“We got chased off,” Mirelle solemnly reported to me. “The guy didn’t want us there. I think he got spooked by all the camera equipment.”
In this scenario, “Mirelle” is PHOENIX magazine art director Mirelle Inglefield – and “the guy” is the manager of one of the scrappy restaurant gems we profile in Hole-in-the-Wall Wonders, which leads off our coverage of Valley dining in this annual food-centric issue.
Mirelle tried calling the restaurant – which shall remain nameless, you can try to guess which one, starting on pg. 80 – ahead of time, but no one ever picked up. As a final resort, she dispatched photographer Chris Loomis blind to the address – resulting in the hasty eviction described above.
Mirelle and I laughed about it. Maybe he thought Chris was an influencer? Can’t trust those people!
Yes, the abortive photo shoot was a minor waste of time and money, but on another level, it was massively validating. You put your hand in a hole, sometimes you lose it. You steer coverage to dive-y eateries and mom-and-pops that aren’t accustomed to coverage, sometimes you get the unexpected. That’s as close to “real journalism” as a dining roundup can get.
Not all the restaurants and restaurateurs featured in this issue were so camera-shy. You’ll find clear evidence of that in Where the Chefs Eat, dining critic Nikki Buchanan’s gang-profile of eight top Valley chefs and their favorite off-hours restaurants (pg. 96). Rounding out the cover package: Food Trends 2026, writer Marilyn Hawkes’s look ahead to the coming year and its most exciting, unusual and pronounced culinary trends (pg. 102).
Other recurring themes in this winter-wheelhouse issue of PHOENIX include non-alcoholic beer and cocktails (don’t get used to it… it’s a Dry January thing); the plight of homeless Phoenicians (a topic tackled by columnist extraordinaire Amy Silverman on pg. 33); and high-season festivals and events, given that winter is go-time here in the Valley of the Sun. For even deeper coverage on that topic, try to get your hands on one of the WM Phoenix Open/City Guide super-issues we mailed to our subscribers, poly-bagged with this issue.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, one of us here at the office needs to go shoot that restaurant that rebuffed our photographer. We’ll probably do it with a smartphone, influencer-style.
— Craig Outhier
