Desert Digest2025 BOV Party Spotlight: Chopping it Up with Uchi Scottsdale
Marilyn HawkesOctober 14, 2025
Food ReviewsDining Review: Hai Noon is Spectacular
Nikki BuchananJanuary 5, 2024
With a PHOENIX Magazine 2023 Best New Restaurant of the Year award under his arm, Nobuo Fukuda keeps finding fresh ways to beguile our critic.
Brimming with unusual fish cuts and delightfully idiosyncratic entrées, this hole-in-the-wall sushi restaurant in Mesa is sure to reel you in.
Food ReviewsDining Review: Shimogamo
Nikki BuchananJanuary 11, 2023
Always solid, this Chandler sushi stalwart veers abruptly into greatness under the reins of a new chef.
Desert DigestFood & DrinkSix Questions with Sake Haus Executive Chef Joe Cajipe
Marilyn HawkesNovember 23, 2022
Sake Haus executive chef Joe Cajipe earned his cooking chops by working at his family’s Filipino restaurant in Chandler while going to college. The self-taught chef then worked in the kitchens of SumoMaya and Ra Sushi to learn the art of Japanese cuisine before landing the top chef gig at Sake Haus, which opened in April 2022. Here’s what he had to say about his new position. How much does your Filipino background influence your...
Weak Wagyu, buzz-killing karaage doom this Downtown sushi tavern from the team behind Arcadia’s Nanaya Japanese Kitchen.
Desert DigestFirst Dish: Nanaya Japanese Kitchen
Craig OuthierJanuary 19, 2021
Set in the storied strip-mall spot formerly occupied by Crudo and, ages ago, an Italian restaurant with mob connections, Nanaya Japanese Kitchen opened in October to minimal fanfare – a “stealth opening,” one might say. This was dictated both by form (the speakeasy-ish, around-the-back location is easy to miss from the street) and function (the restaurant is evidently serving as a “test kitchen” for a future project in Old Town Scottsdale). When the tavern-style Japanese...