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Attention Foodies!
Cactus League ballparks might be renowned for their winning food, but if you’re eager to explore the culinary scene outside the ballpark, you’re in luck. Valley restaurants have enjoyed the national spotlight for years thanks to its roster of talented chefs. Here, a roundup of the most talked about, most awarded, best places to eat and drink.
Sonoran cuisine is on order at Chef Rene Andrade’s Bacanora – think wood-fired short ribs with serrano crema or chiltepin-spiced elote – and the result has been fervent fanfare and a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest. This, on the heels of nominations in both 2022 and 2023. Andrade also owns the Sonoran-inspired eatery Espiritu, which earned a 2024 James Beard nomination for Emerging Chef for Roberto Centeno.
Centuries-old recipes find new life in the hyper-regional Thai dishes at Lom Wong. Chef and co-owner Yotaka Martin traveled her native country visiting remote villages and speaking with locals to uncover – and ultimately share – the unique flavors of Thai families’ homecooked goodness. For her efforts, Martin won the 2025 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest, for which she was also nominated in 2023. The restaurant has earned recognition by Food & Wine, Condé Nast Traveler and Bon Appetit, too.
It’s all about the journey at Course – a prix-fixe, eight-course progression of flavors where each carefully selected ingredient shines and every bite is more memorable than the last. Chef Cory Oppold’s near-perfect execution of complicated dishes scored him a semifinalist nod for the 2025 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest, plus 2024 Foodist awards for Top Chef and Emerging Restaurant and a spot on Yelp’s 2024 lineup of best new restaurants.
The James Beard Foundation often recognizes restaurants as important cultural and culinary institutions; one such place was the Fry Bread House, which took home the America’s Classics award in 2012 for its use of heritage recipes by founder Cecilia Miller of the Tohono O’odham Nation. At Miller’s Phoenix eatery, guests dig into tasty iterations of traditional fry bread: doughy discs topped with beef, refried beans and cheese or sweet concoctions like cinnamon and sugar.
Tucked on the fourth floor of a Marriott, Little Rituals far exceeds expectations of the standard hotel bar. Notching James Beard nominations in 2024 and 2025 for Outstanding Bar and winning Best Hotel Bar at the 2025 Spirited Awards, Little Rituals takes great care in crafting every cocktail, from making in-house infusions, foams, tinctures and syrups to exclusively using the highest quality spirits.
Food & Wine named Lawrence Smith, chef and co-owner of Chilte, one of 13 best new chefs in 2024, calling his new-wave Mexican food “bold and playful.” The menu features delightful surprises, such as quesa birria tacos with squid ink tortillas or the grilled fish with tamarind molasses. Perhaps that’s why Smith also earned a James Beard nomination for Emerging Chef, and Chilte made best new restaurant lists for Esquire and Bon Appetit.
At Kai, the elevated interpretations of American Indian cuisine offer a gastronomical glimpse into the culture of the region – bison paired with cholla buds and saguaro blossom syrup, for example – but it’s the white-gloved experience that’s garnered its most top honors. Kai has the distinction of being the only AAA Five Diamond and Forbes Five-Star restaurant in the state, and in 2025, it enjoyed a James Beard nomination for Outstanding Hospitality.
Chef Charleen Badman helms the kitchen of this tiny-but-mighty Scottsdale bistro, which Food & Wine referred to as “the epicenter of creative Arizona cuisine.” The acclaim for Badman’s vegetable-forward menu and co-owner Pavle Milic’s Arizona-centric wine program has been far and wide, from raves in The New York Times, Forbes and Travel & Leisure to Badman’s 2019 James Beard win for Best Chef: Southwest.
Wine bar Kid Sister might not have been on the local drinks scene very long, but that hasn’t stopped the Euro-inspired hot spot from making waves. In 2025, the James Beard Foundation placed it as a semifinalist for Best New Bar thanks to a taut but thoughtfully compiled wine list, while Resy named it one of 2025’s best new restaurants in the country for its share-plates menu of bright dishes like carrot dip and crushed pistachios or tahini-raisin drenched red beets.
Though Glai Baan’s name translates to “far from home” in Thai, a meal here feels anything but – in fact, it’s a total food immersion in chef and co-owner Pornsupak Bunnage’s homeland, where street food takes center stage. Dishes like steamed pork dumplings and minced chicken dressed in onion and garlic all transport diners to Thailand. Bunnage’s talents earned her a 2024 James Beard nomination for Best Chef: Southwest, and the restaurant was included in USA Today’s restaurants of the year list.
