Arizona Steakhouses | SteakMap

The Best Steakhouses in Arizona

Arizona has 47 steakhouses across 14 towns, and the distribution is unusual: Scottsdale holds 15 — more than Phoenix’s 9, despite being a tenth of the size. Tucson and Chandler have five each.

Arizona also has the two most theatrical steakhouses in this directory. One cuts your tie off. The other has a slide.

The Arizona Ten

1. Steak 44 (Phoenix) — the sibling of Steak 48, master-butchered beef and an 1,800-degree broiler. The best conventional steakhouse in the state.
2. Talavera (Scottsdale) — at the Four Seasons in Troon North, looking out at Pinnacle Peak the mountain rather than the restaurant. The most beautiful setting on this list.
3. Pinnacle Peak (Tucson) — in Trail Dust Town. Wear a necktie and the staff will cut it off, date it, and hang it from the ceiling. More below.
4. Rustler’s Rooste (Phoenix) — family-run since 1971 on top of South Mountain, with a tin slide into the dining room and rattlesnake on the menu. Also below.
5. Roka Akor (Scottsdale) — robata grilling and Japanese beef, and the least Arizonan room here in the best way.
6. Buck & Rider (Phoenix) — better known for seafood, which is exactly why the steaks are worth ordering.
7. Maple & Ash (Scottsdale) — the Chicago original transplanted, wood fire and a famously loud dining room.
8. Charro Steak & del Rey (Tucson) — mesquite-grilled Sonoran-style steak from the family behind El Charro, and the most distinctly Arizonan cooking in the state.
9. Wren & Wolf (Phoenix) — the newer, design-forward downtown entry.
10. Zenith Steakhouse (Flagstaff) — at 7,000 feet in the pines, and the only serious steak in northern Arizona.

They will cut off your tie

Pinnacle Peak in Tucson has a No Ties policy, and it is not a dress code. If you walk in wearing a necktie, the staff cut it off, write the date on it, and hang it from the ceiling with all the others.

The tradition started the year the restaurant opened, as a deliberate way of thumbing a nose at anyone who turned up in a suit expecting a formal room. It is a cowboy steakhouse in a western-themed town, and the point was always that you should be comfortable.

It is still running. In 2019 the owner estimated they were cutting at least 100 ties a week, and the ceiling is now a dense, dated archive of other people’s neckwear going back decades.

And the one with the slide

Rustler’s Rooste sits on top of South Mountain looking down over the whole Valley of the Sun, and has been family-run since 1971. Guests reach the lower dining room by tin slide.

The house story is that back when the place was a small cabin, the slide was an escape route from bounty hunters. Whether you believe that or not, it is still there and people still use it.

They also serve rattlesnake, deep-fried. In the interest of accuracy: the snakes come from the annual roundup in Sweetwater, Texas, not from the mountain outside.

The rest of the state

Scottsdale carries the volume: JG Steakhouse, Frasher’s, Toca Madera, Shiv Supper Club and two Bourbon & Bones rooms, with more in Gilbert and Peoria. Elsewhere: Arrowhead Grill in Glendale, Elliott’s and Chop in Chandler, The White Horse in Cottonwood, and Julieanna’s down in Yuma.

The national chains

Eleven, and Scottsdale holds six of them on its own — including three separate Mastro’s: Mastro’s Steakhouse, Mastro’s City Hall and Mastro’s Ocean Club, plus Morton’s, Ruth’s Chris and Eddie V’s.

Browse by city: Scottsdale, Phoenix and Tucson.