Food & Drink

When James Beard Award-nominated chef Kevin Binkley announced he was closing two restaurants and migrating his flagship New American fine-dining outpost to midtown Phoenix (into the historic home that formerly housed Bink’s Midtown), the local food cognoscenti was skeptical, to put it lightly. Opening a fine-dining restaurant in metro Phoenix, and closing two profitable businesses in the process, is considered a risky proposition in any economic climate. Fortunately, the reimagined Binkley’s Restaurant feels like a worthy risk. Binkley works closely with his small culinary team to prepare elaborate, 20-plus-course dinners, which are crafted using optimal ingredients and served in a highly intimate setting. The chef pulls out all the stops, offering diners a direct view into the kitchen and mingling with guests throughout the three- to four-hour dinner service.

Restaurant Progress is the indie darling of the Phoenix culinary scene, and the perfect place to take any diehard foodie friend. The 37-seat neighborhood restaurant feels at once sophisticated and intimate, and the open kitchen means you can catch a glimpse of chef-owner TJ Culp and his kitchen crew manning the ovens throughout your meal. Culp and company deliver seasonally driven, modern American fare, with a menu that changes about every four to six weeks. You can order à la carte, but the best way to experience Culp’s playfully refined cooking is with the five-course chef’s-choice tasting menu.

You won’t come to Pa’La for complicated, showstopping dishes, or white tablecloth ambiance. You’ll come because Pa’La is a temple of simple and elegant wood-fired cooking, highlighting impeccably sourced ingredients. The casual counter-service restaurant, a collaboration between veteran chef Claudio Urciuoli and Tortas Paquime’s Omar Alvarez, delivers a menu that is relatively modest in scope: just Spanish tapas, wood-fired Italian schiacciata flatbread, salads, and Urciuoli’s signature Navarro bowl, made with heirloom grains and topped with responsibly sourced, ultra-fresh seafood. The menu changes daily, but you can count that whatever Urciuoli delivers to your table (often on a biodegradable paper plate) will be remarkably fresh, refined, and delicious.

A lot of what you see when walking your dog or on a hike — the berries, and fruit, and flowers — you may see but not really see. You may dismiss them as regular parts of our vast and strange Sonoran landscape. They are what they are, and they blend in. Tamara Stanger of Cotton & Copper sees this central Arizona bounty in ways that virtually nobody else does. She has started to build a formidable reputation for using these hyperlocal lifeforms to push and elevate her artful food. With dishes like dumplings with corn ash, cactus fruit semifreddo, and tacos built from heirloom Pima wheat tortillas, Stanger trailblazes toward a new Arizona cuisine. What exactly that cuisine will be remains, lucky for us, to be tasted.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. Well, we’re very fond of The Maine Lobster Lady, a seasonal food truck that graces the Valley with its presence November through May. In those other months, when proprietor Diana Santospago is at her home in, well, Maine, all we can do is remember fondly the times when we’ve been greeted warmly at the cheerful blue truck and think about all the dishes we can’t wait to revisit upon her return — the fat lobster rolls (served chilled with lemon mayo or warm with drizzled butter), the rich lobster bisque, the juicy fried seafood rolls (your choice of scallops or whole belly clam), the Maine whoopie pies, and much more. Is it November yet?

With Devour’s move to the 140 acres of Phoenix’s Desert Botanical Garden, the best food festival in the Valley has gotten even better. To whirl through Devour (if you’re lucky enough to get tickets) is to experience Arizona’s food scene in ideal miniature, in a blur of local wines, fancy tacos, and deer sausages cooked on Santa Maria-style grills. The crowds descend. You have to get in early. And if you can circumvent or tolerate the hordes, you will be in for a day of eating like no other: cinnamon and strawberry horchata, chile colorado, porous Ethiopian injera and berbere-powered stew, ixguá corn cakes, and rivers of the best Arizona wine and beer.

Welcome Diner is dead; long live Welcome Diner. In May, after more than a decade at 10th and Roosevelt streets, the original location of Welcome Diner closed and a brand-spanking-new location opened just a few blocks south. We’re not gonna lie: We will miss the cozy, lo-fi, backyard aesthetic exemplified by the tiny midcentury diner and its outdoor area populated with string lights, wooden tables, and lawn chairs. But we love the slick retro vibe of the new Welcome Diner, and we’re psyched that it’s now open every day of the week (and until 2 a.m., no less) for riffs on Southern classics like pulled pork and grits, cornbread panzanella, and the famous Big Jim fried chicken biscuit sandwich.

Super Chunk in Old Town Scottsdale was always a place we loved to stop at for goodies and gifts of various types. Then, last year, owners Sergio and Country Velador expanded into the space next door to create New Wave Market. Now, the combined concepts are a place we’re content to linger. As we wait for our breakfast (maybe a ghee-fried egg on a house-made sea-salt bagel) or lunch (the schmaltz chicken salad sandwich is a standout), we take a look around at the items available for purchase, from local foodstuffs like Cutino hot sauce and Zak’s Chocolate to home goods like mugs and cactus-print pillows. There’s no need to rush through your meal at New Wave; the vibe is relaxed and cheerful, the perfect place to stay awhile with a book or a friend, and if you delay your departure long enough, you may find you have room for something from the Super Chunk side: a rich canele, perhaps, or one of the famous mesquite chocolate chip cookies.

The vastness of metro Phoenix means that there are restaurant gems to be discovered all over the Valley. But you can save yourself some gas and hit up three hot new eateries with one stop to the northeast corner of Rural and Warner roads in Tempe. Aaron Chamberlin’s Tempe Public Market Café, a casual all-day spot, was the first to open, in January. July brought us Cotton & Copper, an Arizona-centric eatery created by Sean Traynor and helmed by chef Tamara Stanger. Finally, Ghost Ranch, another Chamberlin eatery (this one serving “modern Southwestern” fare), debuted in August. All of a sudden, one unassuming corner is a must-visit dining destination, and we’re glad to see the denizens of south Tempe get some high-profile restaurant choices.

Best News We’ve Heard All Year

It was a quiet Monday morning, right up until the news that broke the internet: White Castle is coming to Scottsdale. The venerable slider joint announced on August 24 that the first Arizona location, and only the third west of the Rockies, would go in at Via de Ventura and the 101 Pima Freeway in late 2019. It seemed like everyone had an opinion, and reactions seemed to be split into three camps: unbridled joy bordering on hysteria, personal anecdotes about that one time someone got a stomachache from eating there, and “In-N-Out is better.” But despite the naysayers, we’re psyched that we no longer have to go to Las Vegas (or God forbid, New Jersey) to experience those perfectly square burgers with the tiny grilled onions.

Best Restroom

With its old-fashioned pay phone, rose-covered wallpaper, and basket full of peppermints, the women’s restroom at Durant’s is a hyper-feminine antidote to the rest of the steakhouse’s 1950s mob-boss vibe. But the best part of the restroom, besides its vintage charm, is the millennial-pink vinyl couch. When you’ve had enough of men for the night, or you just want to gossip in private, grab your martini and settle in. The only downside? Durant’s predates the age of catering to digital influencers, and the restroom’s tight corners and strange lighting mean that we’ve never been able to get the perfect Instagram.

Come for the Jamaican fare and the enormous menu of creative rum drinks; stay for the cozy enclosed outdoor lounge where you can eavesdrop on the cigar-smoking crowd. At this downtown restaurant, you can leave responsibilities behind and pretend you’re on a tropical island vacation. As the name suggests, The Breadfruit & Rum Bar has a huge number of rums on offer. The kitchen also serves up sustainably sourced seafood, earning the restaurant a Smart Catch label from the James Beard Foundation. Drinking your way through the dozens of rums, cocktails, and flights on the menu could take a year, so let the staff recommend a drink and a cigar to pair with it. Or just pick a random rum beverage that looks appealing, let the worries of the day fade away, and imagine you’re somewhere far from a landlocked desert state.

Ever get a hankerin’ to saddle up and ride off into the sunset to hunt for a hunk of red meat? You still can — and you don’t have to leave the Phoenix city limits. The T-Bone Steak House has been serving Western grub and spectacular views of the sunset for more than 40 years. And it’s only about seven miles from downtown, located among the saguaro cactuses in the foothills of South Mountain, a mile and a half south of Baseline Road. The rustic restaurant, built with adobe and river rock, was once a private residence. It was turned into a restaurant for ranchers and cowhands in the 1940s, then became the T-Bone in 1973. Locals still tie up their horses on a hitching post out back, but if you’re a tinhorn, you can sign up for an evening trail ride. Huge mesquite-grilled steaks with a side of cowboy beans are the main feature, of course, at the T-Bone. When we ordered a porterhouse during a recent visit, the waitress asked, “Do you want the small one or the big one, honey?” We went small, a mere 24 ounces. The big one is 40. We will warn you, though, that the accompanying salad bar is a mite skimpy. Then again, after you’ve chowed down on a couple of pounds of beef and a bowl of baked beans, who has room for salad? Maybe it’s for the horses.

As a AAA Five Diamond and Forbes Five Star restaurant, Kai at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass Resort is one of the most highly praised restaurants in Arizona. What really makes Kai uniquely Arizonan, though, is its singular menu of Native American-influenced fare. Chef de cuisine Ryan Swanson’s menu weaves elements of Pima and Maricopa culture and tradition into an uncommon menu that you won’t find anywhere else in the country. Many of the dishes feature heirloom Arizona ingredients, game, and vegetables that have been sourced locally from the Gila River Indian Community. The menu changes seasonally, but don’t miss staples like the grilled tenderloin of buffalo, a gorgeously cooked, lean steak paired with a saguaro blossom syrup.

If you get up early and hit a farmers market, you just might see Charleen Badman, chef at Old Town Scottsdale’s FnB, eyeing Sphinx dates or Romanesco cauliflower and considering how she can elevate that night’s dishes. Badman is uncannily attuned to what is happening on the Valley’s farms, dairies, and ranches. She understands and harnesses the delicate spirit of each local ingredient she uses, plating dishes that exceed their parts and delight with rigorous composition, intellectual charm, and inspiring flavors. Cauliflower with labneh. Hen eggs and chanterelles. Smoked trout and melons. You never quite know what’s going to be on FnB’s menu, but you always know you’ll never go wrong.

PNPK in north Scottsdale is a relative newcomer to the metro Phoenix food scene, but we’re already taken with its happy hour for several reasons. First, the food: PNPK has a wide range of specials at fantastic prices; the bruschetta (we love the smoked salmon with goat cheese, red onion, and capers), deviled eggs, signature craft sliders (try the Crispy Hot Fried Chicken), and other shareables are discounted. Second, the drinks — think super-affordable wine, sparkling wine, and craft beer flights in addition to other specials. Third, PNPK’s definition of “happy hour” starts when the place opens and runs until 6:30 p.m. every day, meaning that almost any time is a good time to head up there.

Don’t be put off by the wait that you’ll inevitably find at Butters Pancakes & Cafe on a weekend morning. Think of it as more time to study the comprehensive menu. You could go for the restaurant’s namesake: soft, fluffy pancakes in that come in varieties like Wildberry Bliss, Oreo cookie s’mores, cinnamon roll, and banana cream. Or if you’re feeling more savory than sweet, there are plenty of omelets and scramblers along with specialties like the Eggs Verde, which features two eggs on a corn tortilla with black beans, cheese, and green New Mexico chile sauce. Waffles, Benedicts, French toast — almost everything you can think of for breakfast is on the menu, and we haven’t found a bad choice yet.

Ah, brunch — the most important meal of the weekend. When we’re in the mood for not-quite-breakfast, not-quite-lunch, we stop by Fàme Caffe in central Phoenix. It’s usually busy, but the line to order moves quickly, so don’t delay in choosing what to eat. We love the veggie scramble — eggs, goat cheese, mushrooms, cauliflower, and broccoli — with house potatoes, or if we’re more in the mood for something sweet, the French toast crafted from sturdy country bread is also a wise choice. The lunch menu has plenty of delights as well, from the avocado grilled cheese to the garden kale salad. Also, Fàme has a standout selection of that most important brunch component: cocktails. There are plenty of a.m. favorites to choose from, including carajillos, greyhounds, palomas, and our favorite, the raspberry peach Bellini.

You won’t find run-of-the-mill sandwiches or lackluster salads at this Roosevelt Row micro-restaurant, which specializes in playful, globally inspired street food with a gourmet twist. On the menu, you’ll see everything from Korean-inspired yakitori, salads, burgers, and tacos. Skipped breakfast? Try the kitchen’s All Day Burrito, which bulges with cheesy scrambled eggs, pico de gallo, bacon, hash browns, and avocado. Another highlight is the light and refreshing cold soba salad featuring glassy noodles buried under a colorful mosaic of dried seaweed and diced veggies. Service is quick and friendly, and there’s a daily happy hour that runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. — the perfect excuse to indulge in a lunch hour cocktail.

Duck roasted high over a wood fire. Pickled cabbage flecked with chile. Pork ribs in black bean sauce. Pan-fried cheese. These are some of the small plates at Bri, the new Seventh Street restaurant captained by chef Vince Mellody (once an executive chef at Otro Café). At Bri, Mellody cooks whatever he wants, looping together flavors from Europe, Asia, and beyond. Duck legs are rich and mineral. An absolute stunner is the lychee “scallop.” A pale coin of white-fleshed fruit rests on a cool, spicy carrot curry. The bite is unexpected and thrilling, turbocharged with clean flavors. At this spot, even the tiny radishes with house-made butter seem to have way more flavor than they should. 

Chris Bianco’s Italian-Arizonan trattoria evolves with the Sonoran micro-seasons. Roasted eggplant with olive oil might be in one day, out the next. How do you know what’s best to order? You sit at the bar and catch the ear of Blaise Faber, one of the Valley’s most congenial and skilled bartenders, as he froths egg whites and measures house-made apricot liqueur. The bar at Tratto is an escape. You feel almost like you’re sitting in a formal restaurant in Florence. From your perch with primo bartender access, you can dissolve into the hum of the simple but stellar eatery, and watch the roasted chicken and Bluebeard durum tagliatelle go by.

Romantic meals have something in common with real estate: It’s all about location, location, location. That’s why we keep coming back to House of Tricks, which is situated in a 1920s cottage just off Mill Avenue. It’s an oasis of charm and refinement amid the hustle and bustle of Arizona State University’s Tempe campus, an intimate space whether you’re nestled in the dining room or eating on the tree-canopied patio. And, oh yeah, the food is outstanding. The seasonal menus are filled with well-executed classics like a spiced duck breast with orange gastrique and crispy fingerling potatoes, and a beef tenderloin with roasted shallot-rosemary sauce and mashed potatoes. It’s the perfect place to enjoy a good meal with your special someone.

We love kids, but they’re not always the easiest dining companions. When eating with little ones, the choice of restaurant is crucial, which is why we love Luci’s. Part of the Orchard complex in north central Phoenix, Luci’s has a simple but tasty kids’ menu of perennial favorites — including chicken strips, a cheeseburger, Funky Monkey French toast, and a cheese crisp. There are plenty of good choices for the adults as well; breakfast is served all day, and options like a veggie-packed frittata or a sweet fig and tuna salad wrap are both healthy and delicious. But as good as the food is, it’s what comes after that makes this the ideal spot for families. The Orchard is home to a splash pad and a shaded lawn surrounded by chairs, as well as Splurge Ice Cream & Candy Shop, a dessert spot that will delight kids of all ages. As you relax with a waffle cone and watch the kids play on the grass, you’ll wonder why you don’t take them out to eat more often.

There’s a big chunk of the year when we try to avoid the outdoors as much as possible. But when patio season hits, there’s nowhere we’d rather eat al fresco than Ocotillo. The central Phoenix eatery has been a favorite of ours since its inception several years ago, and the outdoor atmosphere is a big part of the reason. There’s the covered area that contains long, picnic-style tables and its own bar; there’s also a cozy area with couches for groups that’s near a good-size lawn perfect for children to play on. Or, you could sit on the wraparound patio that looks out at Third Street. Wherever you end up seated, you’ll enjoy your meal; Ocotillo’s rotating seasonal menus have nothing but good options, including plenty of vegetable dishes and the famous mesquite-grilled Ocotillo chicken with citrus, chiles, and local honey.

Some of us never thought we’d say this, but Historic Downtown Chandler is super-cute and fun. Shops, restaurants, arts, underground bars — it’s all here. And one of the area’s staples is SanTan Brewing Company, which has served craft food and numerous varieties of craft beer since opening in its corner spot at Arizona Avenue and Chandler Boulevard in 2007. And if that’s not everything you need already, the dog-friendly patio should cap you off nicely. SanTan has a roomy patio, fresh water, and attentive guests for your doggies to bask in. There are also Otto’s Brew Bones — peanut-butter-flavored dog treats made with SanTan spent beer grain that are made and packaged in-house, and feature Otto, the cartoon dog who graces the label of SanTan’s Oktoberfest German Style Lager. SanTan opened a second location earlier this year near Bethany Home Road and 16th Street; that outpost has the same great beer selection as the original location, but it doesn’t have a patio, so make sure to head to Chandler when you want some quality outdoors time with your four-legged friends.

For all the growth that downtown Phoenix has seen in the past decade or so, late-night dining options are still in short supply. That’s why we’re so grateful that SoSoBa decided to open a second location of its Flagstaff noodle shop on Roosevelt Row. Craving a Vietnamese-style salad with rice noodles, veggies, and seaweed salad? How about blistered shishito peppers, pork belly or fried chicken bao buns, or a savory bowl of katsu ramen at midnight? SoSoBa has you covered. Everything on the restaurant’s Asian-fusion menu is available until 2 a.m., making it the perfect spot to sober up after a night of drinking. If you’re not ready to call it a night just yet, you can also pair your meal with one of the inventive cocktails, like the Honey and Knives, which combines tequila, grapefruit juice, ginger syrup, and serrano pepper.

The Valley dining scene is increasingly diverse, with restaurants representing countless regional and national cuisines available for the sampling. But sometimes, we just want a really good steak. J&G Steakhouse at The Phoenician resort recently celebrated its 10th anniversary by undergoing a redesign that included a desert-inspired color scheme and improvements to the patio area. Fortunately, the stunning views, outstanding food, and impeccable service haven’t changed. Beef is the restaurant’s raison d’etre, but it’s by no means the only good choice on the menu — there’s fresh seafood, craveable sides, and a beverage menu that ranges from domestic beers to bottles of wine that cost more than a mortgage payment.

One of our favorite parts of the Las Vegas experience is the buffets: For a moderate fee, we get to gorge like we’re living in the last days of the Roman Empire. We get the same thrill when we visit the Wandering Horse Buffet at Talking Stick Resort & Casino. Variety is the keyword here. There’s a full salad bar. There are sections for Mexican, Italian, and Asian food. Antipasto, sushi, carving stations, desserts including a gelato bar (the blood orange gelato is our favorite) — it’s all here. Talking Stick had a rough summer; monsoon storms caused damage to the resort’s power systems, and it was closed for about six weeks for repairs. We’re glad it’s back open — it’s been far too long since we put “all you can eat” to the test.

This shoebox-size, family-run diner serves up classic, mouth-watering greasy spoon eats. Open six days a week for breakfast and lunch, Art’s specializes in unpretentious and delicious homestyle comfort food. For breakfast, don’t miss the scratch-made biscuits and gravy, served with your choice of home fries or hash browns (both are exceptional). For lunch, the ABC (avocado, bacon, and cheese) burger is terrific, as is the French dip sandwich. Squeeze into the tiny dining room and make yourself at home — the service is as friendly as the food is delicious.

Rhema Soul Cuisine isn’t your average neighborhood soul-food restaurant. True, you’ll find familiar dishes on the menu, including chicken and waffles. But at Rhema, this staple dish is prepared with a playful twist — the fluffy, oversize waffle is prepared with a red velvet batter, drizzled with sugary icing, and served with juicy boneless chicken. The friendly Childs clan, who own and operate Rhema, have fashioned a one-of-a-kind menu that creatively draws culinary inspiration from Southern and Caribbean cooking, with the occasional nod to Southwestern cuisine. Try, for instance, the Brorito, a soul-food take on a burrito. It’s essentially a Southern meat-and-three meal wrapped up in a flour tortilla. It’s gargantuan, hearty, and oh so good.

Avanti has been doing it for more than four decades now, and we’re glad. Its dependable service, delicious entrees, and sincere retro vibe are part of the Phoenix experience. Founded by Benito Mellino of Sorrento, and Tuscan restaurateur Angelo Livi, Avanti (Italian for “forward”) began tempting us with perfect pasta and superb sauces in 1974, and its black-and-white and chrome decor has barely budged since. Blood-red walls and zebra-stripe fabrics add a little something extra to tasty entrees like linguine carbonara, rich with spaghetti, eggs, and cheese, and a hearty lasagna like Mama might make. If this, one of Phoenix’s favorite old dinnertime haunts, ever leaves us, we’ll have to move to Sorrento.

There’s so much we envy about our friends across the pond. They’ve got great accents, Harry and Meghan, and they’ve got classic English pubs, dimly lit bastions of beer and conversation. Until we can get back to Jolly Olde England, we indulge our Anglophilia at George & Dragon, a central Phoenix mainstay for more than two decades. The G&D is the place to have a pint (or several), enjoy some traditional English dishes (there are several types of pasties and curries, bangers and mash, shepherd’s pie, and more), and watch some football — meaning soccer. You can grab a booth inside, or sit on the patio and watch the city traffic go by; either way, you’re in for a good time.

This pub is authentically Irish, from the Guinness on tap to the Emerald Isle memorabilia scattered around the bar. Founder Seamus McCaffrey is also tied to sibling Irish pubs in Phoenix: Rosie McCaffrey’s on Camelback Road and The Dubliner on Thunderbird Road in north Phoenix. But the atmosphere at Seamus McCaffrey’s is second to none. Founded in 1991 and next door to the Hotel San Carlos, you might think you’re in Ireland after knocking back a few pints in the dark wood booths. The live bands might not be for everyone: They’re authentically Irish and, as a result, occasionally ear-splitting. The menu includes corned beef and cabbage, fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, and potato skins. Sláinte.

Isn’t it wonderful how many of the cities that make up the Valley of the Sun come with their own little historic downtown area? Glendale is no exception, and a big part of its draw is Haus Murphy’s. For over two decades, the quaint restaurant has dished out authentic German cuisine — which is still prepared by chef and owner Brett Hoffmann. It’s known for its Original Oktoberfest Pretzel, sausage sampler, juicy bratwursts, house-made sauerkraut, and a variety of schnitzels. And this being a German eatery, there’s of course a bar with giant and bottled biers, and a charming patio area — which is just delightful at night. As seen on Food Network, Haus Murphy’s offers you a chance to visit the Old World in the west Valley.

Marcellino Ristorante is the best of both worlds: a long-beloved destination for fans of classic Italian fare and discerning foodies alike. Everything is done with care and artistry here, from the food to the service. We like to start with an appetizer like scallops with pesto, then move on to something more substantial, perhaps the strozzaprete with broccoli di rape in olive oil, white wine, and garlic. If we save room for dessert (it’s hard, but worth it), we love the warm apple galetta served with gelato. We’re also fans of Marcellino’s happy hour, which features light bites like bruschetta and caprese salad, along with wine selections, at reasonable prices.

Traditional French cuisine is in short supply in metro Phoenix, but you’ll find classic Continental cooking at this longtime Cave Creek restaurant. The menu remains mostly unchanged from the days when original owner Louis Germain was at the helm. Today, longtime head chef Jose Rivera continues the restaurant’s legacy of decadent and traditional French cooking. Highlights include the trout sauteed in lemon butter; the coq au vin (chicken cooked in a Burgundy sauce); and the beef tenderloin en brochette, served with mushrooms and dressed in a red wine sauce. This is probably not the spot to skip dessert. Try the sugary, extra-creamy crème caramel.

This west-side mom-and-pop shop is one of the oldest Vietnamese restaurants in metro Phoenix and still one of the best. First-time visitors should try the pho dac biet, or the house special pho, which comes with slices of brisket, tendon, and tripe floating atop rice noodles submerged in a meaty broth. The broth is clear and fragrant with a distinctively savory depth. Don’t miss the shareable banh xeo, a turmeric-stained rice paper crepe stuffed with bean sprouts, shrimp, and shredded pork. Of course, you probably shouldn’t leave without one of the restaurant’s famous macaron ice-cream sandwiches.

It used to be that you had to drive to L.A. for the kind of funky and creative Korean fusion bar food you’ll find at Drunken Tiger. Not anymore. This quirky and dive-y restaurant and bar, which is tucked into a corner of a Mesa strip mall, delivers a menu that’s rooted in the tradition of Korean anju, otherwise known as drinking food. Don’t miss the bao — the fluffy steam buns are folded over savory ingredients like barbecued pork belly and juicy fried Spam. If you’re craving Korean fried chicken, try the padak, bite-size pieces of deep-fried chicken breast buried under ribbons of scallions. If you’re feeling brave, order the buldak, a.k.a. fire chicken. The silky hunks of chicken are bathed in a fiery hot sauce, then smothered in melted mozzarella cheese. Wash it all down with one of the bar’s delicious soju cocktails.

A perennial favorite just north of central Phoenix’s Melrose District, Hana Japanese Eatery is a lively bistro serving a strong menu of casual yet polished Japanese dishes. Co-owners Lori Hashimoto and Lynn Becker, along with a long-running crew of sushi chefs and cooks, put out signature dishes like ika kara age, fresh squid slathered in sweet butter and then fried tempura-style. For many regulars, though, Hana is a destination for artful, well-crafted sushi and sashimi. One of the freshest and most beautiful-looking rolls on the sushi menu is the florid Hana Pride, which features crisp cucumber wrapped around yellowtail, tuna, salmon, crab, albacore, and whitefish.

Bangkok native Pornsupak “Cat” Bunnag and partner Dan Robinson have turned Phoenix’s Thai food scene on its ear with this lively midtown bistro. Glai Baan’s small menu specializes in Thai street snacks and northeastern Thai specialties, including pork skewers, larb, noodle dishes, and kanom jeeb, or freshly steamed pork dumplings. Bunnag skillfully deploys staple ingredients like garlic, basil, and lime to create irresistible sauces and curries. With a refined take on Thai street food and harder-to-find regional specialties, Glai Baan represents a big step forward for Thai cooking in metro Phoenix.

This casually upscale Chinese restaurant specializes in the bold, elusive flavors of northwest China’s Shaanxi province and its capital city of Xi’an. The expansive menu spans more than 50 dishes, including stews, dumplings, offal, barbecue, and handmade noodles. Service is exceptional, and you’ll find plenty of dishes that are hard to locate at other Chinese restaurants around metro Phoenix. Don’t miss house specialties like crispy Shaanxi-style chicken and broad, silky biangbiang noodles served with slow-roasted pork. On the weekends, the restaurant hosts traditional guzheng (Chinese harp) musical performers.

This long-running family-owned restaurant (formerly known as the Tahoora Grill) serves terrific Indian, Pakistani, and Afghan fare in an unassuming east-side dining room. Come for the Indian restaurant staples like the succulent chicken tikka masala and butter chicken. Stay for fragrant, beautifully seasoned dishes like shrimp biryani cooked with fresh herbs and spices, or the beef chapli kabab, a Pashtun-style minced beef kebab served with fresh veggies and herbs. Not sure what to order? The restaurant offers a popular all-day Sunday buffet that lets you sample from around the menu.

How do we love Haji-Baba? Let us count the ways. First, the menu is filled with standout Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dishes, from juicy gyros and crispy falafel to a velvety lamb tongue sandwich (trust us, just try it), and our favorite, richly spiced chicken shawarma accented with a pungent and addictive garlic sauce. Next, all that food we just mentioned is less than $10 per dish, as are most of the menu items. Also, before or after your meal, you can take a stroll down the aisles of the market housed in the same space, picking up international coffee, small bags of spices, and several varieties of baklava to take home. Finally, service is always friendly and fast, making Haji-Baba one of our favorite spots in metro Phoenix for a casual meal.

The best African restaurant in Phoenix has no waiters. Often, the menu doesn’t faithfully reflect what the kitchen is cooking. But that can be forgiven, for Authentic Ethio African is a ghost restaurant — one that specializes in takeout and delivery — and the food is that good. Injera, made from teff, wheat, and barley, is riddled with pocks and explodes with wholesome, sour tang. Stews like chicken perfumed with ginger and berbere, fresh farmers’ cheese made from whole milk, and cabbage and carrots yellow with turmeric are some of the many surprisingly soothing items that come atop. Ghost or not, this unheralded restaurant impresses.

Persian restaurants usually tend to be over-the-top affairs featuring white linen tablecloths, baroque furniture, and dangling chandeliers — or else they’re barebones kabob counters. Saffron JAK finally offers something in between the two — a casual spot for a sit-down lunch or reasonably priced dinner, featuring freshly baked sagnak flatbread. The menu includes lamb and chicken kebabs, of course, but also less-traditional fare such as sagnak pizzas topped with feta, and “Persian tacos” stuffed with grilled meat and basmati rice and topped with yogurt sauce. Whatever you order, make sure to grab a loaf of bread to take home. And if you can’t make it to the brick-and-mortar location, follow @saffronjak on Instagram to keep tabs on the restaurant’s food truck, which offers a limited menu at a number of places around town, or find its booth at Phoenix Public Market.

Healthy eating is all the rage these days. But sometimes, we just want some blueberry blintzes. Or a big, carb-laden bagel piled high with cream cheese and lox. Goldman’s Deli, a Chicago-style deli, specializes in classic Jewish fare like the aforementioned bagels, tall brisket sandwiches, warm bowls of matzo ball soup with chicken, noodles, and veggies; and potato latkes dotted with applesauce or sour cream. Everything is done just how we remember our bubbe making it, which is to say rich, delicious, and comforting. But if you want to nosh on something that’s more New World than old country, Goldman’s has lots of other choices, including breakfast fare like omelets, and lunch and dinner fare like barbecue chicken, and yes, even salads.

These days, it’s not unusual for restaurants to offer options for vegan diners. But many of them miss the mark, relying too heavily on artificial substitutes for meat and cheese, or only offering up bland vegetable platters. Most could stand to learn a few tricks from The Coronado, a vegan and vegetarian restaurant in the heart of central Phoenix that excels at creating plant-based comfort food. From deep-fried cauliflower tacos to tepary bean burgers to savory breakfast burritos, everything on the menu is made up of ingredients that you can recognize. Even more important, it tastes fantastic.

“Eat your vegetables.” We lost track of how many times we heard it growing up. Now, we’re adults, and no one has to make us, because we actually love veggies, and Pomegranate Cafe in Ahwatukee is one of the best spots in town to healthfully indulge. Truth be told, Pomegranate is almost vegan; there are just a few dishes that aren’t. But in any case, we love to take ourselves over to Pomegranate for meat-free options like the spaghetti squash with mushroom walnut “meatballs,” the poblano wild mushroom street tacos, and the buffalo cauliflower. And if you’re just looking for something light or sweet, the restaurant also produces a fantastic selection of baked goods, all of which are vegan, and some of which are gluten-free. The menu has helpful icons to identify gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, and nut-free dishes, so diners with a variety of allergies can come to Pomegranate for a safe and delicious meal.

Finding a place to eat with our gluten-averse friends used to be a challenge. We want a great meal, but we also want our friends to have just as many menu options as we do. Enter Jewel’s Bakery & Cafe. The story goes that owner Julie Moreno began her foray into the world of GF cooking when her daughter was diagnosed with a gluten allergy. What resulted is a bright, cheerful cafe serving breakfast, lunch, and most importantly, no food containing gluten. And at Jewel’s, we don’t even miss it. Breakfast dishes like lemon raspberry pancakes and lunch options like a Nashville-style hot chicken sandwich are just a few of the reasons we come back to Jewel’s again and again.

This Saturday farmers market — which bustles at Brown Avenue and First Street, walkable from the nearby brunch nexus — offers some of everything. In the tight arrangement of stands, you will find a slew of prepared-food vendors peddling food from salsa to barbecue brisket to Syrian desserts. The Valley’s very best farms, like Blue Sky Organic Farms and McClendon Select, take up ample real estate here. More interesting still may be a few of the smaller stands, like Brother Nature Farms, where you can find rare heirloom tomatoes, wonky herbs, and specialty lettuces. And Chmachyakyakya, the stand of Mark Lewis, a man of mystery who makes tea from ocotillo flowers, and lunch from other foraged desert life.

The newest location of this Korean supermarket is a foodie paradise. Located in the Dobson Plaza in Mesa, the newly expanded Asiana Market boasts an extensive selection of Korean prepared foods (including grab-and-go bulgogi lunch boxes, kimchi, and all manner of packaged banchan), a large seafood department, and a food court that’s a worthy destination all on its own. The market is easy to navigate, thanks to wide, well-organized aisles stocked with specialty food items from across Asia. Come hungry: The food court is home to a location of Paik’s Noodles, a popular Chinese-Korean chain noodle shop, along with metro Phoenix’s first location of Tous Les Jours, a popular French-Asian bakery cafe chain.

Craving zolobia bamie, date-shaped fritters that collapse with a syrupy rush? How about rose water and saffron ice cream that will assail your brain with creamy refreshment and a world of floral flavors? Or maybe you’re hankering for baba ghanoush tufted with yogurt and mint, or Bulgarian feta, or flatbread peeled out of a domed oven and into your bag, ready to be dipped into deeply creamy hummus? Caspian Food Market in north Scottsdale specializes in Persian food and generalizes in the foods of the Middle East and slightly beyond. Prepared foods here are great. So are groceries: Egyptian fava beans, Cypriot labneh, spices, teas, goat meat, yogurt soda … we could go on and on.

There are a number of butcher shops in town that offer custom cuts from animals raised with care. At The Meat Market in Carefree, you can score rarities like lamb neck and oyster steak. The butchers at this 827-square-foot shop slice everything by hand. Though the whole-animal butchery and many cuts of meat impress, prepared foods are what give The Meat Market its edge. The Meat Market just released charcuterie, an ambitious program that includes hot Calabrese salami and guanciale (pork cheek). But nothing beats this rising spot’s chicken liver mousse, powered with three kinds of booze and topped with liquid chicken fat, melting like ice cream, easily among the most decadent bites of food in town.

The fish case at Nelson’s is one of the true marvels of the metro Phoenix food scene. Sometimes, the marine creatures inside are so rare and fresh they look lifted from science fiction. Big-lipped golden tilefish. Purple-veined Spanish mackerel roe. Chain-mailed sardines from Greece, dead eyes looking alive. Chris Nelson only flies in fish overnight. He has impeccable sources that hook him up with products that are mesmerizing. This is where to go when you want to cook seafood for someone you love, or to taste for yourself the glories of a scallop that was resting on a Massachusetts seabed yesterday.

On Fridays, Lior and Lily Ben-Shushan bake Moroccan bread coated with dark green za’atar like meadows covered in grass. Fluffy, rich with a buttery heft, this bread, uneven with hills and valleys, has the robustness of a stellar, hardly credible baked good — and a flavor like the smell of a garden, out there with your feet in the dirt and your nose in tomato plants. Almond croissants will have you seeing visions of cobblestone streets in European cities like Paris or Rome. Rugelach and challah come in many flavors, babka comes in chocolate and halva versions, and the hardest thing you have to do in a week when you stop into this bakery, by far, is to choose what to buy.

We still recall with horror the days when gluten-free baked goods were dry, bad-tasting, oddly textured, or a combination of all three. Thankfully, we’re living in a golden age of GF baking, and the latest reason to cheer is sweetDee’s Bakeshop, a newcomer to Old Town Scottsdale. Not everything in the shop is cleared for the gluten-free crowd, but there are a number of GF goodies to choose from every time we step into sweetDee’s light, airy interior, things like fat brownies iced with cappuccino cream cheese frosting, lemon bars topped with perfectly toasted marshmallows, mini doughnuts (glazed and unglazed), several types of cookies, an out-of-this world vanilla Fruity Pebbles cheesecake, and more. The lineup changes constantly, so we recommend visiting often to see what owner Danielle O’Day has dreamed up. And in addition to what comes out of the oven, sweetDee’s has a dynamite beverage menu and a small selection of breakfast and lunch dishes, all of which have a GF substitution available.

Our dentist told us to stay away, but we’ll never give up our visits to Sweeties, which bills itself as Arizona’s largest candy store. Our inner child goes positively berserk as we wander the brightly lit store that carries virtually everything you could want: retro sweets such as circus peanuts and Necco wafers; today’s favorites, like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Kit Kats; hard-to-find flavors; bulk candy bins; and obscure brands that run the gamut from Abba-Zaba to Zotz. And in case you need more indulgences, there’s gum, dozens of soda flavors, savory snacks, frozen treats, and toys. It’s probably the closest we’ll ever come to a trip to Willy Wonka’s choolate factory, and with so much fun, sweetness, and delight to be found around every corner, Sweeties makes us feel like a kid in a … well, you know.

It’s not an overstatement to say that the arrival of Zak’s Chocolate changed the local food scene. The small-batch chocolatier’s products have found their way into AZ Wilderness Brewery beer and Iconic Cocktail Co. mixers, but we like our Zak’s best in its simplest form. There’s plenty to choose from at the Scottsdale store, from gleaming truffles in unique flavors like Earl Grey lavender and ginger lime, to brownie flights showcasing chocolate sourced from different countries. There is also cocoa powder and baking bars to add a special touch to your own kitchen endeavors. But if you’re really a purist, just grab a handful of Zak’s single-origin chocolate bars; the bars are made with cocoa beans from Haiti, Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, Peru, and other nations, and each has a distinct flavor profile that provides a delicious exploration of chocolate’s possibilities.

About a year ago, founder Jared Allen sold Proof Bread to loyal customers Jon Przybyl and Amanda Abou-Eid. The husband-and-wife team have done their sensei proud, emerging as baking masters in their own right. The journey from starter to finished loaf of Proof sourdough lasts some 30 hours. That journey takes place in a Mesa garage filled with work stations, dusty light, and cooling racks. This sourdough has a crisp but chewy structure and the style’s trademark mild tang. Long fermentation and great care give each loaf the spirit of grain fields — deeply complex, deeply comforting. You can find Proof products at several local farmers markets.

When you think of focaccia, you probably think of puffy, airy bread mountainous with crags and bubbles from baking. Well, think again. Stefano Fabbri has been crafting a thinner focaccia which he says is in the style of Recco, a small coastal town in Liguria, Italy. Fabbri is a master of dough. His pizza joint, Pomo Pizzeria Napoletana, the one adjoining Luna, is one of the best in the Valley. The dough that becomes Fabbri’s Focaccia di Recco has no yeast. What results is a crackly wafer, one in which each fissure leaks molten Stracchino cheese. There is snap, shatter, and some of the lightness of a Neapolitan pizza. And if you really want to tickle your senses, order this focaccia with truffle honey.

When it comes to breakfast at Ollie Vaughn’s, we love the avocado toast, the ricotta pancakes, and the pork chile verde. Sometimes we even order them. But usually we cave and order the lox bagel, because, well, if we don’t, we spend the rest of the day wishing we had. Ollie’s chewy, fresh-baked everything bagel is heaped with herb cream cheese and dotted with tangy capers. Crunchy red onions are a perfect accompaniment to a giant pile of thinly shaved lox so fresh we wonder if there isn’t a salmon farm somewhere in the building. What we’re saying here is that are lox bagels, and then there is the lox bagel at Ollie Vaughn’s.

A relative newcomer makes the best pasta in Phoenix. The pasta at Scott Conant’s Mora is actually made in the Gainey Ranch location of Pomo Pizzeria Napoletana, where curls of noodles emerge from extruders during the day. (Pomo’s Stefano Fabbri has been involved with Mora.) The pasta at Mora has the right balance of chew, softness, mild grainy flavor, absorbency, and style. It isn’t too thick or wheaty to the point that bites would be too intrusive or too gummy. Black campanelle look sexy as hell and are perfect for clams and Fresno chiles. A sausage and porcini ragu flirts closely with being too heavy, but is saved by expert torchio, pasta twists with chew and swagger to match the sauce.

It would be cool and rogue to pick a top pizza other than those crafted by Chris Bianco’s crew. It would also be about as true as saying the earth is flat. Bianco’s pizza is one of the few mouthfuls of food in town that can reduce the pizza lover or Italophile to stunned silence, to something close to tears. Bianco is constantly testing new flour blends, the grain milled at Pane Bianco for each trial. He has upped his tomato game with his own line. He tirelessly works to cultivate relationships with farmers. As a result, all he has to do when blazing pies is apply time-honed methods to pristine ingredients and let our West Coast bounty shine.

Grandma pizza, that is. Adrian Langu bakes trays of grandma-style (square) pizzas all by himself in Old Town Scottsdale. Langu shapes the dough himself. He oils the pan. He ladles the sauce and spreads the toppings. He opens the hinged mouth to the gas oven, slides in red and white sheets, and delivers them steaming hot to customers. Langu’s pizza has a radical lightness. Sluiced with sauce blended from some tomatoes he mills and some he crushes with his hands, then topped with torn basil and kissed with grassy olive oil, a slice of standard grandma pie at Crisp is so airy and beautiful that you may see pizza in a new way.

Not long ago, Myke Olsen worked as an accountant. Today, he bakes pizza on the sidewalk of Main Street in Mesa three nights a week, somehow managing to keep his long-fermented dough at the right temperature even in the arid heat. Olsen uses a pair of portable gas-fired grills that range from 700 to 800 degrees. His Thursday, Friday, and Saturday pop-ups sell a mere 20 to 60 pizzas a night. Crust puffs to airy edges on the rim, brown, black, and cratered. His crust has nuance and swagger, the complexity of great bread. Don’t miss Olsen’s marinara pie, or his potato pie with bacon and garlic cream.

Sandwiches seem like a simple food: bread and fillings, right? But sandwiches are layered, intricately structured pieces of edible architecture, and one wrong part can sink the whole show. Worth gets as close as anyone to perfecting the sandwich. Ingredients come from local farms and hit a blazing fast gear: Steadfast Farm greens, local heirloom cauliflower in giardiniera. Staples, like an otherworldly crispy chicken and a roast beef that will make you reconsider what a roast beef sandwich is, are reliably ethereal. But keep an eye on the rotating specials, where, with creations like chile tuna melts and Little Miss BBQ brisket with habanero-peach marmalade on a potato bun, the evolving talents of this shop are on full display.

A while back, an Australian millionaire famously declared that if millennials don’t stop spending so much money on avocado toast, they’ll never be able to afford to buy houses. To which we say: We think the enormous student loan crisis is probably a bigger stumbling block to home ownership, and more important, avocado toast is delicious and we’re never giving it up, down payment be damned. Noble Eatery, a casual lunchtime spot in midtown Phoenix, is where we like to go to fritter away our financial futures.There are no bells and whistles on the avocado toast here, just rich, chunky avocado with tomatoes and chimayo chile powder piled high on thick slabs of hearty, chewy Noble Bread. It’s filling without being heavy, which is also how you can describe the rest of the menu; it includes salads, sandwiches, pizzas, and other things on toast, all of it utterly satisfying. Who needs home equity, anyway?

A burger is an easy thing to find in metro Phoenix, but a great burger? That’s a little harder. Aioli Gourmet Burgers, which has both a food truck and a brick-and-mortar location in north Phoenix, is our pick when we’ve got a burger craving. Aioli’s offerings start with a Kobe beef patty, and it just gets better from there. Our favorite is the California burger, which tops the meat with avocado, pickled red onions, pepper jack cheese, an over-medium egg, and chipotle aioli. But we’ve also had great luck ordering the special burgers that are only available for a limited time; past creations include a French onion burger with caramelized onions and Swiss cheese, and a Dad Burger with Sriracha honey peanut butter and apricot preserves. If, for some crazy reason, beef isn’t your thing, fear not: You can sub in a chicken breast or a vegan patty. Fresh salads, crave-worthy sides, and a selection of malts and shakes round out a menu that has something for everyone.

In the beginning, the best grilled cheese sandwich in town was an off-menu item at tiny neighborhood eatery Ingo’s Tasty Food, available only to in-the-know regulars who were clued in to ask for it. Then, for a while, this sister restaurant of La Grande Orange made the sandwich a permanent part of the menu. Now, it’s back to being a secret, but it’s definitely worth asking for. Why should you get a Grown-Up’s Secret Grilled Cheese instead of one of Ingo’s award-winning burgers? Between two toasted slices of Noble bread are melted cheddar, gourmet For Epi cheese, and sweet Mad River Farm jam. It’s a unique combination that will make your next trek to this Arcadia restaurant sweet and savory.

Located just steps away from the heart of Old Town Scottsdale, Simon’s is the rare hot-dog shop that manages to please everyone — herbivores included. Everything on the menu can be made vegetarian or vegan, from the classic Sonoran Dog to the seaweed-topped Tokyo Dog. The restaurant’s owners hail from Colombia, and the true standout on the menu is the salty-sweet Colombian Dog, featuring mozzarella cheese, crushed potato chips, and diced pineapple. Not a fan of hot dogs? Try the fried plantains or the salcipapas, french fries topped with sliced sausage and Simon’s special sauce.

A lot of promising soul-food restaurants have opened in recent memory. A lot of Southern-style chefs are sizzling impressive takes on everybody’s favorite battered bird to come out of Dixie. A lot of professional cooks are gussying up the tried-and-true basics of fried chicken: frying only strips of dark meat, serving chicken drowned in honey. A lot of chefs who channel the magic of poultry, buttermilk, and spitting oil are making fried chicken’s trendy cousin out of Nashville: hot chicken. And none are as good as Mrs. White’s shatter-jacketed, juicy classic, the best fried chicken in town.

What’s so special about the french fries at The Stand? They’re hand-cut, for one, which means they taste like honest-to-goodness potatoes. Then there’s the matter of their texture and seasoning: The fries are sliced into thin, skinny strips that are fried to a light golden crisp, and zapped with a delightfully salty and pungent spice blend. They’re served with the restaurant’s signature Stand sauce, which gives them just the right spicy kick. Wash it all down with one of The Stand’s banana shakes for a quintessentially Phoenix fast-food meal that’s worth every single calorie.

One of the most frustrating things in the entire world is getting a bad order of traditional, or bone-in, wings. Sometimes they’re too small, leaving you feeling hungry and ripped off. Sometimes they’re too large and fleshy, making you feel like salmonella poisoning is inevitable. However, if you find a place that consistently produces order after solid order, that’s when you generate a category of your budget called simply “wings.” Such a place is ATL Wings. Each piece, drum or wing, is hefty and evenly coated. You hardly get the gross runt wings, or the dry pieces that the sauce somehow missed. And the flavor options are plentiful, categorized by dry rub, barbecue, and red hot. The recommended dry rub is ATL Style — a heavy and oily blend of herbs and spices that is just this side of addictive. Other unique flavors include the Extreme Honey Habanero, Lucky’s Sweet Red, and Chef’s Special. The best part is that the barbecue and red hot sauces may be taken to go.

The restaurant that launched 1,000 effusive Yelp reviews, the jalapeño grits that turn seasoned diners into smiling kids, and the brisket that cradles your soul and makes everything right in our broken universe can all be found at Phoenix’s holiest barbecue restaurant. Little Miss may be opening a second location, and who knows what will happen from there. But we’ll always have the first location’s rich burnt ends that melt in your mouth like orange sherbet. We’ll always have that chewy, sticky, faintly smoky pecan pie. And hell yes, we’ll always have mammoth beef short ribs on Fridays and Saturdays: the best bite of ‘cue in town.

James Lewis of JL Smokehouse, a big man with big dreams and a tiny south Phoenix restaurant, makes the best barbecue sammie in town. And there’s not a fold of brisket to be seen. The sandwich, called the Alene, casts a harsh, smoky spotlight on sausage. Lewis barbecues links in his smoker custom-made in Arkansas, laying on a thunderous smoke. As you eat this sausage modeled after a Chicago-style dog, with its soft bun and soft cabbage, celery, and peppers, the umami and smoke pummel your senses with pure glory. Chile flakes lend heat, upping the ante even more. Barbecue doesn’t get much better.

Stopping into this low-key Scottsdale fish emporium feels like an event, and not just because the easy tunes flow and the crew is ultra chill. The prepared food here is one of a kind: bowls, sandwiches, sashimi, and smoked fish platters. Chula sources beautifully fresh seafood, some even caught from the owners’ San Diego boat. What distinguishes this spot is product quality, yes, and then, on top of this, the rocket fuel of what happens next. Pickling. Smoking. Hypnotic ingredient combos like confit tuna and green chile, smoked trout and pickled enoki mushrooms. Chula is a place where, if you had beers and time, you could linger forever.

The thought of seafood in the middle of Arizona gives some transplants pause, but those of us who have been around awhile realize that despite not being known for fresh seafood, the Valley can still deliver. Deliver is the main word, as The Salt Cellar — a classic upscale Scottsdale restaurant open since 1971 — has its seafood flown in daily. It’s also just fun to go, as the front door opens to nothing more than a wood-paneled room with a set of downward stairs. The lobby, dining room, and bar are all three stories underground, making the dining experience more of a desert escape. We recommend the mussels in butter sauce to start, and then, you really can’t go wrong from there.

We remember the days when there were no poke restaurants in the Valley, mostly because it was only, like, two years ago. Now, it seems that we can’t go a week without a new eatery devoted to raw fish bowls opening somewhere in metro Phoenix (not that we’re complaining, because poke is actually really good). The number of options can be a bit bewildering, but we’re here to help: Go to Koi Poke. This Scottsdale-born chain already has four locations in the Valley, with several more in the works. Koi pulls ahead of the poke pack for the superb quality and selection of its fish; we’re partial to the Hawaiian tuna, which has a rich flavor and texture we can’t get enough of. We also love the great selection of bases, sauces, and toppings, which guarantees that we never have to eat the same combination twice.

At first glance, Sushi Nakano resembles any number of run-of-the-mill strip-mall sushi spots in metro Phoenix. This intimate Ahwatukee sushi restaurant, though, is closer in spirit to a traditional Tokyo sushi bar than the average Phoenix sushi joint. The restaurant is the debut effort of Leo Nakano, whose father, Hirofumi Nakano, is the owner and head sushi chef at north Scottsdale’s venerable Hiro Sushi. Leo Nakano shares his father’s talent for crafting traditional sushi with an artful and contemporary twist. Highlights include creative rolls like the Rising Sun, which features creamy, flash-fried tuna wrapped around burdock root. If you can swing it, though, opt for the chef’s-choice omakase tasting menu, which delivers a parade of pristine, elegantly prepared sushi, nigiri, and sashimi.

Josh Hebert started making ramen at Posh, his now-defunct improvisational temple to fine dining. The ramen he bowls at his tiny north Scottsdale noodle shop has an incredible umami depth, paling just about every other ramen bowl in the Valley. Hebert is a white dude, sure. But he has cooked in Tokyo, and here we’re judging purely on flavor. His are nuanced and soulful. His are traditional, spurning some of the crazier ramen trends and sticking to the classics, like miso and shoyu. A bowl where he innovates is sisig ramen, the piping hot heap of noodles crowned with sizzling pig face.

All-day dim sum options are still few and far between around metro Phoenix, which is why Dim Sum Cafe is such a treat. This friendly strip-mall restaurant offers top-notch dim sum specialties like shumai pork dumplings, steamed barbecue pork buns, hand-rolled scallion pancakes, braised chicken feet, and juicy, made-to-order xiao long bao, or Shanghainese soup dumplings. If you want to augment your meal with something more than dim sum dishes, the restaurant also offers a wide-ranging menu of traditional Chinese dishes, with an emphasis on Shanghainese and Sichuan specialties. From the non-dim sum side of the menu, don’t miss the terrific stir-fried pork intestines.

Adjacent to midtown Phoenix’s beloved Pho Thanh, Milk Run specializes in Insta-friendly East Asian-style boba tea drinks. The menu is huge and includes iced-milk teas, milk-tea floats, sparklers, iced teas, slushies, smoothies, and Vietnamese coffee. Pretty much every drink in the house can be topped with your pick of specialty boba tapioca balls, including flavors like honey boba, aloe vera boba, citrusy crystal boba, and fruit-flavored popping boba. Not only is the menu extensive, the quality at Milk Run is top-notch. The drinks are handcrafted from scratch and feature fresh fruit, organic teas, and house-made ice cream. With more than 50 drink choices that you can customize with add-ons, Milk Run is a boba tea-lover’s paradise.

There are a lot of mediocre horchatas in metro Phoenix — chalky and cloyingly sweet concoctions that are usually made using store-bought powder mixes. If you want to savor what a fresh, thirst-quenching horchata should taste like, head over to one of La Santisima Gourmet Taco Shop’s two Valley locations. La Santisima’s horchata is cool, frothy, and lightly sweet, with fragrant notes of cinnamon. It’s topped with fresh fruit and chopped pecans. It’s a perfect palate cleanser between tacos, or simply as a light, sweet finish to your meal.

Living in Phoenix can be hard sometimes — we’ve got face-melting summer temperatures, crazy politicians, and disappointing sports teams. But then, we think of Sweet Republic, a source of Phoenix pride and joy for a decade now. Sweet Republic, which adds culinary ingenuity to top-quality ingredients to create out-of-the-box flavors like blue cheese and date, sweet corn, and coconut cashew curry, while elevating traditional flavors like salted butter caramel swirl, Belgian chocolate, real mint chip, and sweet berry cobbler. Sweet Republic, which Bon Appetit named one of the top 10 ice cream stores in the United States, and whose Toffee Banofi Sundae was highlighted on the Food Network’s The Best Thing I Ever Ate. Sweet Republic, which we return to over and over again, day or night, summer or winter, whenever we crave a taste of the sublime.

The humble doughnut, that mainstay of road-trip breakfasts and morning office meetings, becomes something special, something elevated in the hands of Welcome Chicken + Donuts. There’s no guessing at a typical doughnut joint; the offerings are predictable and familiar. This isn’t the case at Welcome, where every visit brings new flavors and new questions: Will I like a chipotle limon doughnut? (Yes.) How does a chocolate rose pistachio doughnut taste? (Surprising and delicious.) We doubt we’ll get tired of the Welcome crew’s innovative spirit, but if we do feel a desire for the classics, they do mainstays like apple fritters and plain with “sprankles” just as well as the unique ones. And on the off chance you find yourself there and aren’t in the mood for doughnuts (what’s wrong with you?), Welcome’s fried chicken, ramen, and breakfast sandwiches are mighty good, too.

When it’s time for a caffeine fix (which is pretty often, truth be told), there’s nowhere we’d rather go than Jobot Coffee Shop in Roosevelt Row. It’s hip enough that we feel cool just hanging out there, but it’s also got a comfortable, welcoming vibe that isn’t present at some of the other trendy coffeehouses in town. Jobot has it all, from a full slate of coffee and tea drinks to a small but satisfying menu of breakfast and lunch/dinner options (the breakfast burrito, which is served all day, is outstanding). Depending on your mood, you can sip and sup in the industrial-style interior or hang out on the patio and take in the hustle and bustle of downtown Phoenix.

Did someone say “all-vegan coffee shop in central Phoenix”? If so, they were likely talking about Dark Hall Coffee, where vegans and those who just like tasty treats and a strong cup of java can get their coffee on. Dark Hall’s tasty joe comes courtesy of Xanadu Coffee’s on-site roastery, which has provided beans for local cafes for nearly a decade. Those who want a little something in their java will find a house-made cashew milk and another blend made from cashews, hazelnuts, and Brazil nuts. Also available is a rotating monthly house-special milk. Baked goods change from day to day, and include a delicious fresh berry galette, lavender macarons (which are even better when paired with Dark Hall’s tart lemonade), moist blueberry crumb cake, and sticky, decadent cinnamon rolls. Brought to us by the same friendly folks who run the restaurant The Coronado PHX, Dark Hall is here for everyone, no matter their diet.

This popular micro-distillery, which recently debuted its tasting room and cocktail lounge near the Arizona State University campus in Tempe, uses local ingredients to craft unique, top-flight spirits. Try the Desert Durum Wheat Whiskey, which is made from high-quality Arizona durum wheat that’s also used in the production of Italian pasta. The stars of Arizona Distilling Company’s spirit portfolio are its Commerce Gin, Mission Vodka, and Copper City Bourbon (the first Arizona-made bourbon), all of which have earned double gold medal wins at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Phil Clark, a relatively recent import from Washington, D.C., has brought a huge new personality to Phoenix’s craft cocktail scene. Over the past year, he has aggressively flipped and revitalized his roster of cocktails at Blue Hound, always striving for more. You’ll find a bulletproof Old Fashioned here, yes. But you would be wise to put your lips to one of Clark’s specialty drinks. The lush, tropical depths of his impossibly juicy Junglebird will unspool into your thirsty daydreams. Never satisfied, Clark recently dropped a new line featuring a drink that unites peanut butter syrup, bacon, and egg white, a head nod to Elvis Presley’s famous sandwich.

Ross Simon’s downtown cocktail emporium continues to glass beautiful libations. This past year, after a six-month revision, his menu moved from a fairy-tale theme to a dark fairy-tale theme. Potable highlights from the latest iteration include a sultry grasshopper (the drink) served with a paper sleeve of fried grasshoppers (the insects), as well as a super-fresh and imposingly tall drink of coconut, lime, carrot juice, and vodka. The illustrated pages of the book-like menu can whisk you to happy places: cocktails with bubbles, a night filled with fresh remixes on the Negroni. With rad upholstered seating and ceilings to the sky, this bar is always a glorious place to be drinking.

Hanging out at UnderTow is exactly like sailing the seas in a 19th-century ship’s hold — if your boatmates were thirsty hipsters instead of weathered seamen. From the moment you descend the staircase in the middle of Arcadia’s Sip Coffee & Beer, you’re in a drinking experience unlike anything else in metro Phoenix. The tiny underground space is adorned with faux portholes and barrels, tiki carvings and lanterns, to set the mood. Then come the drinks. UnderTow dropped a new menu in mid-September. Like the previous two iterations, it’s divided into UnderTow originals and tiki classics, and most drinks on both sides of the menu are new to the bar’s lineup. We like the fruity, potent Signal Fire, made with tequila, rums from three islands, orange curaçao, mango, habanero, orange, pineapple, and lime. Note that the bar only seats a couple of dozen people, which makes for a friendly atmosphere among the guests, but also makes a reservation (especially on the weekends) virtually mandatory.

Move over, Prescott. The real Whiskey Row is lined up behind the enormous chrome-and-glass bar at The Gladly in Phoenix, which offers more than 250 labels of bourbon, rye, American and Canadian whiskey, single-malt scotch, and blended scotch. And any of them can be served over a perfectly shaped ice ball, formed at your table. Magically, the ice takes two to three hours to melt, so it will cool your whiskey without watering it down. We took our ice ball (an extra $3) on a tour through familiar Kentucky bourbons — Woodford Reserve, Basil Hayden, and Angels Envy. The taste held up through all, and there was still enough left of our cute little ice ball that we could have taken it home with us. Next time, we’ll bring a small cooler. We were also pleased to see our local favorite, Arizona Distilling’s Copper City bourbon, standing tall among the heavy hitters at the bar, and at only $10 a shot. The Tempe product holds its own with middle-shelf Kentucky bourbons like Knob Creek and Maker’s Mark. Our only disappointment was that the bar did not stock any 20-year or 23-year Pappy Van Winkle, the most elusive bourbon on the planet. You can buy it online for up to $2,000 a bottle. The Gladly does offer a 10-year Pappy for $60 a shot. That’s cheap compared with Orphan Barrel’s 26-year Old Blowhard bourbon for $110 a pour. You need balls of ice to pay that for a drink.

Richard Sandoval’s upscale restaurant in the Fairmont Scottsdale Princess stocks some 240 bottles of tequila. You can take flight in a number of ways: across styles (like blanco or añejo), across brands (like Don Julio or El Tesoro), by flavor profile, or by high-end ballerness (the most premium flight of three tequilas costs $240). By the glass, blanco, reposado, and añejo tequilas each get their own double-column page of the menu. If you want, you can bust out your wallet for magical extra-añejos, many from world-renowned producers like Terralta. And if you feel like delving deeper into the world of Mexican spirits, La Hacienda also has a selection of mescal, sotol, and bacanora.

Kazimierz World Wine Bar is almost as difficult to find as it is to pronounce (Kaz-meer-ehz). Let’s just call it Kazbar. It’s tucked into a back alley in Old Town Scottsdale near its sister restaurant, Cowboy Ciao. But the search for the nondescript entrance, which took us two trips around the block, is worth it. As you walk in, you feel like you’re descending into a very rich friend’s intimate, well-stocked wine cellar. Kazimierz and Cowboy Ciao share a 47-page wine list that lists some 2,000 choices. If you’re like us, though, and don’t have a Ph.D. in oenology (the study of wine), you appreciate Kazbar’s offering of five or six wine flights. Our two tastings took us on a vintner’s tour from the Loire Valley in France, to Sonoma and Napa in California, to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, to Washington state, and finally a side trip to our own Sonoita-Elgin region. Every stop was appreciated. So was the menu of light bites, which includes one of our and the Valley’s favorites, the remarkable Stetson Chopped Salad. And if good food and wine isn’t enough, there’s also live music every night after 9 p.m. So once you find the place, why would you want to leave? As the Zagat review says, “It’s not your average wine bar.”

The average markup of a bottle of wine at a restaurant, according to Wine Enthusiast, is two and a half to three times its retail price. Some have found bottles marked up as much as five times what you’d pay for them in a grocery store. And usually, the more popular the label, the bigger the markup. That’s why wine lovers come to Tarbell’s Tavern, which is connected to The Wine Store, part of owner Mark Tarbell’s Camelback Road complex. The Wine Store has a remarkable inventory, ranging from top-shelf California labels like Cakebread and Roederer to bottles you’ll find discounted at your local Fry’s. There are at least a couple of dozen Arizona wines, too. So if you want a bottle of wine with your meal from the Tavern’s reasonably priced menu, you simply walk through a short hallway to the wine store, select a bottle, take it back to your table, and show it to your server, who will add it to your bill at the retail price. There’s not even a corkage fee. And if you’re not sure which wine would be the best choice when you and your date have ordered green chile pork and salmon, there’s a knowledgeable steward to help you; for us, he recommended an excellent Arizona wine, a Del Rio Springs pinot noir for only $19 that paired perfectly with both dinners. One warning: If it’s late and you each want just one more glass of wine, you’ll be tempted when you see it’s cheaper to buy a full bottle of some labels. Our advice? Order the bottle and call Lyft.

We’re not Sonoma or Napa, but Arizona is blessed with an abundance of excellent winemakers and road-trip-worthy tasting rooms, which are centered in three major areas: Willcox, Sonoita-Elgin, and the Verde Valley. Any of these is worth a long weekend trip for wine-lovers, but by far our favorite stop is Page Springs Cellars in Cornville, which, at 90 minutes away, is also the shortest drive from Phoenix. Owner and vintner Eric Glomski offers an outstanding roster of wines, many from grapes produced on the property. But it is the ambiance and the food that set Page Springs apart. You can enjoy your wine on the outdoor patios as you watch the grapes grow, indoors at the bar, or in a cozy room set aside for club members. Chef Brian Nowicki’s menu is superior to any other tasting room we’ve visited, with a variety of wood-fired pizzas, salads, cheese boards, and Mason jar rillettes (the smoked salmon spread is our favorite). Page Springs also offers tours and special events, including massage and yoga days. Sounds superfluous to us. If you’re enjoying the wines and the food, how much more relaxation do you need?

Maybe you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to start a winery, but it couldn’t hurt. Mark Beres, co-founder of Flying Leap with his former military pilot buddies Marc Moeller and Rolf-Peter Sasse, still works his day job, an engineer at defense contractor Raytheon. That training helped get the vineyard off to a flying start. “We did a lot of research and data-gathering before we started the company,” Beres told Edible Baja Arizona in an interview. “We want to know everything before we make a decision. We’re engineers and mathematicians so it’s in our DNA. We studied Napa, and I mean we studied Napa. Why are some wineries successful and some not? What are they doing right and wrong? Why do customers go back?” The line of customers on a recent weekend at the tasting room in Sonoita-Elgin and at the adjacent distillery seems proof that they’re doing something right. Flying Leap opened in 2010 and already has added tasting rooms in Willcox, Bisbee, and Prescott. The owners told us they’ve found the desert temperatures combined with the elevation of the vineyards in Willcox and the Sonoita-Elgin region are conducive to growing Spanish-style grapes, which are producing some excellent wines — white blends like a 2015 Trio and a 2016 Fly Girl, and reds like a 2014 Grenache, a 2014 Estate Tempranillo, and a 2014 Mourvedre. And certainly you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to appreciate drinking them.

As you pull into the drive at Lightning Ridge Cellars, you are greeted by Monty, a huge Great Dane who can look you in the eye even when you’re in an SUV. It can be a bit intimidating at first. Much the same can be said about Americans trying a new varietal of red wine. Think Paul Giamatti in Sideways: “No fucking merlot.” He got us to try pinot noirs. Now maybe Monty, who is as gentle as this wine is smooth, can persuade you to try the wine she’s named after, Lightning Ridge Cellars’ 2013 Montepulciano. The Italian grape is rarely grown in the U.S., but former engineer Ann Rancone is making it work in Elgin. The grapes are 100 percent estate-grown, and aged for 38 months in East European oak barrels. If you have a nose for this sort of thing, you notice aromas and flavors of back cherry, plum, and — ex-smokers will love this — tobacco leaf. The 2013 Montepulciano was named Best in Class at the 2018 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. And it was among the least expensive at $28. Alas, we would have brought a few bottles back with us, because it’s not available in stores yet, but it was sold out. We settled for the latest, a 2016 vintage, but we prefer the full Monty.

Let’s face it: White wine doesn’t stay in the bottle long during the summertime in Arizona. One cool sip leads to another, then another, and the next thing you know, you’ve got another dead soldier in your hands. Arizona’s growing wine industry produces several good whites, noticeably last year’s Best of Phoenix winner Symphony Sweet Lies Reserve and this year’s Arizona Growers Cup winner, the 2016 Wild Child White, both made by movie director and actor Sam Pillsbury’s Pillsbury Wine Company in Cochise County. But we’ve developed a fondness for Flying Leap Vineyards’ 2015 Trio, a blend of malvasia, grenache blanc, and picpoul grapes. The winery likens it to a classical trio of piano, violin, and cello playing in perfect harmony. Sure. We like Trio because drinking it is like biting into a chilled piece of fruit on a hot summer’s day. (Is there any other kind here?) And you want to consume it all before the weather sweats away its crispness. Oops. There goes another empty bottle for the trash.

So many of the most innovative and headiest beers of the last year were released by this brewery, still in its toddler years. Piloted by Drew Pool and Preston Thoeny, central Phoenix’s Wren House, already great, has only been getting greater. This past year, Wren House’s Pie Series included an eerily dessert-like pecan pie wheat wine made with pecans smoked by local favorite barbecue joint Little Miss BBQ. Las Frescas, the brewery’s fruit-infused sour line, recently debuted, changed weekly, and was the main summer attraction for geeky craft beer drinkers. Thoeny, the head brewer, even released a fruited sour IPA and a s’mores-inspired imperial stout. And here, yes, even a simple lager or kolsch hits the spot.

Many craft beer bars carry local just to carry local. The Wandering Tortoise is different, curating a selection with a rigor that shows that the owners, Shay Gau and Justin Evans, have a more complete understanding of beer. The Tortoise’s 22 taps flow with some of the best and rarest offerings from top Arizona breweries, including Wren House, Arizona Wilderness, and Pueblo Vida. But the owners go further, procuring treasured kegs and cans from intriguing far-off breweries like Omnipollo (Sweden) and Melvin Brewing (Wyoming). A stunning selection of to-go bottles and cans awaits you as well. The Tortoise also does cider, mead, and rollicking events.

Josh and Jason Duren usually keep about 15 ciders flowing in their Mesa taproom. They also have cider aging in barrels at one end of the large space, as well as icy cider spinning in a slushy machine. Where most cideries are content with apple-flavored beverages, the Durens shift into new gears. They have apple ciders flavored with mango, black tea, and peach; with bacon and maple syrup; with cascara and pea flowers that turn the cider deeply violet and funky. Not every cider is great, but, thanks to the sheer creativity, every visit to the Cider Corps taproom is.

One of the great jolts to our food scene in recent memory has been the rise of Arizona Sake. Since 2017, Atsuo Sakurai, a native of Yokohama, Japan, has brewed incandescent sake in his Holbrook garage. He makes Junmai ginjo, an old-school sake that allows only rice, water, yeast, and koji (a kind of fungus) in production. Some of the town’s most lauded chefs revere Arizona Sake, which changes batch to batch, week to week. Sakurai doesn’t pasteurize or filter. He does everything the hard way. What he gets in the end is a beautifully floral sake with distinct Arizona spirit.

It’s hard to know where to point the camera to get the perfect shot at Pop ‘N Tea. Do you focus on the dessert shop’s trademark diamond-shaped gelato and sorbet bars chilling behind the glass, employees standing by to add chocolate drizzle and the toppings of your choice? Or do you pose in front of the restaurant’s grass-covered wall, where a bright pink sign reads, “Today Was a Good Day”? (Perhaps an homage to Ice Cube?) When it comes to the restaurants occupying My Florist Plaza on McDowell Road, Pop ‘N Tea is easily the hippest. The concept for the store originated with a trio of friends from Southern California. It’s not just geometric bars, either: Pop ‘N Tea also serves boba with your choice of milk, white, or green teas, plus a selection of smoothies and slushies. On a typical night, you can expect to find a cool crowd lounging inside — just be prepared to wait your turn before you grab your phone and dart in front of the neon wall.

Stunning food optics are on nightly display at this upscale restaurant at Mountain Shadows Resort. “Food is a composition,” executive chef Charles Wiley said last fall. “Your eye moves around the plate like a painting.” Wiley’s plating style veers classic. More of the visual fireworks here come from the aesthetics of Alfred Muro, chef de cuisine. Hearth ’61’s plates of food have explosive color. They have texture and smoothness and three-dimensionality. They are done up without being overdone. Salads snake through canyons of jagged rice crisps, and scallops stud orange seas of romesco. And yes, taste matches appearance.

They say you eat with your eyes first, which is to say that merely seeing food that looks appealing can make you hungry. Which might explain why we always leave Ruze Cake House with a pile of treats. The Old Town Scottsdale bakery continues to make some of the loveliest goodies in town. On any given day, you might find smooth, perfectly round macarons topped with chocolate and nuts, adorned with icing, or painted with a design; flawlessly decorated cookies (the bakery’s Instagram account reveals themes like floral, stars and stripes, and marbled with gold accents); and eye-popping cakes for special occasions. Ruze recently began offering a limited brunch menu, and it’s no surprise they do beautiful meals just as well as they do gorgeous desserts. And don’t worry: When it’s time to dig in, everything we’ve encountered has tasted just as good as it looks.