Tia Carmen is about as pretty as a hotel restaurant can get. Every detail is well thought out—so many textures, so many details, such a nice flow. And if you show up as a vacationer or a staycationer, the vibe is just about perfect. You can casually flow in, flow out, pop to your room for a sec, and head over to the incredible J.W. Marriott pool for a swim.

The East Valley—Gilbert in particular— has plenty of good restaurants, but it’s definitely lacking ones that are nice. Date night nice. Let’s spend a lot of money on your birthday nice. Shimogamo is that. When you go to Shimogamo, you kind of feel like you’re somewhere important. It’s not the fanciest place in town, but it’s very elegant.

Sauvage is an interesting little place. At its core, it’s a wine bar—specifically, a natural wine bar with perhaps the most interesting wine list in town. Go pick up a bottle one day after work. You’ll love it. But once nighttime hits (or sometimes during morning popups!), it’s really more of a true hangout. A place you can go grab a wine and politely dance to some DJ playing something that’s not your typical club music.

Pyro is what happens when a trendy restaurant group decides to dabble in Japanese food that’ll appeal to people who might not normally spend top dollar at a Japanese restaurant. Like sure, you could spend gobs of money at Shinbay or Shimogamo, but if sushi isn’t really your thing and you’d really prefer American portions of protein (as opposed to 4 oz. A5 Wagyu plates), Pyro is the ticket.

First & Last is billed as a nice restaurant for nice people. Or maybe it’s just nice food for nice people. Either way, it works. The food is broadly Italian—although the place doesn’t necessarily feel culturally Italian—and the vibe is very put together. It’s not “nice” per se, but nice enough to go for a business lunch or a casual date. I think “smart” is the word I’m going for.

I don’t know what kinds of crowds you find yourself in, but if you’re in the executive mix, you’ve probably already made your way to Ocean 44 by now. It’s very nice and very expensive, and the people dining there look very nice and very expensive. It’s really no more expensive than any other steakhouse situation, so I guess that makes it fairly affordable, all things considered.

Before Source, Claudio Urciuoli had this idea that amazing food should be cheap and served on paper plates. That idea became Pa’La, and I remember lots of posts about the sexiest looking cannellini beans imaginable. Then he left, Jason Alford took over, and he transformed Pa’la into a higher end situation, keeping the same DNA, but replacing paper for ceramic and cannellini beans for foie gras.

Fire at Will likes to bill itself as an elevated kind of neighborhood restaurant—a place people seemingly from the area will go to multiple times a month and “order the regular.” Truthfully, I don’t see it. Like its sister restaurant, Hush Public House, Fire at Will seems a little too special… a little too important, at least per Phoenix standards.

N. Scottsdale, meet Course, a proper 5-10 course prix fixe restaurant serving up all the ridiculousness you’d expect. Things with caviar, never-just-beef tartare, something that reminds you of your childhood, and supplemental wagyu and truffles if you’re feeling extra frisky. The food critics in town are in love, and you will be too.

The dream of the original version of Pa’La is alive in Gilbert. Well, close. Claudio Urciuoli isn’t stoically toiling away in the kitchen every moment of every day, but the place is definitely his. There are (nice) paper plates. There are ingredients straight from the Mediterranean. Everything is simple, but somehow better than you ever think it well be. And there’s wine. Lots of wine.

Café Monarch is where you go when you want that stereotypically romantic dinner. It’s almost comically romantic. If there were a Disney-style AI and you typed in 'romantic restaurant’, it’d churn out something like Café Monarch. And fortunately for us all, I’ve never encountered someone who’s gone there and didn’t like it.

Lon’s isn’t trendy, it’s not modern, and it’s not especially fancy (let’s call it cowboy/western fancy). What it is is pretty. It’s the kind of place you’d have a wedding reception at. A place to propose. A place to take your mom to for Mother’s Day. Don’t confuse all this with boring.

CRUjiente Tacos preaches the gospel of the maximalist street taco. One that might have Korean fried chicken on it, or big hunks of sliced steak. Somehow they’re not messy though—these are elegant maximalist tacos for elegant, maximalist people.

At Chula—they catch the fish on their boat in San Diego, then hike it here right away. Or it’s caught elsewhere and flown in. Either way, it’s super fresh, and the miracles they perform on the lobster roll specifically are worth the trip.

While at Feringhee, I quickly decided that it was better than all the other Indian places I’d been to. The curries were more flavorful, the meats were cooked more perfectly, the naan was nicer, the plating was prettier, and some of the sauces kind of blew me away. The food critics were definitely right about this one.