I was in Phoenix a few months ago for the Les Dames d’Escoffier International annual conference. It’s always a busy event, so we went a day early to explore the host city and experience some truly great places to eat before we got down to business. The Phoenix LDEI chapter organized some exciting excursions, and they all looked like fun (but we each only had time for one). Also, I do love a desert hike, but there was no time for that!
So, I think another trip to Phoenix is in order. Here’s what I’ll be doing when I go back .
Foodwise
The Fry Bread House (4545 N. 7th Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85013)
This little café specializing in Native American food is a James Beard Classics winner and multiple “Best of Phoenix” winner. Fresh off the plane, we went here for lunch and sampled pillowy fry bread stuffed with meats, beans, cheese and lettuce.
Several of us got the day’s special of carnitas in that amazing fry bread. The most popular dish—the combo with beef (spiced to your liking), beans, cheese and lettuce—also was delicious. The place is small and cozy with indoor seating surrounded by native art and empowerment posters and outdoor seating at picnic tables in a small cactus garden.
There was a woman selling jewelry there, too, and some of us bought her handmade items including traditional bracelets made with ghost beads and earrings made from luminous abalone shells. Perfect souvenirs!
Mr. Baan’s Bar and Mookata (218 E. Portland St. Phoenix, AZ 85004)
There are not too many places in the country where you cook your own barbecue around a moat of broth to create your own hot pot. Actually, there are exactly three, and we went to one of them for dinner! Mr. Baan’s was recently named one of the best restaurants in the entire country (and the only one in Arizona to make that cut) by the New York Times.
Mr. Baan’s specializes in charcoal-grilled Thai barbecue. “Mookata” translates to “pork on a grill” and is a cook-it-yourself barbecuing experience. It consists of a domed grill surrounded by a moat of broth, which is enriched by the drippings of the cooking meat. A mookata set comes with various marinated meats (steak, chicken, pork), rice noodles, fresh vegetables (cabbage, peppers, onions, enoki mushrooms), eggs and dipping sauces.
We started our culinary adventure in the bar with inventive cocktails infused with the flavors of Thai foods. My favorite: the Ooey and Tooey with tequila, coriander, cucumber, lime, fish sauce and Thai chili tincture. The Madam Madam (with vodka, lemongrass, lemon, lychee and soda) also was delicious. Then we went to our table on the patio where we got a short tutorial about how to do this thing (including punching holes in raw eggs with chopsticks to incorporate scrambled eggs into the broth).
In celebration of Dame Dulce Rivera’s birthday, they brought us a round of orchid-topped, coconut-scented Thai shots to toast her.
The night was beautiful, the space was lovely with fresh desert air and festive lighting, and our DIY hot pots were filled with exactly what we wanted and spiced individually with two amazing sauces.
It was a memorable and totally new way to celebrate our time together.
Cocina 10 at Crescent Ballroom (308 N. 2nd Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85003)
We made our way to this restaurant and ballroom music venue in a 1917 garage because we wanted Sonoran food. Cocina 10 serves Arizona cooking made from traditional recipes inspired by life along I-10 and the people and places that surround it. There are tons of vegetarian and vegan options, too. We ate outside at a big picnic table and loved the locally famous, bacon-wrapped Sonoran hotdogs and $5 barbacoa tacos. We also enjoyed several of the Tajin-rimmed house margaritas; the crispy, chip-like fries; and every taco we tasted. A bonus: There was a free vintage clothing and vinyl night market going on in the ballroom the evening we visited!
Chilte (765 Grand Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85007)
We have the algorithm gods to thank for this culinary outing—and fellow Birmingahm Dame Lindsey Noto-King.
Lindsey saw on Instagram that Chef Lawrence “LT” Smith had just been named a Food & Wine Best New Chef, so she DM’d the former-football-player-turned-chef and asked for a last-minute table. Chef LT was in New York helping reimagine Taco Bell’s Crunchwrap Supreme, but his amazing team—Front of House Lead Erin Stamps and Operating Partner Chris Benitez—invited us right in and took exceptional care of us.
The food at Chilte—located in the retro Egyptian Motor Hotel—is wildly delicious and insanely inventive. Mexican at its heart with global reach (yuca frites with furikake, fried sweet plantains with za’atar), the underlying authenticity of the menu made fellow Birmingham Dames Cristina Almanza and Dulce Rivera homesick for Mexico. The place is named for the spicy native chiltepin chiles that end up in a lot of the dishes here.
We started with Palomas (reposado tequila, maleza cempasuchil, grapefruit, yuzu, hibiscus and pink peppercorn syrup with a black-pepper-and-salt garnish the length of our tall glasses) and ended with espresso-infused carajillos. And there were shots of sotol (made from dasylirion, a desert succulent) in between. We sampled the quesa birria tacos with squid ink corn tortillas and miso consommé, cucumbers dressed in a sweet and spicy salsa macha, mussels and escabeche, classic green aquachile with wild shrimp from Mexico, flautas with deep and rich mole, and green chorizo vampiro (a marrow bone topped with green-chile chorizo over a tortilla caramelized with queso and salsa macha). We unabashedly passed the Smashy Burger with homemade spicy chayote pickles from hand to hand around the table. We also all enjoyed the MSG (chef’s choice of meat, sauce and garnish), a large-format dish that changes frequently but was dry-aged Duroc pork tomahawk when we visited.
If it sounds like we tried one of everything, I believe we did.
We ended the meal with a rich slice of pan de elote cheesecake, topped with fresh flowers and garnished with salsa macha, and some incredible chocolate something (I had stopped taking notes by then) with habanero ice cream.
It all was, in a word, amazing.
(Since I wrote this, Chef LT was nominated for a James Beard Award in the Emerging Chef category, and Chilte was named one of The 24 Best New Restaurants of 2023 by Bon Appetit.. You’ll want to go here … if you can get in.)
Lodging
We stayed at the stunningly beautiful Wigwam Resort for the conference, but this made every trip to dinner a 30-minute car ride each way! And that Phoenix traffic is truly beyond description if I don’t use curse words. If you or your partner love to golf, absolutely go to the Wigwam. But when I go back, I’m planning to stay at a place downtown so I’m closer to the restaurants.
To-Dos
As far as things to do and see, I’m taking a cue from the locals. Some of the excursions organized and offered by the Phoenix chapter of LDEI will inform my next trip out west. Also, I’m packing my hiking boots (Salomon’s X Ultra Mid Gore-Tex, which I highly recommend).
Here’s what I plan to do:
Desert Botanical Garden (1201 N. Galvin Parkway, Phoenix, AZ 85008)
This colorful celebration of the Sonoran Desert spans 140 acres and features more than 50,000 plants displays with more than 99,000 herbarium species, 4,482 species in the Living Collections and more than 544 rare and endangered species. The Garden has nature paths, hiking trails and is dedicated to the conservation and research and exhibition of desert plants.
Heard Museum (2301 N. Central Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85004)
This museum, founded in 1929 and committed to the advancement of American Indian art and the artists who make it, spotlights traditional as well as contemporary artwork. There’s beadwork, baskets, pottery, prints, fashion, jewelry and paintings here. The Heard Museum has 12 galleries featuring American Indian art and exhibitions, an outdoor sculpture gallery, a world-class museum shop (supporting local working artists) and an outdoor café.
The desert surrounding Phoenix beckons me on a really deep level, and I especially love to hike. The Phoenix Sonoran Preserve with its variety of cacti over 9,600 acres might be my first outing.Located north of the city, the newest area in Phoenix’s famed Sonoran Desert preserve system features 36 miles of trails in the wild, mostly undeveloped desert.
South Mountain Park and Preserve has petroglyphs. I love petroglyphs! So much! The Holbert Trail is considered the best one for this, but it is a difficult trail I’ll need to train for.
The two-mile Waterfall Trail in the White Tank Mountain Regional Park sounds easier and has ancient petroglyphs, too.
This is enough to fill a full long weekend. I can’t wait to go back.
savor 