The 38 Essential Restaurants in Phoenix

"Shinbay’s multicourse omakase dinner makes for the kind of breathtaking evening diners think (and brag) about for months afterward. Priced starting at $185 (and worth every penny), Shinji Kurita’s menus highlight seafood, some of it hard to find and much of it imported from Japan. The meal progresses from a trio of traditional Japanese vegetable dishes to sashimi “salads” to a plate of seafood bites such as jellyfish, snow crab, oyster, or bluefin tuna belly. These are followed by custard-like chawanmushi, then sashimi, and finally, 10 courses of spectacular nigiri. The sake selection is also first-rate. Kurita never books more than eight customers per seating, so a two-hour meal is always serene and well-paced." - Nikki Buchanan, Chris Malloy