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A wooden bowl filled with vegetables and grains.
A mushroom-focused vegetable dish at Latha.
Latha/Facebook

The 14 Hottest New Restaurants in Phoenix Right Now

The Valley’s hottest restaurants of the moment, offering everything from spicy aguachile to udon carbonara

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A mushroom-focused vegetable dish at Latha.
| Latha/Facebook

The restaurant scene in the area has grown and evolved considerably in the last decade, but metro Phoenix — once known for its steak houses and mainstream Mexican restaurants — has positively exploded in the past five years, ironically, even more so in the past two.

Yes, the area lost dozens of great restaurants during the pandemic, but it gained plenty of new ones too, many of them owned by plucky entrepreneurs who decided there was no better time to take the plunge. Phoenix never lacks for high-end steakhouses and resort restaurants, but these days, it also offers an impressive range of multicultural restaurants serving Caribbean, Modern Mexican, regional Thai, and sophisticated Indian cuisines.

This map focuses on the newest exciting restaurants the area has to offer; this update includes such additions as classy prix fixe option Course, street food purveyor Chilte, and the modern African Latha.

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Eater maps are curated by editors and aim to reflect a diversity of neighborhoods, cuisines, and prices. Learn more about our editorial process.

Fire At Will

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Created by Dom and Holly Ruggiero of Hush Public House, Fire at Will is the best thing to happen to the dining desert around Shea and Tatum Boulevards in North Phoenix. Like Hush, it specializes in sophisticated comfort food, but the menu here is broader and more eclectic, featuring influences from Spain, Italy, and the Middle East. The clean-lined space is dimly lit and moody, while still maintaining a sense of irreverence. This is a neighborhood hangout, after all, offering good cocktails and the straightforward Hush burger as well as less conventional selections such as lamb tartare and soba noodles with gochujang.

Crusty bread next to pickled onions and smoked salmon rillettes topped with a dollop of orange salmon roe.
Smoked salmon rillettes with salmon roe, pickled onion, and toasted Noble bread
Nikki Buchanan

Course Restaurant

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Chef and owner Cory Oppold brings delicious choices to his classy but comfortable Central Scottsdale restaurant, where diners may select a five-course prix fixe menu with options for each course ($135 per person) or a 10-course, chef’s-choice tasting menu ($190 per person). Each plate is a study in Modernist cuisine, featuring foams, powders and deconstructed dishes. On Sunday, the restaurant takes the name Morning Would and offers a seven-course tasting menu for $75 per person.

Ravioli with tomato and squash.
Tomato and herb-infused raviolo stuffed with ratatouille.
Nikki Buchanan

The Neighborly Public House

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Good-looking and infinitely comfortable, this aptly named watering hole and restaurants is the latest of many ventures owned by restaurateur Chris Collins — and so far, it’s his best. There’s a booth-furnished covered patio out front, deep booths in the dining room, and a mammoth square-shaped bar (great for people-watching) with plush stools tailor-made for settling in over happy hour snacks and cocktails or a full-blown dinner. The extensive menu offers crowd-pleasers such as rotisserie chicken and baby back ribs, as well as oysters Rockefeller and Maryland-style crab cakes (among the city’s best). Save room for custardy coconut cream pie.

Lom Wong

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Alex and Yotaka (“Sunny”) Martin, the couple who got their start by hosting pop-up style dinner parties in recent years, moved into a Roosevelt Row restaurant in spring 2022. The dimly lit, sophisticated space makes a fitting backdrop for Thai food that doesn’t feel like the same old, same old. Sunny and crew hand-pound Thai red chiles to make various curries and squeeze their own coconut milk rather than open a can. Each dish is light and fresh tasting, as much as it is herbal and complex. The emphasis here is on texture and flavor, not necessarily heat; get the meal off to a brilliant start with a less sweet Thai-style pina colada.

Fried chicken with Thai red chile sauce at Lom Wong.
The fried chicken dish from Lom Wong.
Nikki Buchanan

Sottise

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T.J. Culp and Esther Noh of Restaurant Progress opened this French-style bistro and wine bar in a vintage bungalow in Roosevelt Row in 2021, and it’s been packed ever since. One draw is the small, farmhouse-chic space equipped with an old-school stereo and plenty of vinyl, another is the global wine list, and a third is a French menu, which hews to bistro classics such as pate, escargot, steak tartare, and croque-madames. Get there early to snag a seat on the front porch overlooking a verdant lawn.

This baked Camembert, drizzled with Calvados honey and hazelnut vinaigrette is sweet and nutty, crunchy and oozy all at once.
Baked Camembert with Calvados honey and hazelnut vinaigrette.
Nikki Buchanan

Bacanora PHX

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With help from his crew, Nogales-born Rene Andrade prepares some of the most vibrant Sonoran food in greater Phoenix on a Santa Maria-style grill fired with three kinds of wood. The regular menu features only a handful of Mexican basics such as caramelos (meat and cheese quesadillas), burritos, and excellent pollo asado, so it’s essential to ask about daily specials, which might include steak, octopus, and fish — everything charred on those hot grates. Cramped and incredibly noisy, Bacanora requires a reservation or a wait. .

Lawrence Smith and Aseret Arroyo moved from their popular food truck to this adorably kitschy, light-filled space in the rehabbed Egyptian Motor Hotel, where they’re cranking out new wave street food. His frequently changing menu delves into the heart of Mexico yet represents a thoroughly modern viewpoint, incorporating delicacies such as roasted grasshoppers, Oaxacan ants and mushroom-like corn smut (huitlacoche). Sip cocktails on the patio overlooking Grand Avenue, and if the pan de elote cheesecake is available, order it. 

Wren & Wolf

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When it comes to offbeat decor, this bougie new venue from Teddy and Katie Meyers (who also own Chico Malo in CityScape) corners the market. To some, the cavernous, dimly lit space is gorgeous, to others a bit bizarre, given that every nook and cranny is filled with taxidermied wolves, exotic stuffed birds, and otherworldly murals of those same creatures. It’s a cool downtown haven for whiling away the time over excellent cocktails (devised by consulting mixologists Libby Lingua and Mitch Lyons) and on-trend dishes such as beef carpaccio, ceviche, hiramasa crudo, and a three-pound hunk of bone marrow that brings dinosaurs to mind. For a splurge, try A5 wagyu, cooked on Japanese charcoal at a table-side hibachi, which ranges in price from $125 to $210, or a 16-ounce beef Wellington for two that requires 24-hours notice.

A frothy pink cocktail in a coup at Wren & Wolf.
A cocktail from Wren & Wolf.
Nikki Buchanan

Explore the culinary connections among Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the American South at this modern African restaurant, which honors the African diaspora via food. Owner Evelia Davis, and GM/barman Will Brazil fuel this lively place with Afrobeats, wildly colorful cocktails and positive energy, while Digby Stridiron dishes out his own brand of fun via piri piri chicken wings, pimiento cheese with coconut bread rolls, and shrimp escabeche. 

Green and red-swirled hummus in a bowl.
Fava bean hummus and watermelon salad at LATHA.
Nikki Buchanan

Hai Noon

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After working for an international food import company for over a year, 2007 James Beard Award winner Nobuo Fukuda is back in the kitchen, presiding over an intimate, 60s-era space that feels more like a bar than a restaurant, but never fear. Fukuda’s extraordinary East-meets-West version of Japanese cuisine, including his signature sashimi spoons, is as brilliant as ever — and remarkably affordable. Sip on Japanese-influenced cocktails, make a meal of share plates such as panko-fried tofu skewers and pork belly bao buns and get ready for the exceptional omakase Fukuda will begin to offer in the months to come. 

Four spoons filled with spoonfuls of fish and fruit.
Yellowtail, grapefruit, and avocado in Fukuda’s signature sashimi spoon.
Nikki Buchanan

Cocina Chiwas

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Armando Hernandez and Nadia Holguin are locally famous for dishing out some of the best tacos in town at their various Tacos Chiwas locations, but now the Chihuahua natives have taken an upscale turn at their airy new space in in the car-less community known as Culdesac Tempe. Here, there’s a wine wall, an indoor-outdoor bar dispensing fancy cocktails, and a wood-burning hearth, which fires heavenly quesadillas oozing with Menonita cheese, meats and other goodies. Although the words on the menu sound like traditional Mexican food — costilla de res, chicharron, pulpo pipian — most dishes offer a deliciously modern twist. 

A plate of quesadilla topped with meat and sauces.
Birria quesadilla with onion and cilantro.
Nikki Buchanan

Espiritu Mesa

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The talented crew behind Bacanora also gets the credit for lively Espiritu, a seafood-centric Mexican restaurant in Mesa, recently named one of the best new restaurants of the year by Eater. At first blush, the emphasis seems to be on drinking, given the lengthy (and humorously written) cocktail menu devoted to beverages both “stirredeth” and “shakeneth,” as well as a selection of Mexican spirits such as sotol and raicilla. But chef Robert Centeno’s short but provocative menu features hiramasa tostada, spicy aguachile, and sharp, bright ceviche brimming with shrimp, fish, and octopus. If the market special happens to be whole deep-fried snapper, don’t hesitate to order it — it’s probably the best fried fish in town. There’s also a brunch menu featuring chilaquiles, pozole, and lemon curd pancakes.

A bar with a pale green background and several domed bottles.
The magical bar at Espiritu.
Nikki Buchanan

Shimogamo Japanese Restaurant

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Yoshio and Sanae Otomo opened this neighborhood Japanese restaurant and sushi bar in 2003, and while it’s always been better-than-good, it’s now — 20 years later — categorically great. Credit goes to the Otomo’s daughter Mika, a certified sommelier who met and married chef Daisuke Itagaki when they were both working at an international steakhouse in Tokyo. The two moved back to Chandler to help run her parents’ restaurant, bringing a level of playfulness and sophistication that puts Shimogamo near the top of the local heap. Itagaki sources an ever-changing selection of top-quality Japanese fish and three types of Wagyu beef (two of them hard to come by in the States). Cocktails and an excellent sake selection enrich the experience.

A plate of raw fish and garnishes atop ice.
Sashimi at Shimogamo.
Nikki Buchanan

Feringhee Modern Indian Cuisine

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Feringhee, which means “foreigner” in Hindi, catches attention with its blinged out bar and its beautiful and sophisticated food, which celebrates India’s many regions and culinary traditions. This is Indian fine dining, replete with tuiles, foams, flowers, and other haute-cuisine touches. It’s the delicious handiwork of chef Karan Mittal, who makes the ordinary extraordinary. For proof, try the chaat — India’s favorite snack food — elevated by glistening yogurt mousse foam, dried raspberry powder, and crisp-fried shiso leaves. 

A bed of crispy noodles with yogurt mousse foam, dried raspberry powder, and crisp-fried shiso leaves. 
Feringhee’s fancy version of chaat.
Nikki Buchanan

Fire At Will

Created by Dom and Holly Ruggiero of Hush Public House, Fire at Will is the best thing to happen to the dining desert around Shea and Tatum Boulevards in North Phoenix. Like Hush, it specializes in sophisticated comfort food, but the menu here is broader and more eclectic, featuring influences from Spain, Italy, and the Middle East. The clean-lined space is dimly lit and moody, while still maintaining a sense of irreverence. This is a neighborhood hangout, after all, offering good cocktails and the straightforward Hush burger as well as less conventional selections such as lamb tartare and soba noodles with gochujang.

Crusty bread next to pickled onions and smoked salmon rillettes topped with a dollop of orange salmon roe.
Smoked salmon rillettes with salmon roe, pickled onion, and toasted Noble bread
Nikki Buchanan

Course Restaurant

Chef and owner Cory Oppold brings delicious choices to his classy but comfortable Central Scottsdale restaurant, where diners may select a five-course prix fixe menu with options for each course ($135 per person) or a 10-course, chef’s-choice tasting menu ($190 per person). Each plate is a study in Modernist cuisine, featuring foams, powders and deconstructed dishes. On Sunday, the restaurant takes the name Morning Would and offers a seven-course tasting menu for $75 per person.

Ravioli with tomato and squash.
Tomato and herb-infused raviolo stuffed with ratatouille.
Nikki Buchanan

The Neighborly Public House

Good-looking and infinitely comfortable, this aptly named watering hole and restaurants is the latest of many ventures owned by restaurateur Chris Collins — and so far, it’s his best. There’s a booth-furnished covered patio out front, deep booths in the dining room, and a mammoth square-shaped bar (great for people-watching) with plush stools tailor-made for settling in over happy hour snacks and cocktails or a full-blown dinner. The extensive menu offers crowd-pleasers such as rotisserie chicken and baby back ribs, as well as oysters Rockefeller and Maryland-style crab cakes (among the city’s best). Save room for custardy coconut cream pie.

Lom Wong

Alex and Yotaka (“Sunny”) Martin, the couple who got their start by hosting pop-up style dinner parties in recent years, moved into a Roosevelt Row restaurant in spring 2022. The dimly lit, sophisticated space makes a fitting backdrop for Thai food that doesn’t feel like the same old, same old. Sunny and crew hand-pound Thai red chiles to make various curries and squeeze their own coconut milk rather than open a can. Each dish is light and fresh tasting, as much as it is herbal and complex. The emphasis here is on texture and flavor, not necessarily heat; get the meal off to a brilliant start with a less sweet Thai-style pina colada.

Fried chicken with Thai red chile sauce at Lom Wong.
The fried chicken dish from Lom Wong.
Nikki Buchanan

Sottise

T.J. Culp and Esther Noh of Restaurant Progress opened this French-style bistro and wine bar in a vintage bungalow in Roosevelt Row in 2021, and it’s been packed ever since. One draw is the small, farmhouse-chic space equipped with an old-school stereo and plenty of vinyl, another is the global wine list, and a third is a French menu, which hews to bistro classics such as pate, escargot, steak tartare, and croque-madames. Get there early to snag a seat on the front porch overlooking a verdant lawn.

This baked Camembert, drizzled with Calvados honey and hazelnut vinaigrette is sweet and nutty, crunchy and oozy all at once.
Baked Camembert with Calvados honey and hazelnut vinaigrette.
Nikki Buchanan

Bacanora PHX

With help from his crew, Nogales-born Rene Andrade prepares some of the most vibrant Sonoran food in greater Phoenix on a Santa Maria-style grill fired with three kinds of wood. The regular menu features only a handful of Mexican basics such as caramelos (meat and cheese quesadillas), burritos, and excellent pollo asado, so it’s essential to ask about daily specials, which might include steak, octopus, and fish — everything charred on those hot grates. Cramped and incredibly noisy, Bacanora requires a reservation or a wait. .

Chilte

Lawrence Smith and Aseret Arroyo moved from their popular food truck to this adorably kitschy, light-filled space in the rehabbed Egyptian Motor Hotel, where they’re cranking out new wave street food. His frequently changing menu delves into the heart of Mexico yet represents a thoroughly modern viewpoint, incorporating delicacies such as roasted grasshoppers, Oaxacan ants and mushroom-like corn smut (huitlacoche). Sip cocktails on the patio overlooking Grand Avenue, and if the pan de elote cheesecake is available, order it. 

Wren & Wolf

When it comes to offbeat decor, this bougie new venue from Teddy and Katie Meyers (who also own Chico Malo in CityScape) corners the market. To some, the cavernous, dimly lit space is gorgeous, to others a bit bizarre, given that every nook and cranny is filled with taxidermied wolves, exotic stuffed birds, and otherworldly murals of those same creatures. It’s a cool downtown haven for whiling away the time over excellent cocktails (devised by consulting mixologists Libby Lingua and Mitch Lyons) and on-trend dishes such as beef carpaccio, ceviche, hiramasa crudo, and a three-pound hunk of bone marrow that brings dinosaurs to mind. For a splurge, try A5 wagyu, cooked on Japanese charcoal at a table-side hibachi, which ranges in price from $125 to $210, or a 16-ounce beef Wellington for two that requires 24-hours notice.

A frothy pink cocktail in a coup at Wren & Wolf.
A cocktail from Wren & Wolf.
Nikki Buchanan

LATHA

Explore the culinary connections among Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, and the American South at this modern African restaurant, which honors the African diaspora via food. Owner Evelia Davis, and GM/barman Will Brazil fuel this lively place with Afrobeats, wildly colorful cocktails and positive energy, while Digby Stridiron dishes out his own brand of fun via piri piri chicken wings, pimiento cheese with coconut bread rolls, and shrimp escabeche. 

Green and red-swirled hummus in a bowl.
Fava bean hummus and watermelon salad at LATHA.
Nikki Buchanan

Hai Noon

After working for an international food import company for over a year, 2007 James Beard Award winner Nobuo Fukuda is back in the kitchen, presiding over an intimate, 60s-era space that feels more like a bar than a restaurant, but never fear. Fukuda’s extraordinary East-meets-West version of Japanese cuisine, including his signature sashimi spoons, is as brilliant as ever — and remarkably affordable. Sip on Japanese-influenced cocktails, make a meal of share plates such as panko-fried tofu skewers and pork belly bao buns and get ready for the exceptional omakase Fukuda will begin to offer in the months to come. 

Four spoons filled with spoonfuls of fish and fruit.
Yellowtail, grapefruit, and avocado in Fukuda’s signature sashimi spoon.
Nikki Buchanan

Cocina Chiwas

Armando Hernandez and Nadia Holguin are locally famous for dishing out some of the best tacos in town at their various Tacos Chiwas locations, but now the Chihuahua natives have taken an upscale turn at their airy new space in in the car-less community known as Culdesac Tempe. Here, there’s a wine wall, an indoor-outdoor bar dispensing fancy cocktails, and a wood-burning hearth, which fires heavenly quesadillas oozing with Menonita cheese, meats and other goodies. Although the words on the menu sound like traditional Mexican food — costilla de res, chicharron, pulpo pipian — most dishes offer a deliciously modern twist. 

A plate of quesadilla topped with meat and sauces.
Birria quesadilla with onion and cilantro.
Nikki Buchanan

Espiritu Mesa

The talented crew behind Bacanora also gets the credit for lively Espiritu, a seafood-centric Mexican restaurant in Mesa, recently named one of the best new restaurants of the year by Eater. At first blush, the emphasis seems to be on drinking, given the lengthy (and humorously written) cocktail menu devoted to beverages both “stirredeth” and “shakeneth,” as well as a selection of Mexican spirits such as sotol and raicilla. But chef Robert Centeno’s short but provocative menu features hiramasa tostada, spicy aguachile, and sharp, bright ceviche brimming with shrimp, fish, and octopus. If the market special happens to be whole deep-fried snapper, don’t hesitate to order it — it’s probably the best fried fish in town. There’s also a brunch menu featuring chilaquiles, pozole, and lemon curd pancakes.

A bar with a pale green background and several domed bottles.
The magical bar at Espiritu.
Nikki Buchanan

Shimogamo Japanese Restaurant

Yoshio and Sanae Otomo opened this neighborhood Japanese restaurant and sushi bar in 2003, and while it’s always been better-than-good, it’s now — 20 years later — categorically great. Credit goes to the Otomo’s daughter Mika, a certified sommelier who met and married chef Daisuke Itagaki when they were both working at an international steakhouse in Tokyo. The two moved back to Chandler to help run her parents’ restaurant, bringing a level of playfulness and sophistication that puts Shimogamo near the top of the local heap. Itagaki sources an ever-changing selection of top-quality Japanese fish and three types of Wagyu beef (two of them hard to come by in the States). Cocktails and an excellent sake selection enrich the experience.

A plate of raw fish and garnishes atop ice.
Sashimi at Shimogamo.
Nikki Buchanan

Feringhee Modern Indian Cuisine

Feringhee, which means “foreigner” in Hindi, catches attention with its blinged out bar and its beautiful and sophisticated food, which celebrates India’s many regions and culinary traditions. This is Indian fine dining, replete with tuiles, foams, flowers, and other haute-cuisine touches. It’s the delicious handiwork of chef Karan Mittal, who makes the ordinary extraordinary. For proof, try the chaat — India’s favorite snack food — elevated by glistening yogurt mousse foam, dried raspberry powder, and crisp-fried shiso leaves. 

A bed of crispy noodles with yogurt mousse foam, dried raspberry powder, and crisp-fried shiso leaves. 
Feringhee’s fancy version of chaat.
Nikki Buchanan

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