Finally, a flashy Scottsdale restaurant is worth the hype

Catch has all the trappings of a typical flashy Scottsdale restaurant. It’s an out-of-town chain with locations in New York, Los Angeles and Miami. It just landed in the luxury wing of Scottsdale Fashion Square. It’s got a customer base of businessmen shaking hands, accompanied by their brilliantly blonde wives teetering on red-bottomed heels, holding Louis Vuitton purses recently purchased at the mall next door. It boasts an opulent, stunning dining room and a friendly, professional staff that provides top-notch service. 

At most flashy Scottsdale restaurants, style trumps substance.

At Catch, that’s not the case.

The people watching is spectacular. The service is spot-on. The dining room is gorgeous. And the best part of all? The food.

Dinner at Catch may cost a car payment. But that’s true at all of these flashy places. And, perhaps, unless you are part of the private jet set, there’s nothing worse than forking over a fortune to be disappointed by your meal. 

Catch is worth the price tag, and earns every bit of its hype. 

Hooked on seafood

On a recent visit, roughly eight weeks after the doorman opened the tall frosted glass doors for the first customers, we sat in the bar. Not particularly because we wanted to, but because it was the only available reservation on a Thursday night. 

Upon our arrival, the host offered a hightop table within the bar area, rather than stools. This turned out to be the perfect spot. We peeked into the golden-hued dining area, longing for a table, only to find that the packed open-plan space is loud. Groups of friends shout over large circular tables and voices bounce off the wood-lined ceiling.

The bar is separated from the dining room by two archways and has a totally different mood. It’s darker, with the glow of the backlit bottle shelves illuminating the wood beams overhead and the shiny granite tables. A line of plush barstools stands like soldiers along the bar, with a handful of four-seater hightop tables lining the back wall. The voices are quieter, and the music louder. For a group of just two, the intimate spot was perfect for date night.

From the bar, we ordered a couple of cocktails. A Mango Mezcalita — smoky and sweet, but a little too like Sunny-D for our liking — and a clarified pina colada. Made with whey, the clear drink had an earthy note that complemented the creamy coconut. Not much pineapple was present, other than tall green fronds garnishing the glass. The cocktails were good, not exceptional, and we planned to order wine for the next round.

Our first bite of food, however, was exceptional. The menu is split into many sections, starting with snacks and salads and gradually increasing in size and temperature. At the recommendation of our sharply dressed server, we mixed and matched, sharing each dish as we rode the wave.

The Madai Crudo came from the menu section titled “From Japan to Scottsdale.” Tight rolls of raw Japanese red snapper were carefully interspersed with tiny wedges of pickled green peach, all encircling a small mountain of pomegranate seeds and resting in a pool of sharp amarillo sauce. The dish was served with a spoon, and the server relayed instructions on how to construct a bite of everything at once. When doing so, the sweet peaches softened the vinegary sauce and the cool, tender fish sang when interspersed with pops of bright pomegranate. Cold, light and fresh, this dish is a great way to wake up your senses for the meal to come. 

Stellar surf and turf 

Like our cocktails, our first dish also changed our plan for our second course. Instead of diving into one of the cooked dishes, we were eager to experience more from the raw seafood selection. Two sushi rolls made the cut.

The Hellfire roll, described on the menu as “spicy tuna two ways,” is filled with tuna and crunchy slivers of pear. The roll was clean and fresh, similar to sushi you’ve probably had at many good Japanese restaurants.

The second roll, the Wagyu Surf and Turf, was unlike anything you’d find elsewhere. Filled with slightly sweet Maine lobster, these rolls are topped with a thin slice of Wagyu beef, lightly torched until its marbling just starts to melt. A tiny nest of crispy potato and dots of truffle aioli complete each bite. 

At $35 for five pieces, you’d hope the roll was good. And it lived up to the billing. Every bite was an umami bomb, loaded with rich flavor that lingered, leaving us to savor each mouthful, oohing and aahing before diving in for another piece. This must-try dish is an experience.

Balanced branzino

Finally, we moved over to the cooked side of the menu, opting for a pasta and more fish. Plates at Catch can be small, so the pasta may be a good idea for anyone hoping to squash any worry of still being hungry at the end of the meal. 

The Spicy Gigli is a classic vodka sauce option. The dish was well-executed and generally tasty, but it did remind us that we were, in fact, dining at one of these typical flashy eateries, where espresso martinis and plates of pink-hued pasta alla vodka seem optimized mainly for Instagram feeds. 

With the fish, we dove right back into the delicious, mind-blowing experience we briefly left. The herb-roasted branzino with creamy vegetable basmati rice was, hands down, one of the best dishes we’ve tried this year. 

A fillet of flaky fish, crusted with fresh, green herbs, rested neatly on top of a scoop of long-grained basmati. The rice played more like risotto, studded with cubes of root vegetables, all enveloped in a creamy sauce. The rice was so buttery and so lemony, we marveled that the sauce hadn’t split. 

The perfectly unified, creamy sauce was delectable, tempting us to scoop up the rice on its own. But just as our server advised earlier, these plates shine when you gather a taste of everything in each bite. A scoop of rice topped with a forkful of herbaceous fish blew us away, bite after bite. If you go to Catch, order the branzino.

During our visit, we tasted a variety of dishes. There’s plenty left to try. Maybe next time, we’ll sit in the glowing dining room, splurge on a steak and a bottle of red, and have an entirely different experience.

But on a second visit, it would be tempting to ask for a table in the bar, share a surf and turf roll and then lose ourselves in the branzino and rice. Catch has us hooked.

Catch

7014 E. Camelback Road, #612, Scottsdale
Cocktails $17-20; Snacks and salads $12-24; sushi rolls $19-35; hot starters $19-33; steaks $64-195; seafood entrees $39-89.