Best Spanish Restaurant 2000 | Altos Latin Bistro | Food & Drink | Phoenix
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Best Spanish Restaurant

Altos Latin Bistro

Altos Latin Bistro reminds us that authentic Spanish dining is a romance of flavors; a cuisine built on vibrant spices; a food celebrating the bounty of the Mediterranean. How do we know? Hey, it says so right on its decorative, leather-bound menu.

Not that you'll have any doubts after delighting in this colorful eatery's mouthwatering tapas, paellas, crema de mariscos (creamy seafood soup) and serrano ham-wrapped, Manchego cheese-stuffed shrimp. This is the type of stuff that makes us wonder what Christopher Columbus was thinking when he left Spain in search of a more exciting world.

Lamb chops, for example, practically dance under a "drunken" sauce of chile negro, garlic, beer and spices topped by cotija cheese. Wild mushrooms and guajillo peppers are rarely so well-respected as when they're served in Altos' soup touched with fennel and dry Spanish sherry. And what more could we want from beef than Altos' signature juicy filet mignon, topped with guajillo peppers, garlic, almonds and warm cabrales cheese?

Hello, Columbus!

Best Creole/Cajun Restaurant

Justin's Ragin' Cajun Cuisine

We like this spicy Cajun stuff. Like grilled shrimp dipped in rémoulade, an infernal mix of mustard, mayonnaise and horseradish. Or hot boiled Louisiana crayfish, bobbing with new potatoes and corn in fiery spiced broth.

Other Cajun places around town may not believe how much we like the heat -- why else would they be so timid in turning it on? Not so at Justin's, where the good times roll in a heat wave of assertive flavors, always-fresh ingredients and creative menu choices.

Confederate catfish is a treat, blackened or grilled with shrimp in herb beurre blanc. So is Mardi Gras meat loaf, alligator tail meat ground with Cajun spices. And only Justin's can tempt us with palmetto chicken, encrusted with pecans in a roasted red bell pepper coulis, or Terrebonne tournedos, tenderloins in Creole mustard au jus.

The party never ends at this French Quarter playhouse, flocked with photos of the New Orleans Saints and a mural of street musicians. The joint rocks with zydeco music, and we eat to the beat, spooning brandy and chocolate bread pudding in a boisterous strawberry sauce.

Justin's is our best buy for a bit of the bayou.

Readers' Choice: Voo Doo Daddy

Best Mexican Takeout

El Norte�o

Chris Malloy
Don't feel like cooking? El Norteo has been a Valley takeout favorite for years.

The small space is nothing fancy, but the food is. El Norteo's kitchen cranks, even producing menudo on weekends. The staff has you fed morning to night: Breakfast on spicy, homemade chorizo-and-egg burros; lunch on green enchiladas, red tamales and tacos; and return to pick up dinner -- killer machaca, green chile stew, cheese crisps and chicken tostadas.

El Norteo, we'll take you anytime, anywhere!

Best Authentic Mexican Restaurant

San Diego Bay Restaurant

Jackie Mercandetti
Anyone who's spent time in Mexico knows that the food there isn't what we're used to seeing on our chain restaurant menus around town. All it takes is a four-hour drive to Puerto Peasco to discover that authentic-style Mexican food is lighter, more crisply flavored than we might expect, and highly reliant on fresh herbs, spices and vegetables. There's also a lot more seafood than just fish tacos.

A faster way to figure this out is to visit our favorite local taste of Mexico, San Diego Bay.

Don't expect ambiance -- there isn't any. But we don't care, not when we're contemplating Pescado Veracruzano, a Mexican specialty that indulges moist red snapper with a luscious coat of tomatoes, onions, chiles, capers and olives. Or when we slide that first joyous bite of camarones verdes past our lips. Food doesn't get much better than this, with shrimp tossed in sour cream, coriander, small green tomatoes, jalapeos, garlic and onion, sautéed in butter and covered in cheese. These spices sing like an opera.

For a true south-of-the-border fiesta, San Diego Bay's the real thing.

Readers' Choice for Best Mexican Restaurant: Macayo

Best Hideaway Eating Establishment

Taco stand at Hacienda Mexican Restaurant

Sometimes we crave a good meal but don't want to put up with overly chipper waiters, bright interiors and hostesses telling us to have a nice night.

That's when we head to Hacienda Mexican Restaurant and the tiny taco stand hunkered in the shadows outside the kitchen door. The cart's an extension of the sit-down, full-menu restaurant, but operates only at night. We grab our food, climb in our truck bed and stretch out under the stars for a private, late-night feast.

Here, the cinema of life plays around us without invading our personal space. Low riders without mufflers rumble by, thump-thumping with rocket-powered radios. Headlights bounce off the corrugated metal wall flanking the restaurant, illuminating the shadowy creep of a street citizen just a few feet away.

Every night except Monday, as soon as dusk falls, the taco-hungry masses converge until the stand shuts down at midnight. Like us, they're here for wonderful charro beans (spunky with spice, bacon fat and veggies) and the wallet-friendly tacos. For just $1.25 each, the corn tortilla parcels include shredded, onion-stabbed pork adobada; carne asada; lengua (tongue); and cabeza (head meat). Everything is fresh, topped with splashes of red or green hot sauce, spoonfuls of puréed avocado and salted radishes.

Best Tacos

Tacos de Juarez

Kyle Lamb
At Tacos de Juarez, the cooks stuff their soft tacos with generous portions of mild-mannered tripes de leche (chunks of beef small intestines), pork, cabeza (beef cheek), carne asada and chicken. Hard tacos -- slicked with just enough oil to leave the slightest sheen on our fingers -- are crunchy vessels for moist carne desebrada (shredded beef), chicken and carne molida con papas (ground beef and potatoes), draped with Cheddar. Add the extras like crisp radish coins and fresh shredded lettuce, or sides of pico de gallo, electric green sauce and fiery red sauce.

Don't be swayed by the run-down exterior of the restaurant, partly hidden by a bus station for people traveling to Mexico. And just step over those folks stretched out on the sidewalk or in the parking lot behind the building.

Inside you'll find a bright and comfortable dining room packed with a workday lunch crowd that often includes a table of sheriff's deputies, a booth or two of City Hall staffers, and other taco aficionados.

Best Designer Taco

Golden Swan
Hyatt Regency Scottsdale

Ordinarily, the prospect of paying $12.50 for a single taco would be enough to send even the most ardent Mexican-food lover into, well, shell shock.

But that's before beholding Golden Swan's majestic model, a saffron-infused corn tortilla about the size of a tea saucer. Presented on a bed of creamy corn spritzed with yellow and red pepper oil, the pricey gem is stuffed with two moist and meaty lobster cakes. To the side rests a crisp chayote slaw of jicama, carrot and zucchini in a cumin-spiked sweet vinaigrette.

Washed down with imported Panna water from Italy (go figure), this tony take on the lowly taco is enough to render a certain talking Chihuahua speechless.

Best Refried Beans

Rosa's Mexican Grill

Kyle Lamb
More than just a side dish, frijoles are the glue that holds a dish together. They're the heart of a truly good Mexican meal.

What's an enchilada, after all, without soft, gloppy beans to mix into the cheesy sauce between bites? Fish can be the finest, but it soars to new levels when tucked into a bean-smeared tear of tortilla. And what would we do with the leftover shards of hard taco shell if we didn't have a gentle pool of refrieds in which to dip?

Rosa's loves beans, and it shows. Banish any thoughts of what other restaurants might fake as frijoles -- those sad, dried-out clumps that taste like, well, sad, dried-out clumps. No, Rosa's lard-free refrieds are gloriously soupy, indulgently oil-kissed, and smooth, studded with just enough whole beans for toothsome pleasure.

Don't know beans about frijoles? Just be glad Rosa does.

Best New Restaurant

Medizona

This small enterprise features a constantly evolving repertoire of Mediterranean flavors that provide a mischievous zing to our Southwestern staples. Everything, from the crusty, baked-on-site breads nestled in a painted wooden box with ramekins of dips, to the signature prickly pear tiramisu, is a work of art.

Ordering is always intriguing. Will it be baklava with nubbins of plump rabbit, fig, quail egg and pine nuts? Or eggplant tacos with lamb, arugula, cucumber radish and Kasseri cheese in roasted tomato garlic sauce?

Perhaps charbroiled beef tenderloin in sun-dried cherry barbecue sauce plus green chile stuffed with butternut squash, smoked bacon and provolone cheese? Or salmon, grilled with achiote seed in morel and baby clam sauce with crayfish-corn risotto?

Medizona's chef-owner, Lenard Rubin, gave up a comfortable resort kitchen career to open his dream restaurant, and it's sure paid off.

Medizona opened to rave reviews and continues to draw a steady crowd. And, with just 13 tables, reservations are a must.

Readers' Choice: Bahama Breeze and Voo Doo Daddy (tie)

Best Place to Take a Foodie

Gregory's Grill

So how do you entertain an out-of-town "foodie," that live-to-eat restaurant buff who wants to sample our city's edgiest cuisine?

If you're lucky, you secure a reservation at Gregory's, where chef-owner Gregory Casale has put together a menu that takes world cuisine on a whirl. Ginger and lemongrass-cured albacore tuna (Thai) shares the pages with mussels vindaloo and naan bread (Indian), monkfish tajine with preserved lemons (Moroccan), and pan-seared Hudson Valley foie gras in a sweet potato tart (French). If his pumpkin Israeli couscous soup is available, you'll swoon over the rich garlic chicken broth.

The wine list is all-out global boutique, a short list that tempts us with unfamiliar-to-most-folks grape blends we love after the first sip. It's difficult to find these wines anywhere else, and there's no shame in asking the chef's advice on the perfect pairings.

Trust us: Even the most jaded foodie will eat Gregory's up.

Best Of Phoenix®

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