Kaw | Photo by Nikki Buchanan Thai and Lee Kambar (she’s Cambodian, he’s Iranian) describe their menu as “Khmer and Arab finger foods,” which isn’t, perhaps, as accurate or enlightening as it could be. For starters, Thai makes lots of daily specials that require a knife and fork. Meanwhile, “Arab” seems a misleading tag for dishes like gyros and naan, which make provincial Americans (me, in particular) think of Greece and India respectively. (Side...
Por Vida, which inhabits an adorably decorated, prominently placed corner of Palabras Bilingual Bookstore, isn’t your typical bakery at all. You won’t find rows and rows of pastry cases or the commercial ovens that turn out dozens of baked goods at a time. Although there’s a small kitchen outfitted with an oven on the bookstore’s premises, baker and budding entrepreneur Eileen Payan actually does much of her baking at home, hauling in her cookies, puff...
Learn how to make the River’s Edge cocktail from Jade Bar at Sanctuary Camelback Mountain Resort & Spa.
The latest restaurant from Ocotillo maestro Walter Sterling fills a Z’Tejas-size void for bougie Mexican fare with an epic patio.
Photo by Nikki Buchanan Sugar Jam, The Southern Kitchen is the inevitable next step for pretty Dana Dumas, who began baking sugar cookies with jam for friends and co-workers when she worked for NASCAR back in the early aughts. Their effusive praise encouraged her to start selling her cookies at farmers markets when she moved to the Valley with her husband over a decade ago, opening her own bake shop near Scottsdale Airpark in...
Rancho Pinot staff | Photo by Nikki Buchanan What if your favorite restaurant — your pre-pandemic go-to and home-away-from-home, the place where you celebrated birthdays, had a preferred seat at the bar, knew the servers by name and often received a hug when you came and went — was closing? You’d be heartbroken, right? Well, that’s me. Heartbroken. Because chef-owner Chrysa Robertson has decided it’s time to close her beloved, our beloved, Rancho Pinot....
Tostada de Pescado | Photo by Nikki Buchanan I’ve never actually counted, but I’m going to hazard a guess that metro Phoenix has more Mexican seafood restaurants than American-style seafood restaurants, which is a plus if you’re more interested in great, reasonably priced seafood than, say, la-di-da décor. El Heroico Guaymas, which opened in Peoria last December, is the newest of these no-frills, no-BS spots and based on a terrific lunch I had there...
Sick of the pandemic? Ready to party? No, not like the idiots on spring break in Florida and Texas but in a responsible, socially distanced sort of way? Well, so is chef and “local-boy-makes-good” Aaron May, and he’s throwing his own outlandish outdoor bash called Aaron May’s Big Boy Cook Club Cookout on Sunday, April 25th from 2-7 p.m. at Walter Sterling’s Ocotillo Restaurant in Central Phoenix, which will strictly adhere to CDC guidelines for...
Photo by Nikki Buchanan As the pandemic drags on, resourceful chefs and restaurateurs are opening ghost kitchens (delivery-only restaurants) at a clip this year, and Food Network star Guy Fieri, host of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, is right there riding the trend. In recent months, the spiky-haired, red Camaro-driving reality TV icon has launched Guy Fieri’s Flavortown Kitchen in 26 states, opening three virtual operations within Bucca di Beppo restaurants here in metro Phoenix...
Make this breezy riff on a classic margarita from Chauncey Social at home.
Restaurateur Peter Kasperski of Cowboy Ciao fame scores a first-round knockout with his new Downtown bistro.
Beaut Burger exterior | Photo by Nikki Buchanan Everyone gets a hankering for a burger now and then — even vegetarians and vegans — which is the beauty of Beaut Burger, a Tucson-based vegan burger joint so successful that it’s recently opened a second location here in Phoenix. Housed in a crisp-looking refurbished shipping container on Indian School just east of 32nd Street, BB makes almost all of its fresh, plant-based food in-house —...
You probably won’t be a bit surprised when I tell you that Alison Anderson, the wife of coffee connoisseur Dave Anderson of the Roastery of Cave Creek (which sells coffee to many of the city’s best restaurants), has coffee in her blood — not to mention her bloodstream. Although she’s always had her own career, Anderson has traipsed around the globe with her bean-obsessed husband for years now, sniffing out the best organic coffees from...
Great news for Downtown dwellers and the avant-garde peeps who appreciate Grand Avenue for its quirky coolness. Rene Andrade, the Nogales-born chef who garnered a following at Ghost Ranch, is opening his own Grand Avenue restaurant today in the tiny sunlit space that most recently housed Silvana Salcido Esparza’s Barrio Café Gran Reserva – and years before that, the historical Bragg’s Pie Factory and Bragg’s Pie Factory Diner. Andrade is calling his pie wedge-shaped place Bacanora, name-checking the little-known and underrated mezcal produced...
It’s her third day as proprietor of Hot Daisy Pizza, and Tammie Coe — the classically trained pastry chef famous for ooey-gooey cupcakes, big cookies and whimsical fondant-covered cakes — seems to be having fun in her new role as pie slinger. At 3:30 in the afternoon, her tiny Roosevelt Row shop (formerly known as Tammie Coe Cakes) enjoys a steady stream of curious neighborhood customers, eager to try a slice of pepperoni or margherita...
