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.

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.

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.

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.

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. .

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.