Best Restaurants in Scottsdale: 12 Worth a Reservation

Does Scottsdale have a good food scene?

Better than most first-time visitors expect. The best restaurants in Scottsdale go well past resort dining. There are chef-driven tasting menus, modern Mexican kitchens, serious steakhouses, house-made pasta, Mediterranean plates built for sharing, wood-fired pizza and a handful of places cooking with Arizona ingredients.

That variety changes how a trip works. You hike in the morning, sit by the pool all afternoon, and somewhere around four o'clock realize that dinner deserves its own plan. When you are staying in one of our houses that plan is easy. Breakfast happens in the kitchen. Lunch is whatever is in the fridge. Then you save your energy and your budget for the one or two dinners actually worth leaving the house for.

Old Town Scottsdale restaurants for a full evening

Old Town is where dinner turns into a night. You eat, then walk, then find dessert or a drink, and the ride home is short. Wild West Estate sits close to Old Town for exactly this reason, and it is the house we recommend when a group plans several nights out.

FnB is the place for seasonal Arizona cooking. The menu changes, so arrive curious rather than hunting for a signature dish. It is a serious meal without the production of a big steakhouse. Citizen Public House is modern American with good cocktails and a relaxed room. The Original Chopped Salad is the famous order, but the real appeal is flexibility. It can be the whole night or the first stop.

The Mission does polished modern Latin food with tableside guacamole and wood-fired dishes, and the shared-plate format works for a couple or a table of ten. Diego Pops is the casual end of the same street: tacos, margaritas, a loud room, and a menu that keeps a group social. Pinyon Coastal Mediterranean is the change of pace. After a few heavy nights, a brighter, lighter dinner built for sharing is exactly what a longer stay needs.

Scottsdale restaurants for a celebration dinner

Maple & Ash is where we send birthdays and bachelor weekends. It is an energetic, upscale steakhouse with wood-fired cooking, seafood and a dramatic room. Do not squeeze it between other plans. Give the meal the evening.

Cafe Monarch is the romantic pick. Intimate setting, polished service, the kind of dinner designed to be a complete night. It suits an anniversary or an engagement, or simply the evening you decide to dress up and slow down.

COURSE is for people who consider the restaurant part of the vacation. Chef Cory Oppold and his team build multi-course menus around seasonal ingredients and a progression of flavors. Schedule nothing afterward. Bourbon Steak, with Michael Mina's name on the concept, is the resort-side steakhouse. It works for golf groups and anyone who wants an upscale dinner without making Old Town the center of the night.

Casual Scottsdale restaurants for families and groups

Not every memorable meal needs a tasting menu. Craft 64 does wood-fired pizza in a relaxed room, and it is the right call after a day of hiking or swimming when nobody wants a two-hour dinner. It also gives an itinerary some balance against the more elaborate nights.

il Bracco is one of the newer additions and the most versatile. Italian-inspired cooking, house-made pasta, seafood, prime meats and an Italian wine list. Couples make it a date, groups share dishes, and kids can always find something familiar. It works for lunch as well as dinner.

The Ends is for a group with mixed tastes. The menu is globally inspired and cross-cultural rather than built around one cuisine, so the fun is discovering what the kitchen is doing that week. On a long trip it keeps every dinner feeling different.

How to plan restaurant reservations in Scottsdale

Book the places you care most about. That matters most for popular dinner hours, tasting menus, special occasions and larger parties. A couple can improvise on a Tuesday. A table of eight or ten has far fewer options.

Then stop. On a five or six night stay, leave one or two evenings open. Somebody will hear about a place, the pool afternoon will run long, or the group will decide it wants to stay in. The strongest itineraries have structure without feeling rigid.

Match the dinner to the day. If you hiked at dawn and spent the afternoon in the water, the city's most formal room is the wrong choice that night. Two or three big dinners, a few casual meals, and space for whatever happens once you arrive.

• Romance: Cafe Monarch, then FnB for food-focused couples, The Mission for a livelier date
• Celebration groups: Maple & Ash for the big night, The Mission or Diego Pops for the loud one, Citizen Public House when you want polish without formality
• Families: Craft 64 and Diego Pops, or an early reservation at somewhere nicer
• Special occasion: Maple & Ash, Cafe Monarch, COURSE or Bourbon Steak, depending on the mood

Eating at the estate between reservations

A house gives you something a hotel room cannot: a real place to eat and gather between restaurant nights. Breakfast at the island. Snacks that stay out. A dinner where the whole group comes home afterward and keeps talking on the patio instead of splitting off to separate rooms.

Some nights you will not go out at all, and that is the point. Cooking once or twice at the house makes the restaurant nights feel like occasions. For a big group at Valley Vista, the kitchen and the outdoor dining area become part of the food story on their own.

Do not turn Scottsdale into a checklist. Have one serious dinner, then eat pizza. Try modern Mexican, then Mediterranean. Four or five restaurants on a long trip is plenty. The goal is to leave having eaten well, not having eaten everywhere.

Questions we get asked