Compulsion

I am, much to my dismay, a sucker for a good streak.

No matter how much I tell myself I’m out of the game, I’ll always have to come back at least once a year to do the damn lists. It’s been 21 years. I can’t NOT do them.

But before that, let’s throw in a little bonus material for good measure.

The Bonus Material

I’d like to talk about The Ra Ra Room.

(Stick with me. I’m going somewhere with this.)

During a year when ultrafancy, unusually expensive, über-exclusive restaurants seized center stage in the Phoenix dining scene, no reservation book has inspired more arm-twisting, skullduggery and called-in favors than the one at The Ra Ra Room. Want to have some fun? Get a hold of the GM’s card and toss it in the air at a restaurant media event. Once they untangle the bodies, no fewer than half a dozen influencers and socialites will end up spending the night in the emergency room.

A savvy PR flack once told me that the secret to owning the Phoenix dining scene is perceived scarcity. I can’t imagine how he would have salivated over the opportunity to sell actual scarcity. This conversation was over a decade ago, but it’s no less true now than it was then. There are few things Phoenix loves more than a restaurant nobody can get into, and unless you have $15,000 to drop on an annual membership or happen to know somebody, you aren’t getting into the swanky Italian-American supper club hidden deep within the bowels of America West Arena US Airways Center Talking Stick Resort Arena Phoenix Suns Arena Footprint Center PHX Arena Mortgage Matchup Center.

But it sure helps when the folks helping you are a friendly, chill sort. What isn’t surprising is that the staff is great and the place is a hoot. A retro supper club with grand chandeliers and floral arrangements the size of privacy hedges in the basement of a concrete sports arena already feels like a wrinkle in spacetime, so a chatty, down-to-earth staff keeps it from feeling like New Year’s Eve at the Overlook.

Fried calamari is dynamite — crispy, tender rings canoodling with giant chunks of battered and fried chile peppers, all socked with a perky mix of seasoning and a slick chile beurre blanc for dipping. The tableside Caesar is all I want from a performative salad, crisp greens in a thick and sticky dressing with monstrous croutons and an avalanche of Parmesan snow. Six little pigs in a blanket — served with mustard and Russian dressing for dipping — are exactly what they are, exactly what you expect, and comically priced at $25. That same $25 can also get you a shrimp cocktail, though I’d recommend sticking with the piggies. The shrimp are plump but swimming in a bathtub of sauce that tastes less like cocktail sauce and more like unseasoned marinara, and the distinct lack of punch is a bizarre miss on a menu that trades in attitude.

I’m not sure shrimp scampi needed to be fancied up — butterflied and bathed in butter with a modest hint of garlic, in contrast to the sizzling stink bombs of checkerboard tablecloth fame. I understand the play for a bit of elegance and refinement, but it mostly feels like the dish left its personality at home. And the Roman artichokes are a flavorless face plant that any Roman worth his salt would immediately send back to the kitchen.

No such worries with Mario’s Meatballs. Baseball-sized, coarsely ground and sporting a hefty shot of heavily seasoned sausage, they’re a muscular, scrappy sort that punch like Jake LaMotta. If ours hadn’t been nearly raw at the core, they’d have been perfect. No technical issues with the veal parmigiana, however, which was just about the Platonic ideal of the form — a tender and crisply breaded chop the size and shape of the Millennium Falcon, doused with marinara and cheese and a bit of crisp fried basil to gild the lily. And Carbone’s signature spicy rigatoni vodka might’ve been a little on the soft side for my tastes, but the sauce packs a punch, and I’m throwing no shade when I say I’d swear there’s some kind of processed cheese in there. The sauce has a kind of telltale sticky richness that is very un-Italian and entirely welcome. I’d love to see what goes into it.

Churros are surprisingly great and an ice cream sundae is an ice cream sundae, and after a few drinks, our quartet walks out the door having dropped close to $800.

Will I go again? I can’t. Would I go again? Sure, I guess. I get awfully sore about that many botched dishes at $200/head, but it’s a fun joint and the dishes that hit would be enough to bring me back, if only on rare occasion and only if I felt it could be more consistent on a night that wasn’t so weirdly quiet. But even if you could get in, I don’t know that I’d be in a hurry to recommend it, exactly. What’s good is undeniably good. I’m still thinking about that veal parmesan. But like so many of its fancy, expensive new contemporaries, “good” isn’t good enough at that price point. You probably didn’t need me to tell you this, but The Ra Ra Room’s primary value is not as a culinary destination, but as a status symbol.

Which brings us to what I really want to talk about.

State of the Union

What the hell are we doing, people?

I moved to Phoenix in 2010, and from an artistry standpoint, I think 2025 is the most depressing year I’ve ever witnessed on the Phoenix restaurant scene, and I include 2020 in that calculation.

2025 is the year that everything in Phoenix got big, dumb and expensive. How in the everloving fuck did $300 caviar bumps become a white hot menu item the same year most people can barely afford groceries? Are y’all just pining for the guillotine over there in Scottsdale? I have never seen so much capital thrown at so many restaurants with opulent dining rooms and unambitious, mediocre menus that are still somehow jam-packed with people who seem to have infinite money to spend and no taste to guide that spending. Lord knows I’m not anti-fine dining by any stretch of the imagination, but most of these places aren’t fine dining. They’re parties with gilded snacks. They’re shiny excuses for PV scenesters with no palates to drop coin. If you set aside the private club schtick, The Ra Ra Room — with its elegant atmosphere and hit-and-miss menu — is actually one of the best of these new additions. But most of them are just straight-up sucker bets. It’s like the K-shaped economy and influencer culture have joined forces to bring us the worst of both worlds — poorly executed food and sky-high prices.

Worse, the middle class of the restaurant world — much like the middle class of America — is being eaten alive. The fiery, creative indies and comforting Mom and Pop joints that make up the heart and soul of any good dining scene are dying. Closures don’t seem to be markedly higher than previous years, but meaningful openings have slowed to a trickle and half of the places that are hanging on might as well be dead. The number of times I’ve walked into an old stalwart this year only to have a really disappointing meal at 150% of the price is downright depressing. And no wonder. Most folks can no longer afford them, and the folks who can would apparently rather down some $40 martinis and a $250 tomahawk and call it a night. I’d have a hard time putting my best out there day after day under those circumstances, too.

Meanwhile, social media is stacked floor to ceiling with casual diners complaining that their favorite fast food chain isn’t as good as it used to be, while conveniently continuing to ignore the dynamite immigrant restaurants that are now the same price or cheaper than their value meal. They used to tell me they didn’t go to the restaurants I recommended because the extra $3-4 was too expensive. Turns out the truth is that they just prefer fast food.

It was big news a couple of weeks ago when Michelin announced they’d be covering Phoenix for the first time ever. Popular sentiment seems to be that the Valley is finally going to get the recognition it deserves. Folks, real talk here, if you’re among those who are looking forward to watching Michelin stars light up Phoenix like a Christmas tree, I would strongly advise you to start moderating your expectations now. We’ll see what happens, and I hope I’m wrong, but my suspicion is that a lot of people are going to be very, very disappointed. 

Believe you me, I would much prefer to write an unbridled celebration of a gloriously delicious year gone by, but when I think back on 2025 in the Phoenix dining scene, things are bleak, you guys. Celebrations over the well-deserved back-to-back James Beard wins for Bacanora and Lom Wong have obscured the fact that there’s nobody on the bench ready to tag in. The talent is there. Phoenix has always been home to some tremendously talented chefs, and that hasn’t suddenly changed. (Though the number that have understandably ditched the line to cook private dinners, staff call centers and protect desert tortoises have thinned the ranks a bit.) But even folks who I *know* are capable of doing tremendous work are fighting just to keep their shit together. Which isn’t to say that everything is crap — see below — but if a city’s restaurant scene is an ecosystem, this ecosystem is breaking down. Between fast food's hegemony, caviar chic and the public's baffling decision to get their restaurant recommendations directly from advertisers poorly disguised as citizen journalists, big money is devouring everything else in the pond. And for the first time in 15 years, I feel completely powerless to do anything about it.

So I'm cocooning. Where Phoenix is concerned, I’m going back to where I first started circa 2004: writing for myself whenever I feel like it and never when I don’t. Anybody else is welcome to read along.

And there is nothing I write more for myself than the yearly deliciousness.

The Deliciousness of 2025

The deliciousness, it confounds me to say, has officially entered its third decade.

This is the twenty-first year that I have compiled a detailed list of my favorite bites of the year, and the same rules as always apply.

These are not necessarily the best dishes I had this year, nor the most creative, nor the most interesting, nor the most technically proficient, nor the most unique, though any or all of the above might be true. They are, quite simply, the dishes that have jammed themselves deep in my cortex and that I feel fortunate to have experienced for the first time over the course of the year.

And so, without further ado, presented — per tradition — in order determined by random.org, the Deliciousness of 2025:

Pastrami Pork Jowl

The Larder + The Delta

This edition of Something to Doux has been nice and uplifting, so why spoil the mood? Sadly, my memory of Stephen Jones’ pastrami pork jowl has lasted longer than the third iteration of his restaurant. Look, I know my penchant for pork fat — particularly the cheeks — might be showing here, but this bite was so freaking good. Huge fat, silky texture, a pungent but gorgeously balanced pastrami spice, splashed with 1000 island jus and rye mustard mixed with a bit of mirepoix that displayed some brilliant knifework, and a grounding little dab of sweet parsnip puree. It was all the succulence and spice of a killer pastrami sandwich distilled down into one incredibly potent bite.

Ma Po Tofu with Pork Clay Pot

Old Town Taste

The Deliciousness generally only includes dishes I try for the first time, but I’m making an exception for the ma po tofu at Old Town Taste because this is NOT the dish they were serving a couple of years ago when I last had it. OTT has been on fire lately, but that goes triply for this dish, one of the best iterations of ma po tofu I’ve had the pleasure of sampling. Ma Po Tofu is like an Italian Sunday gravy — a very pure, personal expression of the cook, and there are as many versions out there as there are cooks who make it. This one spoke to me, thick and rich, heavy on the pork, sporting a nice mala buzz but deeply layered with ginger and fermented black bean. This is comfort food right here.

Pork Tomahawk Schnitzel

Hush Public House

When I talk about old stalwart restaurants that have lost their luster, I am quite emphatically not speaking about Hush Public House. Dom Ruggiero’s OG joint has had a few ups and downs over the years, same as anybody, but right now they’re slaying at peak efficiency, which is a marked and welcome contrast to what I see happening around town. Case in point? The schnitzel. Beautifully seasoned, delicate crumb encasing a juicy slab of pork sauced with a concoction of demi, mustard, onions and — if I’m correct — minced cornichon, with a little frisee salad and apple butter to cut the richness. It ain’t rocket science, baby. It’s execution.

Caraflex Cabbage

FnB

Ho-hum, Charleen works wonders with vegetables... again. I’m genuinely unsure whether she’s picking up the national trend or setting it in this case, but I’m never going to say no to caraflex, tender and sweet with a bit of char. (And a bit of Char.) Whipped, creamy goat cheese and marinated chickpeas are a natural pair, but to me the stroke of genius here is the salami chips — salty and tart and so crisp they shatter, adding the perfect little exclamation point to the whole situation.

Naem Khao Tawt

Lom Wong

Sunny and Alex, once again answering calls in the wish fulfillment department. First they opened the Thai restaurant I’d been dreaming about for a decade. Then, at long last, they added my personal favorite Thai dish to the menu. Naem Khao Tawt is a bright and pungent salad built on sour fermented pork sausage and curried rice croquettes that are fried to a crisp and shattered into crunchy little pieces. As wild as the flavors are, the textures are even wilder, and I think the note in my spreadsheet pretty much says it all: “LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE.”

Pickled French Fries

Shift

Okay, look, I know I’m at least a decade late to the party here, but the Year of Our Lord Twenty Twenty-Five is when I finally had a chance to try pickled fries, and it happened to be at Shift, and they were so good we ordered a second round for dessert. If you are somehow even further behind the curve on this than I am, they’re exactly what they sound like — potatoes that have been saturated with pickle brine for a couple of days before hitting hot oil, resulting in crispy fries that boast a tart pickle pucker. It is probably for the best that these are a two-hour drive away.

Marrow Burger

La Hamburguesa

Burger and fries are a little on the nose, I know, but look... La Hamburguesa lives up to the hype. I’ve not yet had the pleasure of visiting the truck, but I did manage to catch a pop-up at Chilte that featured this slick little monster — two wagyu smash patties plied with the requisite veg, melted onions and truffle aioli. A friend once insisted that we have solved the cheeseburger. He said there are no more mysteries left to unlock, and for anyone who wants to make an outstanding cheeseburger, the information is all out there and readily accessible. Generally, I’d agree. But a specimen like this makes me think that maaaaaaaaaybe we haven’t *quite* reached Peak Burger just yet.

Lamb Spaghetti

Ethiopian Famous Restaurant

This is the kind of dish that seems a little bizarre until you remember that — oh yeah! — Italy colonized Ethiopia for five years in the 1930s. Effectively lamb mandi with spaghetti in place of the rice, this dish is so perfect. The meat is juicy and gamey and sizzled to a crisp, the pasta sauce is a tomato base but with some funky East African spices going on, the yogurt adds a little bit of cooling contrast, and even the spaghetti itself is actually cooked al dente. The only thing I don’t love about this dish is that they have inexplicably stopped serving it, saying they don’t have any spaghetti on my last few visits. If this keeps up, I’m going to start bringing a box with me.

Machaca Burrito

Amelia's Mexican Kitchen —  Tucson

I wish I could say the rest of my meal at Amelia’s was up to the same standard, but this machaca burrito was a knockout. Stuffed with scrambled eggs, pico, potatoes and cheese, it nailed the machaca texture test, nice and dry and chewy rather than rehydrated mush. That’s a damn fine tortilla to boot, and the green poblano sauce — whoa man, this stuff is intense, creamy and rich with fresh green chile flavor that drops like a hammer. The menu will say the poblano sauce is optional, but it is very, very much mandatory.

Hatch Chile Chopped Cheese

Underbelly

It’s a weirdly meaty deliciousness this year, isn’t it? (Ah, just wait for the distant deliciousness.) Though it’s going to hurt him a bit to hear me say this, since from a business standpoint he’d really rather you come in to buy some meat, Dustin Dahlin’s sandwiches at Underbelly are some of the best in town. Chopped cheese seems to be having a moment, and while I don’t want to call this version “elevated,” exactly, let’s just say that it brings a level of quality and care and insane, goopy, beefy intensity that’s a whole lot more exacting than your standard issue corner bodega sandwich. Of all the meaty sandwiches I had at Underbelly this year — and I had quite a few — this was probably my favorite.

Distant Deliciousness of 2025

I spent a lot of time traveling in 2025. A lot. So in a mild break with tradition, I’m going to expand the distant deliciousness to ten dishes this year. In truth, I could’ve easily picked twenty.

Grilled Fugu Shirako

Tanimoto —  Tokyo

Yes, this is that fish. And yes, this is that part of that fish — the part translated as “milt” or “sperm,” but more accurately a reproductive organ that...... you know what? In my experience, either you’re in or you’re out, and no amount of explanation is going to change that. I am emphatically *IN*. This was so wonderful. First grilled over coals, then paired with steamed lotus root, loaded into a hollowed-out yuzu and warmed again over the fire, resulting in a creamy, smoky mix with a citrusy scent that was rich and gentle and so flipping delicious.

Yakimiso

Tamawarai — Tokyo

I am a little embarrassed that my favorite dish at one of the most famous soba restaurants in Tokyo was a smear of miso. That’s it. Sweet white miso mixed with a small amount of minced veg and green onion, spread on a metal plate and charred. And it was a revelation. The depth of flavors, the contrast of the sweetness and char, the crazy wild textures going on not just with the veg but within the miso itself. It’s one thing to know that there are all kids of crazy specialized artisanal miso out there. It’s another to really dig into the depths of one of them as it shares the spotlight with nothing. Wow.

Grilled Unagi

Ebisu Endo — Tokyo

That dumb little piece of freshwater eel contained so much joy. The dips are a bit of sansho, salt, and wasabi. That’s not what made it special. And the meat and the glaze were what you would expect from a first-rate sushi restaurant, but that’s not what made it special. What made it special was what made the gentleman from Argentina on my left exclaim, “CHICHARRONES!” when Endou-san cut into it and it let out a resounding CRUNCH. The skin on this thing was incredible — a little fatty, a little smoky, and impossibly crisp, like a thinner version of the best damn pork rind of your life. Bonus: Led to a great discussion with the chef about the difference between “crispy” and “crunchy.”

Truffle Sukiyaki

Yoroniku Ebisu — Tokyo

Dinner at the yakiniku temples of Tokyo are endless parades of premium beef, and ordinarily I’d say choosing a favorite is a fool’s quest, but this meal was an exception. I know precisely which piece of beef was my favorite. It was the one briefly swished in a sweet soy broth, transferred to a bowl with egg yolk and a stupid amount of killer black truffle, and then whisked until the yolk was frothy and the truffle surrendered every last bit of its essence. I have had VERY few truffles in my life that were this good, and I’ll remember this one for a good long while.

Osaka-Modan Okonomiyaki

Imari Okonomiyaki Ebisu — Tokyo

Y’all know how desperately I fight to avoid using the word “best,” but suffice it to say that this Osaka-style okonomiyaki is now the yardstick by which I measure all others. You know what the secret is, apparently? Time. Nooooo rush. The fellas at Imari spread out the batter-soaked cabbage on the teppan and let that cook for a good long while. Then they add noodles, flip it, and let it sit even longer. Then they drape it with thinly sliced bacon, flip it again, and let it sit even longer. By the time they baste it with okonomiyaki sauce and mayonnaise and slide it over to your seat, it has spent no less than 20 minutes on the flattop, slowly warming and crisping, the cabbage gently melting, the noodles turning dark golden and crunchy, the bacon becoming a thin, impossibly crisp layer that runs through the whole thing. Time and patience.

Smelt and Lily Root Nanbanzuke

Kinboshi — Tokyo

I’ve always had a soft spot for nanbanzuke, in no small part because it reminds me of my beloved Venetian sarde in saor. But this Shibuya izakaya served up a spin on the dish that slayed me. Their fish of choice was a little school of smelt, battered and fried and edible head to tail, paired with nutty lily buds and marinated in a sweet vinegar just a little bit spicy and so light and smooth that I was tempted to pick it up and drink it down before surrendering the plate to the dish pit.

Grilled Hogget Rump

Mambow - London

Can we please get another Malaysian restaurant here in Phoenix ASAP? Man, dinner at Mambow in London was one banger after another after another. And picking a favorite is basically impossible, but I’ll go with the hogget rump, in no small part because it is easily the most fun dish to say. Hogget, for the uninitiated, is somewhere between lamb and mutton, a little mature and gamey but not quite so aggressive as the elder meat. And this meat was so juicy and perfectly grilled that that alone would have earned it a spot on my list, but add a splash of ghee and set it on a deep and complex Malaysian curry and I’m smitten.

Special Scallop and Kelp Water Tsukemen

Tokyo Style Noodle Hotate Biyori — Tokyo

I had to line up at 8:20 AM, get a ticket at 9:00, return at 1:00, wait in line until 1:20, buy my noodle ticket, get back in line again, and finally sit down to eat around 1:35. And it was SO worth it. This isn’t a favorite for the year. This is a favorite for the decade. I am simply blown away by this tsukemen — thick, chewy noodles served in a viscous, almost slimy kelp water with a rich but subtle umami base that tastes faintly of the sea. Hell, I’d eat them on their own, but first you can try them with a little bit of salt or yuzu juice. Then you can try them with a chunk of scallop sashimi. Then you can dip them in a complex scallop-based seafood broth and slurp and slurp and slurp until they’re all gone and you’re tempted to get right back in line again. Mind blown.

Capelli di Mago

Giant — Chicago

“Capelli di Mago” translates to Magician’s Hat — one of the more colorful pasta names — and there is, indeed, some kind of sorcery going on here. They don’t look like much, but holy crap, the flavor in these explosive little morsels. Perfect fresh pasta with killer bite wrapped around a mix of ground rabbit, polenta and foie gras, sauced with a chicken stock reduction infused with a little orange zest to poke right through that richness, and I’m just floored. One of the most mature, thoughtful and precise pasta dishes I’ve had in a long time.

Tempura Ayu

Ginza Kitagawa — Tokyo

In contrast with more formalized kaiseki cuisine, kappo ryori tends to be a more casual, creative affair where interaction with the chef as they cook your meal is an integral part of the experience. And when chef is a bit of a creative goofball, you get gems like this — crispy tempura-fried sweetfish with a little Western flair, topped with caviar and set in a fresh yogurt sauce with cucumber, tomato and dill. A bit of Japan, a bit of Greece, and a bit of good ol’ fine dining decadence, all coming together to make one hell of a bite.

Bonus Deliciousness

And yeah, 15 (or 20) is never enough. Here are ten more, split between Arizona and Beyond Arizona.

Rich Tsukemen

Dogenzaka Mammoth — Tokyo

Ginger-Lemongrass Branzino

Chula Seafood Greyhawk

Neo Green Curry

Japanese Spice Curry Wacca — Tokyo

Kawahagi Nigiri

Akira Sushi — Tokyo

La Schiacciata

Double Zero Pie & Pub — Las Vegas

Porchetta Style Rabbit

First & Last

The Danny

MB Foodhouse

YulMoo Naeng Myun

The Stone Korean Tofu House

Squash Tamal

Casa Playa

Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes

Hillstone

Naming The Band

And, at long last, it is time once again for the only year-end list that matters.

The rules are as always: food band names must be phrases that are naturally uttered in the course of conversation while discussing food in my presence during the course of the year.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Food Band Names of 2025:

Things a-Brewin'

Astute observers may notice that I’m spending an awful lot of time in Japan lately. That is no accident, and yes, I have something brewing. Not ready to blow the top off just yet, but I’m shooting for a public unveiling this summer with a launch by the end of the year. Whenever it happens, you’ll hear about it here.