These 7 Scottsdale restaurants are utterly essential: Fine dining to Italian

Every year, the features team at The Arizona Republic releases a list of the 100 essential restaurants we can't live without. The 2025 list spans the entire Valley, with favorites in all four directions. There were so many options that we decided to focus on one city's worth of delicious spots to make culinary exploration even easier.

Seven Scottsdale restaurants made our essentials list, including a fine dining celebrity-owned eatery that was named one of USA Today's 2025 Restaurants of the Year. From a cozy Italian market to a luxurious Iranian restaurant, here are seven essential restaurants in Scottsdale.

Andreoli Italian Grocer 

When you walk into Andreoli’s you instantly feel transported to someone’s home with its low lighting, distressed wooden tables and chairs and family photos adorning the walls.  

The food also makes you feel as though you’re having dinner with family or a friend’s family with irresistible Italian dishes like fusilli with pork rib meat that melts in your mouth or, my favorite, the gnocchi alla corsara — homemade potato dumplings sauteed with tomato, pesto and cream.  

I never skip a trip to the dessert counter to grab something sweet to take home.  

— Meredith G. White 

Beginner’s Luck 

This Old Town Scottsdale restaurant keeps bringing me back for brunch. I know, I know. They serve dinner too, and judging by the brunch, it’s probably lovely, but I’m hooked on the breakfast dishes like the massive yet light French toast and the Lucky 7 cereal bowl — an earthenware bowl half filled with chia pudding and half with blue corn grits sprinkled with coconut-pecan granola, corn flour, blue agave syrup and a mix of blueberries and raspberries.

— Bahar Anooshahr

DeFalco’s Italian Grocery 

Have you ever been to a restaurant where you feel like you’ve tried everything on the menu at least once, yet every visit is a new adventure for your taste buds? That’s how I feel when I eat at DeFalco’s. Very rarely will I order the same thing twice; I’ll go for pizza on one visit and the homemade sausage sandwich the next. On another, one of their limited specials — a chicken alla vodka sandwich that was enticing enough for me to order it instead of the cheesesteak I was craving. I'm always surprised by the versatility of this family-owned Scottsdale institution, with a menu based on family recipes passed down for a century. Even more surprising? Every meal I’ve eaten here has been excellent. 

— Michael Salerno 

Course  

Aesthetics, surprising flavors and a hint of playfulness are what this fine dining restaurant is all about. As the name implies, menus are offered as five courses on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday; 10 courses on Friday and Saturday; or, my favorite, as a themed brunch on Sundays. No matter which option you choose, you can expect a culinary journey through stunning plates that push the boundaries of flavor and texture.   

— Bahar Anooshahr 

Paradise Valley Burger Co.  

While I love a good, classic burger without all the frills, the unique burger offerings at Paradise Valley Burger Co. keep me coming back again and again.   

While they’re famous for their sweet-savory brulee burger that’s topped with Havarti cheese, an over easy egg, pickled onions, 1000 island dressing and burnt sugar, my favorite thing to do is choose a limited-time burger off the rotating menu.  

If none of those strike my fancy, the fritter burger made with corn muffin fritter, blueberry and habanero preserves and bacon fat guac is my fallback plan. And while their fry options are killer, I can't resist the onion rings seasoned with a chorizo spice dry rub and topped with crispy rosemary and jalapeño hot honey.  

— Meredith G. White 

Persian Room  

When my husband and I are feeling too lazy to cook but crave excellent renditions of traditional Iranian foods, we go to the Persian Room for stews like herbaceous gormeh sabzi and hearty lentil gheimeh or labor-intensive appetizers like rich eggplant kashk bademjan. They make nearly the entire canon of polo, too — rice dishes studded with lentils and dates, sour cherries, candied carrots and pistachios, tangy barberries or simply tinged yellow with saffron and topped with butter. The grilled skewers of chicken jujeh, minced beef koobideh and tender steak sultani are expertly prepared as well. It's an incredibly homestyle spread, served in an over-the-top, gilded dining room.  

— Felicia Campbell 

FnB 

Momo, a Nepalese dumpling, is a dish served at FnB Restaurant in Scottsdale.

If you love vegetables, FnB is an ode to unusual Arizona produce paired with wines from co-owner Pavle Milic's namesake vineyard. Not a fan of veggies? Chef and co-owner Charleen Badman, the James Beard Award winner for “Best Chef — Southwest” in 2019 will change your mind with inventive dishes like cucumbers, i’itoi onion, tahini and sesame. It's a surprising and uniquely Arizonan fine dining experience.

— Bahar Anooshahr