Metro Phoenix restaurants backed by celebrity chefs

Learn about five celebrity chefs who work at Phoenix restaurants, and then go taste their talents for yourself.

Chefs are bona fide celebrities these days. It should come as no surprise that one of the biggest trends we see in dining culture is restaurants backed by celeb chefs. It’s no surprise that this trend has found its way to metro Phoenix. Learn more about these celebrity chefs and how you can literally taste their talents at their respective local restaurants. Dig in.

Luna by Giada

Celebrity Chef: Giada De Laurentiis

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

Giada De Laurentiis is a Food Network star. She’s so famous that she’s often just referred to by her first name only.

The Italy native trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and has had several successful TV shows, like Food Network’s “Everyday Italian.” Her very first restaurant is located at The Cromwell in Las Vegas. Giada De Laurentiis’ first Arizona restaurant opened in March of 2024 at the Caesars Republic Scottsdale Hotel.

Named after Laurentiis’ grandmother, Luna by Giada serves up Italian fare peppered with California influences. One example of this? Laurentiis is very well known for the extensive use of lemon in her cooking. Diners can taste that in one of the signature dishes at her restaurant, lemon spaghetti. This dish features lemon pasta (naturally), topped with sautéed shrimp, mascarpone cheese, basil, and crispy capers. Another lemon-centric offering? The lemon pizza. This pie is topped with mozzarella, garlic crème sauce, and caciocavallo cheese.

Luna is located on the ground floor of the Caesars Republic Scottsdale and features an open kitchen, a sleek bar, and expansive windows that showcase views of the nearby mountains. The hotel is also home to the chef’s Pronto by Giada. Open for breakfast and lunch only, this corner café serves up the chef’s sandwiches, gelato in addition to breakfast items including a smoked salmon bagel and a smoked salmon bagel. Guests can pair their food with espresso-based drinks like caffe mochas and cappuccinos. 

Tia Carmen and Kembara

Celebrity Chef: Angelo Sosa

Photo courtesy of Kembara.

Top chef Angelo Sosa has two restaurants at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix: Tia Carmen and Kembara.

Sosa has made quite a name for himself. He’s worked for some of the most celebrated chefs in the world, including Alain Ducasse, Stephen Starr, and Masaharu Morimoto. He’s also worked with esteemed restaurants like Jean-Georges, Spice Market, Buddakan, Morimoto in New York, and Le Louis XV in Monaco. Sosa is well-known to foodies and pop culture consumers for competing on “Top Chef.” He was also a founding member of the Anejo Restaurants in New York, which garnered attention from Michelin. 

Tia Carmen is an ode to his aunt (as you might have guessed from the name) and features plenty of Latin-inspired fare. Diners can enjoy avocado aguachile, four different tostadas, street corn, and a yuca brulee.

Photo courtesy of Tia Carmen.

Located just across a massive hall from Tia Carmen is Kembara. According to the restaurant’s website, Kembara’s menu is influenced by Asian street food and Sosa’s travels through Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, and Thailand. Diners can dig into cuisine like crab fried rice, lamb spring rolls, steamed pork dumplings, and Massaman vegetable curry. The restaurant’s décor has a dynamic contrast. Tia Carmen is almost entirely white, light-filled, and airy, with high ceilings. Kembara is almost nightclub-like, with dark walls and neon lights that brighten up the place.

Photo courtesy of Kembara.

Cala Scottsdale and Tell Your Friends

Celebrity Chef: Beau MacMillan

Photo courtesy of Cala.

Like De Laurentiis, Beau MacMillan became a star on the Food Network. He’s appeared on programs like “Guy’s Grocery Games,” “The Next Iron Chef” and “All-Star Grocery Rush.” MacMillan also served as the executive chef at elements by Sanctuary Camelback Mountain, A Gurney’s Resort & Spa in Paradise Valley. After working at elements for over 20 years and becoming a television chef, MacMillan is now part of the hospitality group Clive Collective. This group currently has two concepts in the Valley: Mediterranean restaurant Cala and speakeasy Tell Your Friends.

Housed on the ground floor of the Senna House Hotel Scottsdale, Cala beckons with plenty of coastal cuisine. Diners can enjoy flaming saganaki, scallop crudo, house-made pasta, and hand-stretched pizzas.

Photo courtesy of Cala.

Located underneath Scottsdale’s The Americano, Tell Your Friends  is a collaboration between Creation Hospitality and Clive Collective. It’s a sleek craft cocktail bar that also serves inventive small bites. Drinks have clever names like Money, Baby! This libation is a concoction of whiskey, strawberry, coriander, lemon and ginger beer. The food menu includes upscale small bites like truffle mac n’cheese, TYF Korean fried chicken (one of our favorite things we’ve eaten in a while) and fire roasted oysters.

 Need to know: MacMillan also has cooked for a wide range of celebrities, including Britney Spears, former President Bush, and U2, according to this Food Network bio.

Pizzeria Bianco, Tratto, Bar Bianco and Pane Bianco

Celebrity Chef: Chris Bianco

Photo courtesy of Marine 69-71/CC BY-SA 3.0.

We’d be remiss to run this story and not mention Phoenix’s homegrown celebrity chef, Chef Chris Bianco. Bianco was the first pizza maker to ever win a James Beard award in 2003 (he won a second one in 2022), and he got his start working out of the back corner of a grocery store in 1988. Today, he owns a small restaurant empire. He has two locations of Pizzeria Bianco in metro Phoenix, one in Los Angeles, an upscale Italian restaurant called Tratto, two outposts of Bar Bianco and the sandwich shop Pane Bianco in both Phoenix and L.A.

He most recently appeared on Netflix’s “Chef’s Table” in 2022—boosting his status as a celeb chef even higher. Pizzeria Bianco is renowned for its wood-fired pizza that has a dash of Southwest flare. The Rosa is a good example of this. Rosa is a pie topped with Parmigiano Reggiano, red onion, Arizona pistachios, and rosemary. Guests also can keep it simple with the margherita, topped with tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and basil.

Bianco is a bona-fide celebrity. He’s friends with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and even served as Kimmel’s best man at his 2013 wedding.

Grand Hyatt Scottsdale Resort

Celebrity Chef: Richard Blais

So you can’t eat at these restaurants just yet, but we wanted to share this breaking news with you.

Following a $115 million renovation, the Grand Hyatt Scottsdale Resort (formerly the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort & Spa at Gainey Ranch) will make its debut in October of 2024. In a press release we received, the resort will also open four different concepts, including La Zozzona (Modern Italian Chophouse), Tiki Taka (global small plates), Mesa Centrale (Southwestern grill), and Grand Vista Lounge (lobby bar) and two poolside bars Sandbar and H2Oasis.

Richard Blais is the chef behind those six concepts. Blais has worked in some of the best kitchens in the entire world. This includes stints at The French Laundry, Daniel, Chez Panisse, and El Bulli. He was the first winner of Bravo’s Top Chef All-Stars. He currently stars alongside Gordon Ramsay on Fox’s cooking competition show “Next Level Chef.”

This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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