Scottsdale
Lumsum Thai Cuisine
Opened: January 2026
Although this small but elegantly decorated Thai restaurant offers familiar Thai classics and a handful of “safe” Chinese dishes for the unadventurous, its specialties are the spicy, pungent dishes of Isan, the northeastern region of Thailand bordering Laos. Larb ($15.95) combines ground pork with lime juice, fish sauce, chilies and fresh herbs into a salty, spicy meat salad, all to be wrapped in lettuce leaves. It’s familiar and delicious. Bulbous, faintly tangy Thai Isan sausages ($12.95), made with fermented pork and rice and served with cabbage, are less well known but easy to love. The thrill, however, is finding completely unfamiliar dishes such as khao gee ($11.95) – a fried Laotian snack of sticky rice patties, golden brown and crunchy on the outside, soft and gooey within – and kor moo yang ($15.95), slivers of grilled pork neck, caramelized at the edges and sided with a rich, complex sauce tart with tamarind. Thai boat noodle soup with braised beef ($18.95) arrives heady with star anise and loaded with skinny rice noodles, braised beef and unctuous beef tendon. Don’t miss it. Ditto for khao tom mat ($12), a tamale-like dessert of sticky rice, banana and coconut milk steamed in banana leaves.
Wild Card: Thailand’s brilliantly colored version of lemonade, made with violet-hued butterfly pea flower.
14870 N. Northsight Blvd., 480-474-4909, lumsumthai.com
– Nikki Buchanan
West Valley
Kusina Filipino Cuisine
Opened: December 2025
This friendly Filipino kusina (“kitchen”) is a good place to pig out on pork, since half of the 14-item menu features it in one preparation or another. Lumpiang Shanghai (six pieces, $4.99) – fried spring rolls, filled with ground pork, onions, garlic and minced carrot – are skinny cigars of crispy goodness, dunked in a syrupy chili sauce that provides sweet heat. And, of course, everyone loves lechon kawali ($14.99/lb.) – crisp-edged, golden-brown nuggets of pork belly (meaty and fatty at once) served with a tart-sweet but faintly earthy lechon sauce that cuts the meat’s richness. Unfortunately, accompanying white rice is gummy and overcooked. Like fajitas, pork sisig ($15.99) arrives sizzling hot on a cast-iron plate.
It’s a smoky, hearty mixture of chopped pork, white onions, green onions, red chili and calamansi (a tart citrus fruit of the Philippines). Meanwhile, mixed pancit ($12.99), a combo of rice and egg noodles, stir-fried with green onions, cabbage, celery and pork bits — surely the healthiest option – seems a bit bland compared to all that deliciously heart-clogging meat.
Wild Card: Crispy pata ($25, large) is the most expensive item on the menu, but also one of the best – a deep-fried pork hock, browned and crunchy outside, rich, fatty and gelatinous within. Delicious dipped in a soy-based sauce sharpened with vinegar.
16055 N. Arrowhead Fountains Center Dr., Peoria, 623-999-6810, @kusinaphilippinecuisine
– Nikki Buchanan
Phoenix
Brasserie Melrose
Opened: December 2025
With its elegant upstairs patio and ineffably sexy bar, this Provençal-style restaurant has the potential to be one of the Valley’s great foodie hideouts. Set in the old Belly space in Melrose, it’s a kinda-sorta all-day affair, starting downstairs with French-press coffee ($6 for 17 oz.; $10 for 32 oz.) and espresso drinks ($4-$6), plus some of the city’s comeliest croissants and pastries, including cocoa-striped pain au chocolat ($7.50), flaky cardamom-citrus Breton cake ($7.50) and other drool-worthy treats. Later, the action shifts upstairs with a seafood-centric happy hour (4-6 p.m.) that includes an icy plate of kumamoto oysters ($13) served with mignonette and horseradish, the lemony sweetness amplified by a superb house martini ($16) flecked with drops of saline oil.
Dinner brings Provençal standards like a simple, concentrated salade Niçoise ($21) done in the classic style with green pepper, artichoke and other goodies under a red wine vinaigrette; filet mignon ($52) with peppercorn sauce; and a ratatouille tarte ($23) with fromage blanc and tomato jam. So, what’s missing? Maybe stability. Ownership jettisoned lunch service abruptly in the spring, along with the best French onion soup in Phoenix. Which seems like a very un-brasserie thing to do.
Wild Card: BM also offers a maximalist weekend brunch with caviar ($32-$145), crab omelette ($36) and pain perdu ($19), among other indulgences.
4971 N. Seventh Ave., 480-600-7975, brasseriemelrose.com
– Craig Outhier
East Valley
Zola Cultural Kitchen
Opened: October 2024
For your “people doing cool things in unexpected places” file, please consider this West African gem set in a gone-to-seed East Mesa strip mall. The mall might look rough, but Zola doesn’t. It’s bright and modern on the inside, and owner Andrew Samuka might serve you personally, starting with a complimentary plate of puff-puff – chewy, beignet-like millet fritters, deep-fried and toasty, served with a kicky bell pepper relish for dipping. Samuka specializes in the cooking of Liberia, Nigeria and Ghana, but fried chicken wings ($15) – strewn with watercress and served with a tangy red chile hot sauce – start off the meal on a universal foot. To follow: Liberian-style pepper soup ($25) done in a mild, collard-based broth loaded with shrimp, cured pork and boiled white fish, served with a generous oval of fufu – starchy cassava dough that’s ubiquitous on West African menus and plays a dumpling-like role in the soup adventure, sliding into your stomach effortlessly and pleasantly.
Regional classics such as goat meat stew ($35), oxtail ($28) and okra soup ($28) all grace the menu – or get a monster dose of goodness on one plate with “crazy” fried rice ($40), featuring chicken wings, spicy boiled shrimp, plantains and jollof (tomato-pepper rice), all assembled around a whole roasted red snapper smothered in a salty, étouffée-like gravy. Cool things, indeed.
Wild Card: Hankering for pho ($14)? Samuka inexplicably (but charmingly!) offers it on Saturdays.
6209 E. Main St., Mesa, 602-826-3938, zolaculturalkitchen.online
– Craig Outhier
