My Florist Cafe Man does not live by bread alone. He also needs some sugar. At least that seems to be the thinking behind the folks at My Florist Cafe, the new adjunct to downtown Phoenix’s wildly popular Willo Bread store. Yet we’re not talking dessert here: This new restaurant…
Gecko Grill doesn’t simply do good old-fashioned Mexican food. Oh no. The restaurant offers a full American barbecue menu, too, serving baby back ribs alongside its burritos. If this seems like an ambitious pairing, it is. Real barbecue lovers won’t stand for so-so smoked meats and sauces, and with quality…
When Gregory’s Grill opened in early 1997, it generated great excitement because of its bold approach to a new dining experience known as global cuisine. While foodies unanimously raved over its eclectic menu (the Valley hadn’t yet seen such things as black pepper-crusted mahi mahi over crawfish spoon bread with…
In a world bloated with slickly marketed restaurants, it’s refreshing to find a guy who’s completely honest about his eats. Kohnie’s cafe owner Robert Kohn charges a lot for his casual fare — perhaps too much — and he admits it. He doesn’t pamper his customers, offering a brusque “What…
Mariscos Playa Hermosa Phoenix’s sister city in Mexico is Hermosillo, in the Sonoran region that’s home to a variety of distinctive caldos (soups), carne de marinada (marinated meats), zesty chiles and, most of all, fresh seafood. Hermosillo, though, is hundreds of miles away from us — much too far to…
Niko’s is an upbeat, upscale entree into the Valley’s Greek dining scene. Expect glitz. Expect glamour. Expect high prices, high quality and high fun. Just don’t expect stunning Greek cuisine. This restaurant is more about atmosphere than authenticity, and its patrons don’t seem to care. The place is packed.Niko’s opened…
When Rustico first opened in 1998, the restaurant was under the direction of Maria Ranieri, chef-owner of the always excellent Maria’s When in Naples. Unfortunately, this meatball fell far from the spaghetti tree. Rustico was panned by critics as boring, then ignored by diners. The eatery never took off. Last…
All dressed up with no place to eat. That’s the lament of so many would-be diners in the far west Valley. The rest of the Valley is hardly sympathetic. If residents want creative dining in their neighborhoods, they should live in the right place. At least that’s what local restaurant…
Now this is the way to do dinner and a movie. No standing in line. No $7.50 ticket. No $3.75 soft drink. No $5 sack of stale popcorn. No $20 for steak after the show. And no struggling to carve out four or more hours to fit it all in…
It’s hot. And sticky. It’s the time of year where the only appealing recreation is to curl up in a ball in a dark corner and mutter about how Mother Nature is tormenting us with her radiance set at full blast. This is the time of year that makes dining…
Never underestimate the public’s love of trash. We’ve all seen the styles — ’70s disco wear, jeans that aren’t acid-washed but simply unwashed, stumble-out-of-bed hairstyles and anything related to WWF or reality television. Whatever the reason, it’s suddenly cool to have no class. Now folks in major markets are happy…
Sushi Brokers Pity the poor sushi. The once classic combination of pristine fish, vegetables and vinegared rice has been mainstreamed. As the number of traditional sushi bars across the United States has quadrupled over the past 10 years, so has American creativity. Decorator sushi has emerged, with bizarre combinations like…
I think I know why American cuisine is often so boring. We’ve never been overthrown by a hostile nation. With such a homogenous pool of settlers, Americans have never been forced to incorporate exotic cultures into their cooking. And so, our national heritage has been allowed to wallow in the…
Our waiter at Seasons is wondering with us where the crowds are. It’s 8 o’clock on a Friday night, and the spacious dining room is speckled with perhaps two dozen guests. It’s like this all the time lately, he laments, and no one can figure out why. It’s a stumper…
Bar dining isn’t anything new. Since the dawn of professional sports and big-screen TVs, patrons have been swarming bars, seeking a tall cold one. They’re content to cheer a game through with the likes of straight-from-the-freezer-bag bites like cheese sticks, potato skins, deep-fried zucchini and mushrooms, or chicken wings. Hungrier…
What do the well-heeled and hungry want? Great food? To dine at Different Pointe of View, arguably the Valley’s most expensive restaurant, you’d never know it. This place, long on status but short on substance, continues to pack in diners willing to pay exorbitant prices for too-often mediocre food and…
It’s the end of an era, with the closing of the historic John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch. It’s a new dawn for Valley hospitality, with the unveiling of the Zen-inspired resort and spa taking Gardiner’s place — Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain. The resort won’t open until October, but its flagship restaurant…
It’s late May, and there are 52 home games remaining in the Arizona Diamondbacks season at Bank One Ballpark. That’s a lot of baseball. That’s also potentially a lot of hours spent driving in circles and a lot of money wasted for sports fans unfamiliar with the best way to…
Michael & Christi’s Heavenly Soul Food Soul food is so simple, it’s easy to overlook as a cuisine in its own right. Yet embracing good old gritty calories, heavy batters, fatty meats, thick gravies and sugars like molasses — what’s not to celebrate? It’s high time that diners salute this…
Crisdee’s Chef Razz Kamnitzer grumbles that chain restaurants use glittery marketing instead of good food to lure customers in the door. What bothers him the most is not that he doesn’t have an advertising budget equal to that of the Olive Garden, but that the public believes the packaged puffery…
The headlines scream that the Diamondbacks aren’t making money. Attendance is down, and the baseball team is struggling. All eyes are on Jerry Colangelo to fix things.I’ve got a suggestion: Rather than pump more cash into hotshot player salaries, give the fans something palatable to munch on while cheering for…
There’s something in the water, people say — that special fluid that flows from New York City’s municipal taps. The crystal liquid is so revered that it’s been marketed on a retail level. Tim Zagat, publisher of the Zagat Surveys, says he’d rather have New York City water than the…
