee, chocolate shakes, and a Caesar salad.