Mole is relatively easy to come by in Phoenix, but it’s a hard dish to do well. Often dry or overpowering, few restaurants capture the true essence of the sauce. Where better to be blessed by proper mole than a restaurant dedicated to traditional Oaxacan cuisine? A blend of over twenty ingredients, mole includes dried chilies, nuts, and spices with just a hint of chocolate, resulting in a dark, velvety sauce that balances sweetness with subtle heat. The dish is served over a tender quarter chicken and a dollop of rice.

What is more Phoenix than eating a cactus? Nopales are typically associated with central and southern Mexico, where the nopal cactus grows abundantly, and have long been commonplace in Phoenix restaurants. Cactus paddles from the plant are scraped free of any thorns, grilled, and sliced into strips. At Los Reyes de la Torta, they can be served atop huaraches — a thick, oblong masa base topped with refried beans, cheese, and fresh toppings — or offered in a classic corn quesadilla dish. They make for a vegetarian-friendly option that perfectly embodies Arizona.

Chilaquiles are ubiquitous in Phoenix breakfast joints, but Otro Café’s version stands out. Helmed by Chef Doug Robson, Otro Café offers a taste of Mexico City-style cuisine in Arizona. Their baked tortillas are drenched in rich, homemade salsa — red, green, or both — and topped with Oaxacan cheese, cilantro, and two eggs, any style. It’s a worthy take on an infamous dish.

Mac and cheese is one of those dishes everyone claims to know who does it best. In Phoenix, look no further than Lux’s Valley-famous mac and cheese. Lux’s version has built a loyal following over the past fifteen years. Served in a charming teacup, the cheese is delicate and velvety, with just the right amount of richness to satisfy without overpowering. While proteins often get drowned in the cheese, adding chicken here takes the dish to a new level.

Valentine is a leader in innovating Sonoran cuisine, taking inspiration from both new and traditional desert cooking methods to create exciting dishes that expertly capture the identity of the Phoenix culinary scene. Perhaps no better example is their elote pasta. What’s more representative of Phoenix than a riff on a classic Italian dish combined with the flavors of Mexican street corn? The tagliarini pasta is made in-house with white Sonoran wheat and local eggs, and topped with a delicious goat cotija cheese from local Crows Dairy. The elements of the dish are familiar to any Phoenician’s palate, but the way in which Valentine brings together popular local flavors in a new way makes it worth returning to.

Grown in only two states, dates were once a pillar of Arizona’s economy, luring tourists to the Sonoran Desert with promises of palm trees and desert fruit. Vestiges of this now largely vanished culture linger, including the date shake at Sphinx. This family-owned gift shop (a retail outlet for Sphinx Date Ranch) specializes in Arizona-grown dates, sold by the bag, platter, or basket. But it’s the date milkshake, composed of nothing more than milk, ice cream, and sweet, sticky dates, that offers a unique taste of Arizona past and present.

The Sonora dog is perhaps Arizona’s staple with the most potential to stand as the state’s official dish, and El Caprichoso is serving up some of the best Sonoran dogs in the state. Originally created just south of the border in Hermosillo, Mexico, the Sonora dog has come to symbolize the unification of Mexican and American cultural ties, blending iconic elements of both countries’ cuisines in one dish. It can be dressed up however you like, but the most true-to-form version is a bacon-wrapped hot dog nestled in a soft split-top bolillo roll, loaded with beans, grilled onions, fresh tomatoes, guac, salsa, cotija cheese, ketchup, mayo, and mustard.

Casa Corazón honors traditional dishes by doing everything exactly right — from sourcing the best ingredients to plating every dish with flair. Originally hailing from Puebla and eaten on special occasions, this iconic dish consists of large poblano peppers stuffed with a sweet-savory picadillo of ground pork or shrimp, fruits like apples, pears, and prunes, and nuts. It’s then covered in a creamy walnut sauce infused with sherry and adorned with pomegranate seeds, creating a visually striking representation of the Mexican flag with its green, white, and red components. It’s essential to the Phoenix dining roster.

Bad Jimmy’s is the new kid on the block, but it’s burgers have quickly become an icon in the local food scene. James Piazza, the mind behind Bad Jimmy’s, is an expert at perfecting the nostalgia of a classic smash burger. He launched Bad Jimmy’s as a pop-up during the pandemic, and its popularity led to a permanent location in downtown Phoenix. Bad Jimmy’s is consistently good, thanks in large part to its two juicy patties made from K4 Ranch premium Arizona beef, topped with American cheese, griddled onions, pickles, and a “secret sauce” (a spin on Thousand Island, but a dang good one), all nestled in a Martin’s potato bun.

At his tiny pizzeria in Heritage Square, America’s best pizza maker Chris Bianco makes a half dozen splendid pies, but the standout is the Rosa. It’s a white pie, strewn with crushed pistachios,

Parmesan, rosemary, and red onion. This white pie is quintessentially Bianco: Strewn with crushed pistachios, Parmesan, rosemary, and red onion, it’s a genre-bending that nods to the flatbreads from which pizza evolved hundreds of years ago. It’s beautifully crusty and wondrously chewy.

It’s hard to get more “old-school Arizona” than a platter anchored by machaca — dried and rehydrated beef. The version at El Horseshoe restaurant has long been considered one of the most satisfying in town. At simple red tables in an unadorned room, diners tuck into what’s considered the best plates of machaca in town, alongside eggs, potatoes, or vegetables. Another great way to experience the shredded beef here is with rice and beans wrapped into a flour tortilla.

No list of essential Phoenix dishes would be complete without the humble cheese crisp. While there is some contention over its origins, it’s said to come out of southern Arizona sometime in the early 1900s. Phoenicians will vehemently claim it as an Arizona thing. It’s about as simple as a dish can be: essentially an open-face quesadilla consisting of a flour tortilla topped with various combos of Oaxaca, Monterey Jack, or Cheddar cheeses and heated until crispy. Pretty much any Mexican restaurant in the city offers a cheese crisp, but the one at Comedor Guadalajara offers an over 40-year-old legacy of Sonoran-style Mexican food in a setting that’s about as quintessential to an Arizona Mexican restaurant as it gets.

Hope and Aaron Peshlakai initially started selling fry bread to raise funds for a neighbor in need and for years were selling out of a cart off Power Road. One thing led to the next, and in 2022 they opened their current brick-and-mortar digs in the heart of Mesa. Frybread has deep cultural ties to Native American heritage, and for Hope, the ability to share her heritage and her food with the world is central to the business. While fry bread can be served with a medley of different toppings ranging from savory to sweet, the Navajo Taco is perhaps the most famous. Topped with chili beans, lettuce, cheese, tomato, onions, and salsa, the warm, fluffy fry bread makes for a perfect vessel for the mountain of toppings.