Phoenix eats like a border town with a farm attached: mesquite-grilled carne asada, Sonoran White wheat tortillas pressed since 1968, prickly pear in everything from sorbet to saison. Three days across markets, taquerías and desert-ingredient bars.
Arizona's largest year-round farmers market fills the church lot at 5757 N Central Avenue every Saturday, 8am–1pm from October to April and 7–11am in summer. Around 130 stalls sell desert honey, mesquite flour, citrus and sourdough.
A cinder-block kitchen in south Phoenix that has pressed paper-thin flour tortillas since 1968, turning out thousands a day. Order the green chile burro or the machaca plate; most items run $4–9 and the queue moves fast.
A Mexican supermarket with a full taquería, tortillería and panadería under one roof. Take a tray and tongs for conchas and orejas, then queue at the carnicería for marinated carne asada by the pound and aguas frescas by the jug.
The café anchoring Roosevelt Row cooks with Arizona-grown produce, bakes on Sonoran wheat and pours a beer list drawn entirely from Arizona breweries. The adjoining open-air market lot hosts growers on Saturday mornings from 8am.
A 1950s-style diner on 1st Street built on Schreiner's sausage, thick-cut Iowa pork chops and free-range eggs. The chop-and-eggs plate runs about $16–20. No reservations, and weekend waits hit 45 minutes after 9am.
Chris Bianco's brick-oven room in an 1890s Heritage Square bungalow won a James Beard award for pizza built on house-pulled mozzarella and Arizona-milled flour. The Rosa — red onion, Parmigiano, rosemary, pistachio — is the signature.
The downtown taproom of a brewery that malts Sonoran White wheat and Arizona barley and returns more water to the Verde River than it uses. Twenty-plus taps run to prickly pear and desert citrus beers; pints $7–9 on a shaded patio.
Silvana Salcido Esparza's 16th Street dining room serves interior Mexican cooking — cochinita pibil steamed in banana leaf, chiles en nogada in autumn, guacamole mashed tableside. Mains $18–32 and no bookings for parties under six.
A Chihuahua-style counter on McDowell where gorditas are hand-formed on the griddle and stuffed with chicharrón or deshebrada, served with a flight of six salsas. Breakfast burritos from $5, tacos around $3.25, card or cash.
Mesquite-grilled carne asada sold by the pound with a self-serve bar of grilled spring onions, radish, cucumber and half a dozen salsas. A pound with tortillas feeds two for about $20; order at the window and eat at picnic tables.
A retro soda fountain and sweet shop on North Central scooping small-batch ice cream — prickly pear sorbet, honey lavender, brown butter pecan — beside shelves of nostalgic penny candy. Scoops $5–7 and floats built at the counter.
Ross Simon's bar occupies the 1929 Luhrs Building, once the office that issued Arizona's post-Prohibition liquor licences. The menu is bound like a comic book, with roughly 20 drinks at $14–16 and Asian-leaning late-night snacks.