Phoenix restaurants
 

Does anyone recommend a favorite restaurant anywhere in the Phoenix area? It can be seafood, steak, Mexican, Italian, or any other. We are going next week and spending 10 days, with side trips to Sedona and Tucson. Also have tickets to 4 spring training games with the Cubs. Thanks for your help.

Where are you staying in PHX?
I've got several but they vary in $$.
Sedona too.
Go Cubs..Padres play in Peoria.

Here's a useful resource for Phoenix restaurants, from the web page of the Arizona Republic newspaper. Basically it has all the articles from their restaurant reviewers and you can sort by number of stars, type of food, customer reviews, etc etc ... http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/dining/

So to demonstrate how I use it to find new restaurants to try click in the left-column on the type of cuisine, say "Mexican" and you get 651 reviews, then click on 4 stars or more and you get the 29 highest rated Mexican restaurants. Locations are shown in a box on the right and you can sort further by price or 'kid-friendly' or 'user reviews' or whatever. Often the user reviews are informative.

One caveat is to check the dates of the review, anything older than a couple of years might be stale.

Just one more example ... click on Critics Ratings - 5 stars and you'll get a list of the 19 restaurants (out of several hundred) that the newspaper foodies rated most highly. These range from a simple lunch place on a working farm near downtown (The Farm Kitchen) to a more upscale lunch spot like Cafe Bink in Carefree (which I recommend, we ate there yesterday) to more expensive places like Binkley's in Cave Creek and Kai's on the Gila Indian Reservation, which is the only restaurant in the southwest to be rated 5 star by Mobil (Forbes) travel, meaning it's rated one of the best 20 restaurants in North America. I've eaten at Kai several times because it's nearby and it's a great restaurant, but pricey.

Anyway, it's fun to play with this list and find places near where you are staying. If you are in Mesa (which is I think where the Cubs train) you might also check out Cork, which is not far from Mesa (Kai is also a short drive from west Mesa ... Binkley's probably 30-40 minutes north). Cork is another "foodie" place like Kai or Binkley's, with a 4.5 rating from the local food critic.

Finally, Pizzeria Bianco recently won some Rachel Ray contest for "Best Pizza in the USA" ... believe it or not. Haven't tried that one ... yet.

Here are some direct links:

http://www.wildhorsepass.com/kai-restaurant.html (Kai)
http://www.binkleysrestaurant.com/ (Binkley's)
http://www.cafebink.com/cafebink/Home.html (Cafe Bink)

http://www.thefarmatsouthmountain.com/dining.php (Farm Kitchen)

http://www.azcentral.com/ent/dining/...81021cork.html (Cork)

http://pizzeriabianco.com/
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...ianco0212.html (for a link to the Rachel Ray contest)

I like Chowhound for suggestions:
Phoenix -

http://chowhound.chow.com/boards/69

For a top notch meal in a beautiful setting:
T.Cook's at Royal Palms

fwiw - Pizzeria Biano takes no reserv. and has very long waits, even before Rachel Ray gave nod, can't imagine what it will be like now. We are talking hour +

We're staying in north central Phoenix, but we plan to be all over the metro area, not eating near where we're staying. I have all the guides and books listing restaurants and their star ratings, but I wanted opinions from people on this website about their favorites. Thanks.

<b>but I wanted opinions from people on this website about their favorites. </b>

Kai ...

Kai
T. Cooks
Lon's at the Hermosa
Binkley's
Carolina's
Durants

I believe that there are several of us Fodorites that do post on chowhound, me included.

As much as I find Fodors great for lots of travel info, for restaurants, I tend to find chowhound has the upper hand on that info.

Are you looking for casual, or more upscale? Foodie worthy or just regular, good meals? Breakfast, lunch or dinners? Price Range??

T. Cooks is my favorite in PHX and is in top 5 in US.

I am looking for more casual, regular meals, for lunch and dinner, and any price range.

<b>T. Cooks is my favorite in PHX and is in top 5 in US.</b>

Deb, where did you see T. Cook's rated in the "Top 5 in US"? What survey?

Mobil (Forbes) is the most discriminating (fewest high ratings). Kai is the only Arizona restaurant with a Mobil 5 star rating, Talavera is the only Arizona restaurant with a Mobil 4 star rating (there are 149 four stars and 17 five stars in US). T. Cook's was rated highly, with 3 stars, but not in the top 150 nationwide.

AAA has a more relaxed system, with 50 or so 5 Diamond restaurants. Kai is the only Arizona restaurant with a 5 Diamond rating. AAA has a couple hundred 4 Diamond restaurants listed, with 18 in Arizona and T. Cook's has been one of those receiving 4 diamonds for the past several years. So a very good restaurant with high standards but not in the top 50 by either AAA or Mobil criteria, much less in the top 5.

The Phoenix restaurant critic gave it 4.5 stars as well. I'm sure it's a nice place, but hard to see how it's "top 5 in US".

It is in <i>MY </i>top 5 list; sorry for the confusion.

I'm a Cave Creek, AZ resident. Here are some suggestions other than the well known recs you got above. These are in the Carefree/Cave Creek area, which is about 30 miles north of Scottsdale/Phoenix.

http://carefreestation.com/ in Carefree, AZ - great food, pleasant ambiance. Reasonably priced.

Bryans' BBQ in Cave Creek, AZ - good barbeque, again, reasonably priced.

Trattoria Romana in Carefree - Italian food.

Sundial Cafe in Carefree town center - great for lunch, especially if you can sit outside on the patio.