Kai Might Still Be the Best Restaurant in Arizona
There have always been trendy new restaurants around town, but Kai has always been known as the very best. It’s also the only highest-end Native American place I’m aware of, serving a tasting menu with bison, heirloom grains, and a desert topped with Saguaro and wolfberry foam. The only thing keeping Kai from the top of all the local best lists (IMO) is its relative anonymity, tucked in the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass, and its ever-changing head chefs. We’re on a fairly new one now, but the restaurant still seems to be good as ever.
Where: South of Ahwatukee, inside the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass
Website: kairestaurant.com
Reservations: OpenTable
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Despite the drastic high temperatures of Phoenix summers, it’s always sunset season in the Valley. That means you can enjoy some of the most gorgeous views of our desert oasis from the climate-controlled comfort of a posh dining room. Talk about an elevated dining experience (had to say it once).
That’s not to say springtime isn’t a particularly perfect time of year to dine before the stunning scene of a Sonoran landscape or a sunset. And since it’s about that time, here are 10 restaurants in greater Phoenix with a view to match the menu.
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Chef Drew Anderson uses Sonoran desert ingredients for his menu. Kai's four-course menu includes dishes such as Celebration of Arizona Mushrooms, made with wheat berry and black garlic risotto, parsnip and apple puree, fungi and herb tea.
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Those wishing to experience the finest of what the Sonoran Desert has to offer — the native saguaro fruit wolfberries, the tepary beans and wild sumac — would be wise to throw down for an upscale evening at Kai Restaurant. For roughly two decades, Kai has taken the best of what the Gila River Community can grow and forage (the tribe owns the restaurant, which is on its grounds) and put those quintessential Sonoran ingredients through global, fine-dining filters. Dishes have included cactus key lime pie, buffalo steak with saguaro syrup, posole with Ramona Farms corn, wolfberry vinegar, chiltepin froth, and a circus of beautiful desert ingredients carried to new places.
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