Best Brunch 2024 | SugarJam The Southern Kitchen | Food & Drink | Phoenix
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Best Brunch

SugarJam The Southern Kitchen

Tirion Boan

Chef Dana Dumas started serving at her North Scottsdale brunch restaurant in 2022. And while many brunch spots have opened around the Valley since then, no one can touch her French toast. Along with egg and cinnamon, the bread gets a dunk in Grand Marnier, which caramelizes into a crackly crust when it hits the griddle. Served with rum pecan syrup, this is the best French toast in town. But Dumas doesn't stop at sweets. Try her buttery grits topped with giant shrimp or flavorful fried catfish. The menu is rounded out with eggs and bacon brunch staples along with cocktails and mimosas. On the weekends, DJs make the brunch experience into a party. Quieter weekday mornings are perfect for savoring the delights from the kitchen.

Best Restaurant Patio

Cibo

Jacob Tyler Dunn

In a city like Phoenix, patio season is brief, a delightful sliver of time between months of oppressive heat and those couple of weeks in winter when it's actually too cold to sit outside. Therefore, we want our outdoor dining time — while it lasts — to be on a patio that's worth the wait. For almost 20 years, Cibo has boasted one of the best patios in town. The Italian eatery set in a 1913 bungalow in downtown Phoenix has a courtyard filled with trees, string lights and cozy tables. It's the perfect backdrop for one of Cibo's artisanal pizzas (we're partial to the Da Vinci, which is topped with burrata, basil and pecorino Romano cheese) or perhaps a warm bowl of gnocchi in a fontina cream sauce. And of course, we never leave without ending our meal with the Nutella crepe. At Cibo, the food and the patio atmosphere team up, making every visit a feast for the senses.

Best Secret Patio

The Churchill

The Churchill

Hemmed in by multiple restaurants and bars, the courtyard at The Churchill is often a busy place to be. During popular hours, tables and chairs become a hot commodity, and even standing room can be hard to find. But there's an additional area that few seem to know about, and it provides the best seats in the house. After grabbing a beer at The Brill Line and snagging a burger at Stoop Kid, head toward the north end of the building. To the right, you'll find the restrooms, but to the left, there's a staircase leading to a hidden rooftop. One floor up, you can leave the loud crowds down below and enjoy a view looking out over downtown Phoenix. Watch as the nightlife scene picks up for the evening while you enjoy your dinner and drinks in a much more peaceful environment.

Best Restaurant Views

Christopher's at Wrigley Mansion

Consider it providence that some of the city's most stunning views can be found at a restaurant that happens to craft some of Phoenix's most vibrant and striking fine dining fare. That isn't a given. We won't name names, but expensive restaurants with a view often take their customers for granted, knowing the food merely has to be good enough not to drive starry-eyed couples away. Not so at Christopher's, where local legend and heavily decorated veteran of fine French cuisine Christopher Gross maintains this sleek, razor-sharp modern addition to the elegant, classical Wrigley Mansion. The food is stunning, both visually and on the palate. The staff glides around with tick-tock precision, exuding an atypical (for Phoenix) brand of smooth, professional warmth. And that view — a floor-to-ceiling glass wall is all that stands between you and the Valley, shimmering below in the balmy heat of a desert evening.

Best Takeout

Kabob Grill N' Go

Kabob Grill N Go

Quick service is a hallmark of Kabob Grill N' Go's specialty, but that doesn't mean taste is compromised. It's a family-owned restaurant, so you'll likely be greeted by Hasmik Chilingaryan, who makes everything fresh. The combos are large and include basmati rice, grilled vegetables and choice of meat (either chicken, beef or lamb) and dips. Most customers, including us, rave about the chicken and praise the generous portions. You'll likely have leftovers even if you share a plate. For vegetarians, there is eggplant salad, grilled vegetables, warm pita and shirazi salad — chopped cucumber, tomato, red onion, parsley, lime juice and olive oil dressing.

Best Bar Food

Bar Cena

Look, nobody — least of all us — is taking shots at buffalo wings and fried cheese. But bar food can be an elegant affair, too, can't it? The latest offering from chef Dom Ruggiero of Hush Public House and Fire at Will is a swanky little number that's part bar, part restaurant, part lounge. But whichever style of seating suits you, the menu's the same, and it features the kind of bold, crisply executed Euro-American fare that has become Ruggiero's signature. A toasty popover is so flaky and hot that it instantly melts the cacio e pepe butter you slather all over it. Chilled poached mussels are joined by a perky pickled vegetable escabeche and smoky grilled Noble toast. The house pate en croute, set with port gelee and served with a swipe of mustard, is the pinnacle of the form. And if you really need to scratch the itch for fried cheese, the muffuletta croquettes — crispy, sesame-studded puffs of potato and provolone buried in a spicy fennel onion salad — is a mighty refined way to do it.

Best Date Night Spot

Progress

Lauren Cusimano

Whether you're going on a first date or looking for a romantic evening with your lifelong love, Progress is always a good idea. This elegant restaurant is made up of three parts: a small dining room, a cozy patio and a wine room. Pick a bottle off the shelf and settle into your table for a night of great conversation and delicious bites. The best way to sample the menu is to order multiple plates and share. The kitchen will expertly course out your meal to keep the evening flowing, along with the wine. If you really want to hand over the reins and let the pros chart the course of your evening, opt for the five-dish "Leave It to the Kitchen" menu for $75 per person.

Best Steakhouse

The Stockyards

Jacob Tyler Dunn

Few restaurants in Phoenix capture the vibe of old-school Valley of the Sun better than The Stockyards. Everybody who's anybody in Phoenix history has sat in The Stockyards' historic bar and spun a yarn while waiting for a table at the legendary eatery. With a storied history going back over 70 years, The Stockyards offers an amazing "Arizona cut" 24-ounce bone-in ribeye that will melt in your mouth, but its New York strip and filet mignon are equally fantastic. Daring diners may want to start with the Paloma Ranch Calf Fries (a.k.a. Rocky Mountain oysters, a.k.a. bull's testicles) which have been a treat for decades. If you want to get a taste of what time travel is like, visit The Stockyards and enjoy the best steakhouse in town.

Best Restaurant You Can Ride Your Horse To

T-Bone Steak House

Timur Guseynov

As the city has grown and evolved, vestiges of yesteryear are increasingly hard to find. Not so at T-Bone Steak House in South Phoenix, where there are hitching posts out back in case you show up on four hooves instead of four wheels. The building, which was built out of river rock and adobe in the 1920s, has housed a restaurant since the 1940s. (It's been T-Bone Steak House since 1972). T-Bone serves simple steakhouse fare excellently done — think a juicy, perfectly rare New York Strip, tender barbecue chicken and house-made apple pie smothered in cinnamon ice cream, whipped cream and caramel sauce. The prices are decidedly modern (read: not cheap), but you get what you pay for, and at T-Bone Steak House, you get delicious food and excellent service in a charming rustic setting. And here's a tip: Arrive just before sunset and sit near a window or on the patio to watch the sun set over the Valley and enjoy the lights of the city.

Best Haunted Restaurant

The Old Spaghetti Factory

We love a good ghost story almost as much as we love a good meal. The Old Spaghetti Factory on Central Avenue has plenty of both. Stories abound that the building, which was originally constructed as two private residences, was the site of two separate murders and that restaurant staff have reported cold spots, strange sounds, flickering lights, furniture moving and floating apparitions. We've never experienced anything spooky at The Old Spaghetti Factory, just good, solid Italian-American fare. The restaurant is famous for its spaghetti with mizithra cheese and browned butter, but we're also big fans of the crab and ricotta ravioli. If you can snag a table inside the restaurant's trolley car, do it — just keep your eyes peeled for ghosts.

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