Arts & CultureScottsdale’s Scene for Enjoying the Arts
Editorial StaffSeptember 28, 2021
Galleries, museums and Frank Lloyd Wright buildings are the highlight of culture in The West's Most Western Town.
Paradise Valley Archives
THE SCENE Is anyone else having crowd anxiety as we return to restaurants? I can’t be the only one. It’s simply natural to be a little jittery around gaggles of people after the past year and a half of social distancing, quarantining and fearing the physical proximity of others, lest we infect each other with a horrific virus. It’s challenging to rewire your brain and body to accept closeness – especially for someone like me, a social introvert who thrives in small groups but is easily...
Every year, Paradise Valley sculptor William Daggett travels to Northern Arizona or Southern Utah to collect twisted juniper branches that “speak to me,” he says. He has worked with this hard, dense wood for the past decade, finding motion and beauty in the shapes of these 1,000-year-old tree limbs. “I look for a motion – an animal, a bird, a plane – something abstract I can see in it. Usually, [the wood] says what it...
Valley NewsTrouble in Paradise
Jimmy MagahernApril 25, 2019
A grievance across the greenbelt in Paradise Valley exposes disparities in power and privilege, even in Arizona’s wealthiest town.
Gone are the days of bland continental buffets and dry chicken breasts at your hotel's diner. More and more, talented Valley chefs are decamping from standalone restaurants to helm the kitchens of Phoenix's impressive hotels and resorts. But that's old news to Charles Wiley, who's been churning out impossibly fresh, creative and expertly made food at Valley resort restaurants for years.
With more than 40 years of experience under his belt, Wiley’s list of accolades is impressive: Food & Wine magazine named him one of “The Ten Best New Chefs in America,” and the James Beard Foundation recognized him as “One of the Best Hotel Chefs of America.” He worked for a decade at The Boulders before opening Sanctuary Camelback Mountain Resort in 2001. He went down the road to run the Hotel Valley Ho’s dining program in 2005 and opened the revamped Mountain Shadow Resort’s signature restaurant Hearth ’61 as executive chef and director of food and beverage earlier this year.
PHOENIX recently caught up with Wiley to chat about opening a new restaurant, how the Valley’s culinary landscape has changed since he first arrived, and the current trend of why so many top local chefs are working at hotels.*