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.