After a long day in the kitchen, even the most accomplished chefs can be forgiven for outsourcing. From guilty after-work pleasures to aspirational tasting menus, find out where the Valley’s top culinary creators love to dine when they get a minute.
By Nikki Buchanan | Photography by Mirelle Inglefield & David Zickl
Back in the 1980s, when American cuisine got its first taste of international respect, American chefs were instantly catapulted to celebrity status – and 40 years later, we still consider them rock stars, tortured artists or both. So, naturally, we wonder what these celestial beings, who create dishes that make us swoon, dine on themselves. Surely, ambrosia?
As it turns out, they’re not that different from us mere mortals. Because they often work long hours, convenience counts when they’re going out to eat. More often than not, they frequent restaurants near their house or their own restaurant – and, like us, they often head to small, homey places built for comfort and speed.
Certainly, that’s true for Kevin Binkley. Known as the Valley culinary genius who introduced us to molecular gastronomy at Binkley’s Restaurant in Cave Creek, then moved to Midtown Phoenix to blow our minds again with extravagant tasting menus, Binkley and his wife, Amy, shuttered the latter restaurant in 2024, and now his professional life is centered on lighter gigs such as catering, private dinner parties and cooking classes.
As such, he has the time to make once-a-week visits to fun neighborhood restaurants within a mile radius of his Arcadia Lite-adjacent house. His favorite go-to is Glai Baan, across the street from his old restaurant on Osborn Road, which he considers “the best Thai restaurant I’ve ever been to, and possibly the best in the Southwest.” He raves about chef-owner Cat Bunnag’s chicken wings (adding “I’m not even a wings guy”), the mackerel fried rice, the tempura mushrooms and a pomelo salad with tempura shrimp, Chinese broccoli, Thai chili, lime, peanuts and mint that he swears is “burned in [his] memory.”
Binkley says he’s lucky to have so much excellent Mexican food in his Midtown neighborhood, reserving special praise for fast-casual Taco Viva, which, he maintains “sets a new bar for tacos.” He also frequents Pizza to the Rescue at 28th Street and Indian School, pointing out that MJ Coe, whom he considers the “best baker in the world,” trained the kitchen staff on making the pizza dough. And when he craves something extra-special, he heads to Hai Noon – the cozy Japanese restaurant-bar in South Scottsdale run by James Beard award-winning chef Nobuo Fukuda – because he knows that no matter what he orders there, “it’s going to be awesome,” thanks to Fukuda’s “incredible touch.”
Because he presides over a four-restaurant empire, including OG gastropub Citizen Public House and comfy-casual Beginner’s Luck, two-time James Beard Best Chef Southwest nominee Bernie Kantak doesn’t go out to eat all that often, but when he does, he makes it count. He recalls a recent visit to Hai Noon, where he left impressed by “those amazing spoons [Fukuda’s signature sashimi]” and “how much thought goes into Nobuo’s food.” In recent months, Kantak has also made his first pilgrimage to Bacanora on Grand Avenue (a tiny pink ode to Sonoran-style Mexican food, presided over by James Beard Best Chef Southwest winner Rene Andrade), where he claims to have eaten the best meal he’s had in years, adding, “The guy is known for grilled meat, but I’m still dreaming about his beet salad with pomegranates and dates.”
Kantak also waxes poetic about other big loves, including legendary Andreoli Italian Grocer in North Scottsdale – especially the time chef-owner Giovanni Scorzo went off-menu and prepared Kantak and friends a multi-course feast involving house-made focaccia and “those wonderful sausages he makes.” That fond memory leads him to the whole roasted suckling pig dinner (another Italian feast) at Gio Osso’s Virtù Honest Craft in Old Town Scottsdale, a meal he describes as “phenomenal” – not to mention the sausage rapini sandwich he “could eat every day” at sister restaurant Pizzeria Virtù.
Like Kantak, Charleen Badman – the James Beard Best Chef Southwest winner nicknamed “Veggie Badman” for her sophisticated way with vegetables at her acclaimed FnB – claims she doesn’t go out often. However, she tries to make regular visits to Requinto – a Saturday-through-Monday brunch pop-up in Linger Longer Lounge in North-Central Phoenix. Come Sunday, the veggie whisperer “look[s] forward to sliding into the booth for rich, delicious chilaquiles” from chef Erick Pineda, which she describes as “layered, tangy and balanced,” generously conceding they’re better than her own.
Badman also drops by The Dinersaur, a bakeshop on Thomas Road near 15th Avenue, for cookies and a “delicious vegetable sandwich,” as well as Downtown’s Via Della Slice Shop for pizza that’s “as close to New York pizza as you can get in Phoenix.” Finally, she expresses her abiding love for Hana Japanese Eatery, the seminal sushi bar and restaurant in North-Central Phoenix where James Beard Award nominee Lori Hashimoto holds Valley palates in thrall with her signature tempura-fried Hana egg, incomparable hamachi kama and countless beloved special dishes. Badman loves the food, but might love the service even more. “The place is 18 years old, and they still treat you as if you’re the most important thing that walked in the door,” she says. “It’s nice that someone is making something for me instead of the other way around.”
Sweet Republic founder and ice cream guru Helen Yung clearly feels the same way – unlike most of the kitchen-weary food pros in this story, Yung eats out frequently, up to five or six times a week. Between taking care of two young boys and running four artisanal ice cream shops, she says that going out to eat is her “only outlet,” and that she “likes to be served.” The most frequented restaurant in her rather large rotation is Mekong Palace in Central Mesa’s Mekong Plaza. “Dim sum is our Sunday ritual,” she says. “It was something I did as a kid, and I want my kids to be used to that, too.”
Although she and her family also love Northern Chinese restaurant Chou’s Kitchen in Chandler and Great Wall Cuisine at 35th Avenue and Camelback Road for dim sum, she’s more likely to frequent something in her Central Scottsdale ’hood, like Goldman’s Deli for the Reuben she swears she could eat every day, or the drunken chicken soup at Amelia’s, a favorite pick for its homey scratch-made food, proximity and hours. “I can get the soup at 9 a.m. if I want to,” she says.
James Beard Award-winning chef and Modern French cuisine legend Christopher Gross is big on convenience as well, explaining that he often heads to Matt Carter’s sophisticated Modern Italian restaurant, Fat Ox in Scottsdale, because it’s “just down the street” from his Paradise Valley home. He loves its legendary, house-made pasta and often gets a double order because, he jokes, “I’m on a carb diet.”
Like Binkley, Gross is also a fan of Pizza to the Rescue. You can often find him at the animal-rescue-focused Italian restaurant at three in the afternoon, sipping wine from an “incredible list” while sitting at the end of the bar in his gym clothes. Granted, Gross has a personal connection to the restaurant – co-owner Geri Hormel is the daughter of his former longtime girlfriend, Jamie Hormel, who also serves as his landlord at Christopher’s at the Wrigley Mansion. But when he raves about the décor and the wine list, and declares the pizza “really effing good,” there’s reason to believe him.
And then, of course, there’s his other longtime love affair – namely, with New Mexican cuisine stalwart Los Dos Molinos, famed for its membrane-pummeling salsas and Hatch chile dishes. Gross has “gone to [the restaurant] consistently for almost 30 years,” first at its original South Phoenix location, set in a territorial ranch house once owned by cowboy and silent-movie star Tom Mix; and lately at the Chavez family’s newer location on Camelback Road. He loves the place because “the people are so nice” and every dish has a “real backbone of flavor.” He sheepishly adds, “I pig out so bad there,” admitting to ordering multiple bowls of chips, the machaca pizza and the carne adovada burro, enchilada-style – all in one go.
Central Phoenix empire-builder TJ Culp may be pressed for time, but he tries to be “somewhat health-conscious,” so he often opts for a quick pollo asado lunch “on the avenues” near his flagship eatery, Restaurant Progress. No-frills Carniceria Mi Casita on 19th Avenue (a Mexican market and butcher counter known for its carne asada and chicken) and El Pollo Correteado (famous for its juicy, mesquite-fired chicken) are constants in his rotation, as is the long-running, perennially popular Vietnamese restaurant Da Vang on 35th Avenue, the alleged haunt of Senator John McCain back in the day. Culp goes there “all the time” because “it’s so cheap and so tasty, and you can get in and out in 30 minutes.”
L.T. Smith, chef-owner of the eclectic, Mexican-inspired Chilte on Grand Avenue, also has healthy eating on the brain – not surprising, given his pre-restaurant pedigree as a college football star and NFL prospect. Smith and his iconoclastic restaurant have received honors from Bon Appétit, Esquire and Food & Wine, while Smith himself was nominated for the Emerging Chef category from the James Beard Foundation in 2025. But the acclaim hasn’t turned his head. He makes Chick-A-Dee in Midtown his wholesome “go-to after the gym” option, explaining he loves the Hainan-style steamed chicken with garlic rice, because it’s “light and simple.”
Like many other time-constrained chefs, he prefers “homey spots” that aren’t too far away, citing quick but excellent Sushi Friend in Sunnyslope and Vietnamese Pho 43 in West Phoenix as favorites. He also routinely makes the 20-minute trek to Mexican seafood hot spot Mariscos A Todo Mar on 83rd Avenue near Lower Buckeye Road on Sundays and Malegria Café (a Latin-inflected walk-up window just down Grand Avenue from his own restaurant) on the way to work, picking up chilaquiles and burritos “for the team.”
When informed that Bacanora’s Andrade also cited Mariscos A Todo Mar and Pho 43 as two of his favorite restaurants, Smith laughs and says, “Yeah, I put him on to Mariscos A Todo Mar and he put me on to Pho 43.”
Despite the James Beard Award he won last year and the steady waterfall of accolades that have showered Bacanora since its opening in 2021, Andrade remains a busy, unpretentious guy, opting for convenient restaurants that offer great food but also emotional gratification. That’s why he loves Pho 43, which he claims is “like being with your grandma.” One of his favorite dishes there is extra-crispy shaking beef with an egg on top.
However, Andrade’s favorite restaurant in the Valley is unambiguous: Mariscos A Todo Mar is his “favorite of all time” because he can “feel that family love behind it.”
Echoing Badman, he says, “I’m looking for the nurturing. I do that for others; now I want it back.” He’s also crazy about their Sinaloan-style fish, which he describes as “98 percent garlic and 2 percent butter.”
As for high-end restaurants, Andrade joins chef cohorts Binkley and Kantak in his open admiration for Fukuda’s Hai Noon, one of his “happy places right now” because of “the intention behind it, the patience and [Fukuda’s] sense of perfection. That’s the magic that I love.”
Like his colleagues, legendary pizza-maker and restaurateur Chris Bianco stays busy running his restaurants – namely, Tratto (which recently moved back to Town & Country in Uptown Phoenix), and both Pane Bianco and Pizzeria Bianco, which have locations in Phoenix and Downtown L.A.
He says he doesn’t go out to eat often, then adds that he “sneaks out kind of in the wheelhouse” and rattles off a half-dozen of his favorite places: Bacanora (“Rene’s a friend”), Glai Baan, Valentine, Bad Jimmy’s, “everything chef-owner Doug Robson does” (namely Mexican-inflected Gallo Blanco and Otro, as well as Tesota, which specializes in global comfort food), Tacos Chiwas (“a true taste of Chihuahua”), Andreoli Italian Grocer (“Giovanni and his family have built something we’re so lucky to have”) and finally, Texas-based Hillstone, because it’s such a “warm place to be.” He bemoans the fact that he doesn’t get to visit FnB as much as he wants, but considers Charleen Badman “an Arizona and national treasure,” adding, “I love her.”
He also contends that chef-owner Jason Dwight of Persepshen, a hyperlocal Modern American restaurant in Central Phoenix, “does a great job” and that his restaurant is “really underrated.”
So, what have we learned here? Maybe that chefs are people, not demi-gods, and they frequent restaurants for many of the same reasons we do. And that, like us, they can also be completely awe-struck by a wonderful dish. In fact, there’s something validating – if not downright endearing – about a high-end chef like Kevin Binkley saying of that unforgettable Glai Baan salad: “It haunts me.”
CHEF ROLL-CALL
Charleen Badman
FnB
As a chilaquiles savant herself, Badman lauds the rich version served at Requinto (@requinto_phx), a brunch pop-up in Linger Longer Lounge.
Kevin Binkley
Binkley’s
Closing his gastronomy palace in 2024 has given Binkley time to savor neighborhood gems like Glai Baan and Taco Viva
Bernie Kantak
Citizen Public House, The Gladly, Beginner’s Luck, Minnow
When he’s not opening a new restaurant, Kantak is hitting up stellar places like Hai Noon and Bacanora
Helen Yung
Sweet Republic
This Le Cordon Bleu-trained “ice cream chef” loves Mekong Palace for dim sum.
Christopher Gross
Christopher’s at Wrigley Mansion
Famous for his elegant French-inflected fare, Gross can’t get enough of the spicy New Mexican cooking at Los Dos Molinos
TJ Culp
Progress, Sottise, Sidewinder
He eats on the fly, so serial restaurateur Culp loves quick, easy El Pollo Correteado and Da Vang.
L.T. Smith
Chilte
This football player-turned-chef heads to Chick-A-Dee after the gym for something light and simple.
Rene Andrade
Bacanora, Huarachis Taqueria
As a person who serves others every day, Sonoran super-talent Andrade loves getting nurtured himself at Pho 43
Chris Bianco
Pizzeria Bianco, Pane Bianco, Tratto
Bianco, one of the city’s OG locavores, favors keep-it-local restaurants such as FnB and Persepshen
