Hai Noon Is the New Home of Famed Chef Nobuo Fukuda
Hai Noon
If you never got a chance to eat at Nobuo at Teeter House, that’s a real shame. It was great. But now Chef Nobuo has a new place in Scottsdale, and has teemed up with the team behind Welcome Diner to create some sort or Sonoran desert meets Japan situation, and you should just go without really thinking about it. Just, just… just do it. Go now before Chef Nobuo gets another James Beard award and reservations become impossible to get. Go now before he retires again!
Scottsdale - 7017 E McDowell Rd
Awards + Accolades
Reviews
January 5, 2024 / NIKKI BUCHANAN
Phoenix Magazine: Dining Review: Hai Noon is Spectacular
Last April, Welcome Diner owner Sloane McFarland and legendary chef Nobuo Fukuda opened Hai Noon without fanfare in a refurbished ’60s-era motor lodge called Sonder the Mariposa in South Scottsdale. At first blush, the narrow space, a dimly lit, rock-walled bar, seemed an unlikely venue for Fukuda, a 2007 James Beard Best Chef Southwest award winner revered for his fusion-y take on Japanese cuisine.
What to Get
Omakase
Now that the partners have resurrected Fukuda’s equally famous omakase, there’s even more reason to visit this hipster hideaway. It’s a seven-course prix fixe menu priced at $200 per person and offered on Sundays at the bar, where the chef personally serves and explains every dish. For my money, or somebody else’s money, it’s the best way to get an overview of Fukuda’s inimitable style. The daily-driver menu is fantastic, but this is possibly the greatest dining experience you can have on a Sunday in Phoenix.
- Nikki Buchanan, Phoenix Magazine
Lamb
We could put just about anything we had during our visit to Nobuo Fukuda's Hai Noon on this list, but of the several small plates we gobbled up with delight, the dish that is living rent-free in our minds is the lamb. The dish appears simply: two lightly seared chops with a mango and fennel salad. That first bite is disarming, not just for how tender and perfectly cooked the lamb is but also for the bold burst of flavor rendered from a coconut curry marinade.
- Tirion Boan and Sara Crocker, Phoenix New Times
Sashimi
We wouldn’t hesitate to say that an à la carte meal of sashimi and Japanese light bites at recently opened Hai Noon belongs on your bucket list. This hip, dimly lit bar, helmed by 2007 James Beard Award winner Nobuo Fukuda, already rocks.
- Phoenix Magazine
Nodoguro
When it’s available, chef Nobuo Fukuda offers nodoguro (a rare and difficult-to-catch deep-sea fish) on his omakase menu, using every bit of the fish to create sweet, delicate fish balls, three cuts of sashimi and, finally, the head, tail, spine and fins – all edible! – hibachi-grilled to crunchy, caramelized sweetness. There’s literally no trace of it when you’re done.
- Phoenix Magazine
Sunomono
Try affordable nibbles (prices range from $10-$20) such as panko-fried tofu with green papaya curry; soft shell crab and rice noodle; and the best sunomono on the planet.
- Nikki Buchanan and Chris Malloy, Eater
