Scottsdale can offer you excellent gastronomic options with comfortable and welcoming spaces, excellent views, and a good atmosphere. Here is home to a vast array of local eateries and luxurious restaurants satisfying visitors and locals alike. Here is an updated version of the original Scottsdale’s 10 Best Restaurants not to be missed.
- Hush Public House
14202 N Scottsdale Rd, Suite 167, Scottsdale, AZ 85254 | (480) 758-5172
This small-but-mighty restaurant just south of Kierland Commons features one of the more freewheeling menus in town. Hush Public House takes aimless aim at the only end that matters: food brimming with flavor. Starters like grilled slab bacon, chicken liver mousse, and perfectly cooked peas with strawberries and ricotta salata shift seasonally and get rounded out by specials like beef heart carpaccio with grainy house-made mustard. Just about every plate at Hush seems to be a banger. Pastas are some of the best in the Valley, whether shaped in-house or sourced from Sonoran Pasta Company. Meat from chicken to steak to oxtail sings with flavor. Fish like swordfish are simply grilled with Castelvetrano olives and a soft-boiled egg. Here, even a humble cauliflower, treated with harissa and love, feels like a dish for desert royalty.
- Chula Seafood
8015 E Roosevelt St, Scottsdale, AZ 85257 | (480) 621-5121
Poke peaks at Chula Seafood – a tiny, low-key hangout where every meal feels like an island treat. Poke rocks thanks to ultra-fresh fish and smart add-ins like smoked pineapple. The tuna melt peaks at Chula. This is thanks to green chiles, tuna confit, beautifully grilled Noble bread, and a boss side of chimichurri. Swordfish peaks at Chula. The Chula boat in San Diego catches the long-nosed fish with harpoons. Best of all, smoked fish peaks at Chula. If you order the ever-changing platter which includes staples like lox, trout, and swordfish belly pastrami, you’re not only going to get luscious sauces, not only going to get an array of pickles — you’re going to get one of the most vibrant trays of food in town.
- Andreoli Italian Grocer
8880 E Vía Linda Scottsdale, AZ 85258 | (480) 614-1980
You could eat in Giovanni Scorzo’s grocery-meets-restaurant 50 times and still have more to discover. Up front, a glass case displays a parade of glorious sweets, eye-catchers like cannoli, pistachio cake, torrone, and brown triangles of sfogliatelle. The pizza here is sneakily good. So is the bread, especially when part of a panini in the classically minimal Italian style of little more than meats or vegetables and cheese (or eggplant, tomato sauce, and cheese). Scorzo comes from the far Italian South, and his offerings, at the edges, reflect his origins. For one, he makes burrata from scratch. But the man can also nail northern Italian specialties, like risottos and cartoon slabs of bistecca Fiorentina. His best meals often lurk on a deep board of specials. Scorzo and his family, too, hand-roll some of the best fresh pasta in town.
- Virtu Honest Craft
3701 N. Marshall Way, Scottsdale, AZ 85251 | (480) 946-3477
Located within a luxury boutique hotel, the Bespoke Inn, Virtu features a weekly changing menu of contemporary Mediterranean-inspired dishes. Diners can choose between a variety of succulent flavour combinations such as the truffled steak tartare, pan-seared branzino and squid ink linguine. All of the pasta is fresh and made in-house. For a special group dinner or an intimate meal for two, guests are welcome to reserve the Bespoke Inn’s signature flat to enjoy a chef’s special tasting menu around the large handmade walnut farm table underneath a decadent chandelier.
- FnB Restaurant
7125 E. 5th Ave. Suite 31, Scottsdale, AZ 85251 | (480) 284-4777
Though “seasonal” and “local” have become culinary buzzwords for many restaurants, Scottsdale’s FnB restaurant embodies the spirit of these movements. James Beard Award-winning chef Charleen Badman turns simple, local produce into fare that’s at once comforting and novel. Drawing inspiration from international cuisine, she creates a menu that changes almost constantly but often includes dishes such as perfectly roasted locally raised chicken, Swiss chard falafel, and Badman’s well-loved braised leeks, topped with mozzarella, fried egg, and mustard bread crumbs. The service is always friendly, and the restaurant’s Arizona-focused wine list gives diners an opportunity to explore the state’s offerings. Don’t miss the bar adjacent to the restaurant.
- ShinBay
3720 North Scottsdale Road #201 Scottsdale, AZ 85251 | (480) 361-1021
What’s the most thrilling place for sushi in town? The recently reincarnated ShinBay in Old Town, and it might not even be close. Omakase is the only option, so you’ll have to trust chef Shinji Kurita with your palate and wallet, and this nonstop circus of pristine fish is worth the expense. From the start, your meal will take on a steady dreamlike rhythm, with the chef and his assistant brushing soy, slicing nigiri, and blowtorching fish with the touch of a jeweler fastening a diamond. The nigiri is spectacular, no pieces more so than the eel and shad, though what you eat on a nightly basis will change. On any given night, get into the deep, rare selection of Japanese beer. What you find there will, like this whole intimate experience, amaze you.
- Stratta Kitchen
8260 N Hayden Rd Suite A102, Scottsdale, AZ 85258
Fast-casual food can be pretty sleepy, but in the hands of James Beard Award winner Alex Stratta, the fledgling genre reaches a new height. What sets his spot apart are thought and rigor. Sauces are not only well-executed but interesting: a tart, creamy elderberry vinaigrette, apricot-twanged tahini. The plant-driven plates, which take up most of the menu, combine ingredients coaxed to their full flavors and textures: earthy-sweet purple potatoes, beefy mushrooms. Skewers are small but mighty, both grilled halloumi (saline, squishy) and steak (browned, tender) on the mark. The menu brims with intrigue, from eclectic bowls to tacos like miso-swordfish all the way to the desert. For a closer, panna cotta comes loaded with sweet berry flavor. If you’re looking for a regular lunch spot, something quick, or a plant-and-fungi-based meal, Stratta delivers.
- Hot Noodles Cold Sake
15689 North Hayden Road / Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 | (480) 432-9898
Josh Hebert started making ramen at Posh, his now-defunct improvisational temple to fine dining. The ramen he bowls at his tiny north Scottsdale noodle shop has an incredible umami depth, paling just about every other ramen bowl in the Valley. Hebert of Hot Noodles Cold Sake is a white dude, sure. But he has cooked in Tokyo, and here we’re judging purely on flavor. His are nuanced and soulful. His are traditional, spurning some of the crazier ramen trends and sticking to the classics, like miso and shoyu. A bowl where he innovates is sisig ramen, the piping hot heap of noodles crowned with a sizzling pig face.
- Atlas Bistro
2515 N Scottsdale RdScottsdale, AZ 85257 | (480) 990-2433
After your initial taste, maybe an amuse of chilled melon soup, a question will likely flicker across your mind when your first proper course of Atlas Bistro’s prix-fixe menu is laid before you: Should I eat it? This is how beautiful and fiercely original Chef Cory Oppold’s food looks, abstractions of rectangular duck confit, sauce dollops, veal cheek symmetrical between veal loins, and negative space on artisan plates. And the answer to your question should be a resounding hell yes. Eat it. Eat the next courses. Order dessert, ideally the beignets and cheeses from the excellent selection. Atlas Bistro is well into its teenage years, but plates like poached pear with house-made ricotta and halibut with house-made udon noodles have fresh, up-to-the-minute relevancy. There might not be a more intimate restaurant in town.
- Cafe Monarch
6939 E 1st Ave, Scottsdale, AZ 85251 | (480) 970-7682
Simply oozing romance, Café Monarch is an intimate dining venue complete with a beautiful candlelit courtyard. Using only fresh, organic and all-natural ingredients, the chef creates a brand new three-course lunch menu and four-course dinner menu every week. The day’s menu can always be viewed on their website before reserving a table. Some examples of their extraordinary dishes include: white truffle celeriac soup, red quinoa salad with squash, beets and wild arugula, and pan-roasted Pacific halibut and roasted fall squash. Cafe Monarch also goes out of their way to satisfy any dietary restriction, making it a great stop for all types of diners.
Jay Bru
480-466-4917
jay@jaybrugroup.com
