Psssst. Want to know an Arizona dining secret? Scottsdale has a deeeeeeep scene of neighborhood eateries making next-level comfort food, progressive Italian, global tasting menus, and much more. When it comes to exploring the local Scottsdale restaurant scene, here’s where to get started.
Beginner’s Luck
This new all-day diner in Old Town goes hard. To start, the coffee program uses impeccable sourcing, resulting in some of the tastiest lattes in town. The casual menu of American food – whether breakfast, lunch, or dinner – simply doesn’t miss. That’s because Beginner’s Luck is operated by an iconic Scottsdale restaurant duo, Bernie Kantak and Andrew Fritz. The Lucky Burger has an intense richness, building layers of deep flavor with chili sauce, grilled onion, and white cheddar. Fragrant blue corn grits come with pulled pork so tender it practically dissolves in your mouth like butter. Burrata gets a zingy refresh here. So too does the Original Chopped Salad, using Kantak’s beloved recipe featuring smoked salmon, couscous, pepitas, currants and dried sweet corn bathed in a buttermilk dressing.
Course
At Course, food is art and chef Cory Oppold is the artist. This local Scottsdale restaurant serves tasting menus of 5 and 10 courses, each dish seasonally driven and many denoted on the menu by a cryptic word or two: “avocado” or “beef.” That “beef,” though, incorporates much more: the delicate flavors of squash blossoms, peppers, and oyster mushrooms. Oppold gets playful. To start, he has served a push-up-pop-like creation of frozen yogurt, caviar and lemon drop melon. For dessert, he whips up a “PB & J” of strawberry jelly ice cream with peanut in many forms. If you love morning eats, this is your Super Bowl: Course offers Morning Would on weekends, an epic, six-course brunch complemented by craft cocktails and tunes from the 80s and 90s.
The Thumb
It’s a gas station playing classic rock, a high-end car wash, upscale gift shop and … a locally famous barbecue joint? The Thumb is as one-of-a-kind as its chef-owner, Kip Lassetter, a former surgeon who traded a scalpel for a smoker. You can smell the hardwood inside. The Thumb serves pulled pork, brisket, smoked sausage and St. Louis-style ribs (the specialty) in a variety of combos. For breakfast, meats fatten burritos and enrich hearty plates like “pigs n grits,” pulled pork over grits with bacon and green onions. BBQ also comes on wedge salads, sandwiches, sliders, in quesadillas, and so on. Pro tip: nab a house-baked cinnamon roll or cookie from the pastry case, perfect with a specialty coffee for the road.
Virtu Honest Craft
Chef Gio Osso loves to riff on Italian and Mediterranean tradition, introducing vibrant, complex flavor combinations at this fine dining standout located inside Old Town’s Bespoke Inn. For crudo dishes, he adds bright, artful touches to raw fish. He plates old-school and new-age octopus dishes, both supremely tender. He even adds his twists to classic Italian pastas, giving carbonara a seafood-centric overhaul and raining pistachio and pancetta into creamy spaghetti al limone. He cranks up flavors high. Porcini adds intensity to pork chops, miso to duck. Further, Virtu offers the total drink package: impressive cocktails, eclectic wine and even thoughtful Italian Amari (bitter liqueurs). You can even order a whole roasted pig experience if you call ahead.
Sel
Somehow, this local gem has stayed hidden. In the buzzy heart of Old Town’s Arts District, Brandon and May Levine helm a stylish, reliably delicious, family-run restaurant serving haute cuisine. Brandon interweaves global flavors and seasonal produce to create visually stunning dishes. Diners enjoy them in a vibrant dining room, decorated in blues and purples with clean, modern design themes, or outside on a cozy patio. Diners choose dishes a la carte or a 3- or 5-course tasting (wine pairing optional). Plates are refreshingly unique. Think tiger prawn Bouillabaisse with kimchi, or scallop crudo with tapioca crisp, halibut with barbecue squash puree, or lamb ravioli with white truffle. The menu changes all the time, making each visit a distinctive treat.
The Frybread Lounge
Bison burger on frybread. Cactus fruit jam. Tepary beans sweetened with mesquite. These are the kinds of eye-opening Indigenous foods that O’Odham chef Darryl Montana serves up in this colorful, art-filled Old Town restaurant. Montana has worked beside Sean Sherman at the highly influential Owamni in Minneapolis. Montana’s experience and vision show. A far-reaching menu of New World ingredients presents them in thrilling ways, such as squash turned into caramel, or pesto made from Indigenous plants. Montana serves that caramel with a sunflower tarte, his pesto with a bison ribeye for two. Tacos are simple, featuring tender meats like (more!) bison and duck. This eatery is a must for anyone craving true flavors of the Southwest.
The Stand
If you want real fry bread in a rustic seeting, head to The Stand. The magic happens a few minutes east of Loop 101, on the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Reservation. The kitchen? A roadside structure made of cactus ribs and arrowroot. Large, puffy discs of frybread are hoisted from crackling oil, each made-to-order and splotched with toasty brown marks. You can enjoy them plain (bready, funnel cake-y goodness with a dusting of powdered sugar and honey), with beans and cheese, or ladled with green or red chile (which pack a rich, blunt heat). There’s no A/C. You eat under the sky. The portions are giant. This is a hearty meal, one you can supersize even further by turning it into an “Indian taco,” meaning adding lettuce, tomato, and onion. Bring your appetite – and cash (The Stand does not accept debit or credit cards).
Sugar Jam the Southern Kitchen
This colorful, spacious haven of Southern comfort food is part restaurant, part party. Dana Dumas throws a weekend brunch like nobody else, complete with booming tunes, a photographer, all kinds of cocktails, and an imaginative menu highlighted by her sweet creations. Think lacy, indulgent sweet potato waffles zig-zagged with cream cheese icing and topped with moist, beautifully grilled jerk chicken. Every dish goes big. To her creamy shrimp-and-grits, Dumas adds crab balls and a lobster tail. Challah French toast gets an apple pie treatment. For lunch, Dumas serves chopped cheese sandwiches, po’boys, fried catfish, and pulled pork sandwiches. Be sure to save room for sweet treats from the on-site bakery. At Sugar Jam, both the comfort and fun are dialed up to the max.
Hush Public House
A stellar neighborhood restaurant, elevated but not too fancy. That’s what you get at Hush. The place to sit within the restaurant is the long bar overseeing the wide-open kitchen, where duck-fried rice crisps, grated cheese rains onto gnocchi, and oysters grill in melted butter and their saline juices to perfection. Chef Dom Ruggiero has a handful of grade-A signature dishes at Hush, anchoring his ever-changing New American menu. There’s a hauntingly rich chicken liver mousse, hushpuppies fragrant with crab, and a decadent, syrupy date cake. His best dish is a riff on Chicago’s Italian beef sandwich using braised oxtail, smoked provolone, and giardiniera, a stunning plate showcasing the creativity that makes Hush great.
