Food is at the heart of any gathering. In the Southwest, food is a vibrant celebration of culture, creativity, and connection. From bold, smoky spices and farm-fresh ingredients to elevated takes on traditional favorites, the region’s culinary scene offers a feast for every palate. Whether savoring seasonal dishes crafted from locally sourced produce or indulging in authentic flavors influenced by Native American, Mexican, and Spanish heritage, Southwestern cuisine sets the table for unforgettable moments. For meeting and event attendees, great food is more than a meeting’s perk; it is part of the destination.
A taste of tradition
The Southwest is a land of striking contrasts, where sunbaked deserts give way to fertile valleys and centuries-old traditions merge seamlessly with modern culinary creativity. This dynamic landscape has cultivated a cuisine as bold and diverse as the region itself—one rooted in Native American, Mexican, and Spanish influences yet constantly evolving. Despite its arid climate, the Southwest boasts a rich agricultural heritage, producing everything from fiery chiles and sweet corn to juicy citrus and earthy beans. It is a region where resilience meets flavor, yielding dishes celebrating the bounty of the land and the cultures that shaped it.
“People think about our region being just about potatoes, cowboys, and cacti; they are often very surprised that we grow so much here,” says chef Charleen Badman, owner of FnB in Scottsdale, Ariz. “We are a very agriculturally rich state and can grow all sorts of things throughout the year.”
From lemons and prickly pear cactus to chili peppers, beans, onions, and squash, farmers in the Southwest cultivate a rich variety of produce that defines the region’s cuisine. For example, the region grows a significant number of dates, Badman says, which she uses often in dishes at FnB. “Right now, we have a dish that mixes dates into a butter and is placed underneath a bed of radishes,” she says. “The date elevates the dish and takes it to a different level. Sometimes, we do a date cake or a salad with dates.”
Many, if not most, of the Southwest’s ingredients trace their roots to the Indigenous people who first cultivated them, laying the foundation for the region’s culinary heritage. Native American tribes have cultivated tepary beans for thousands of years, and the beans are deeply rooted in their culinary traditions. “Tepary beans grow extremely well here, as they love less water,” Badman explains. “They are super-hardy and can be made into soups and stews or cooked and made into a hummus.” FnB also features tepary beans in its posole, another Native American dish, which combines tepary beans with dried corn and wheat, also heavily grown in Arizona.
The Frybread Lounge opened last year as the first and only Indigenous restaurant in Old Town Scottsdale, naturally focusing heavily on Indigenous food, as restaurant co-owner Heather Tracy explains. “Indigenous is actually the original food of the United States, but you don’t see many of those options anywhere in the country,” she says. “We take simple recipes from our Indigenous roots and put our own twist to it.”
True to its name, one of the restaurant’s most notable dishes is frybread. Originating in the late 1800s, the dish is significant to the Native American culture, as it was created using government-issued rations to prevent starvation. “Frybread was created during hardship, when our ancestors had to find ways to survive,” Tracy adds. “Natives are very resilient and able to take things and make them positive, and frybread reflects that. When just given rations to survive on, they came up with frybread. It became the centerpiece of dining, and we are bringing it back and highlighting it.”
The Frybread Lounge, helmed by chef Darryl Montana, who is from the Local Tribe Community, features frybread as part of the Frybread Taco, accompanying the frybread with indigo meats and fresh tomatoes, lettuce, onions, salsa, and cheese. The restaurant also highlights the rich Indigenous culinary heritage with the Three Sisters Salad, which showcases corn, beans, and squash. Corn, beans, and squash are collectively known as the “Three Sisters” because they grow well together, support each other’s growth, offer essential nutrition, and speak to the Native American community’s relationship with the land. “When Native Americans were put on reservations, they had to figure out what kind of produce to grow. Corn, beans, and squash were able to sustain themselves in the climate, particularly when planted together,” Tracy adds.
Blending traditions
The origins of Southwestern cuisine extend beyond the Native American culture; it has been shaped by a fusion of other cultures that have left their mark on the region. “Our cuisine features what is available here, of course, but it also showcases our history and who has lived here in the past,” Badman says. “That is the beautiful thing about the region—we have had many people come through here. For example, Arizona at one point was part of Spain and part of Mexico.” The i’itoi onion, while it grows wonderfully in the Southwest, was brought to the region by Spanish missionaries in the 1600s and given to the Indigenous people, Badman says, adding that Chinese immigrants brought jujube and winter melons to Arizona. “When the Chinese immigrants were putting in the railroad, they were here for periods of time and planted things like that. I have a jujube tree in my backyard because it grows well here, but it is not from here. All of the people have left little bits of themselves here, and we have been able to incorporate it into our foods.”
Similarly, at Redbird in downtown Los Angeles, chef Neal Fraser cooks new American cuisine based on the influences of the city, which has become a melting pot of flavors, he says. “We are a bounty of many different cultures, and that has trickled down into the food,” Fraser says.
Redbird utilizes a variety of Mexican ingredients, Fraser notes. One of the most well-known is the Duck Confit Chilaquiles, which uses traditional Mexican chilaquiles with dark red mole instead of a red sauce. One of its other crowd-pleasers is the Avocado Salad, which highlights the avocado with smoked bacon and buttermilk blue cheese vinaigrette.
Chef Carrie Baird has built a solid culinary reputation over the last 20-plus years as executive chef for Bar Dough in Denver, for which she was named a 2019 semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Mountain, and chef/partner of Fox and the Hen, also in Denver. She was also a top-four finalist on season 15 of Bravo’s Top Chef and a contestant on Food Network’s Beat Bobby Flay. Baird beat Bobby Flay with her Pork Green Chili Huevos Rancheros, now featured on Fox and the Hen’s menu as Beat Bobby Flavos. Baird says it is one of many menu items showcasing well-known Mexican dishes with a Colorado twist. “It is my version of huevos rancheros, a very Mexican dish, which I turned into a Colorado dish,” she says.
Another favorite at Fox and the Hen is Tacos Con Huevos, a traditional Mexican dish with locally made chorizo. “Relying heavily on local peppers and tortillas, it is my nod to Mexican and Tex-Mex food,” she adds.
More than three years ago, renowned chef Angelo Sosa opened Tía Carmen at JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa, which focuses on the flavors of the Southwest and pays homage to the land and native tribes. “We work with a lot of heritage and heirloom ingredients,” Sosa explains. “But along with that, a lot of Mexican influence bleeds over into the southwestern states, which can be found in dishes like our mole.” Tía Carmen’s mole, a traditional Mexican sauce, is Tepary Bean Mole Negro, which has tepary beans infused with mole negro. “We age mole approximately two years and serve it over ember-roasted purple yams and even with our wagyu Tomahawk Ribeye,” Sosa says.
Another dish in which Sosa blends history into the Tía Carmen menu is the Chicken Guisado, a dish inspired by Sosa’s Aunt Carmen, for whom the restaurant is named. Aunt Carmen, who was from the Dominican Republic, would make a stew for Sosa when he was a boy. For his inspired version, Sosa takes local chicken and marinates it in a conglomerate of Southwestern spices before adding a twist: olive juice. “The olive juice breaks down the chicken to make it ultra tender and super succulent,” he says. “It is so flavorful, and it is really reminiscent of home cooking.”
Innovation meets tradition
Much of today’s Southwestern cuisine features bold flavors fusing traditional ingredients with innovative techniques. Modern chefs are reimagining time-honored dishes, blending global influences with local ingredients while honoring the region’s rich culinary heritage. The result is a vibrant and ever-evolving menu celebrating the past while embracing the future. Such is the case at Valentine restaurant, nestled in the heart of Phoenix’s Melrose District. Celebrating the vibrant flavors of the Sonoran Desert, the restaurant focuses heavily on using ingredients native to the region, such as the Anasazi bean, tepary bean, chiltepin pepper, i’itoi onion, and Hopi watermelon, says chef/owner Blaise Faber, a born-and-raised Arizonan. “We try to take those old ingredients and old-food ways and throw a ‘chef’s spin’ on them because we are a chef-focused restaurant,” Faber explains. “Each dish is a beautiful weaving of many things.”
A prime example is the inclusion of pork belly with tepary and Anasazi beans with steak and eggs, or perhaps the restaurant’s elote pasta, which blends cacio e pepe with traditional street corn. “When you just read the menu, it is obviously delicious food; but when you dig deeper, you can see the ingredients and processes used to make it so much more,” he says. “Our chefs are taking those heritage ingredients and doing something modern with them.”
That mission is also carried into Valentine’s pastry menu, which is spearheaded by 2024 James Beard finalist Crystal Kass. Cut into almost every pastry at the restaurant is heirloom wheat, white Sonoran wheat, and durum wheat, which was brought to North America by the Spaniards in the 1500s. Today, Farber adds, Arizona is one of the world’s largest producers of durum wheat. “These flavors are important to us to showcase, which we do in so many dishes—perhaps the top being our croissant,” Faber says. “I truly believe it is the best croissant in the entire state, thanks to the process by which we make it and the ingredients. We start with very good ingredients but don’t get in their way. Another would be the Mesquite Miso Chocolate Chip Cookie, which features mesquite flour with a graham cracker-like flavor and miso salt. It is salty and sweet and earthy and delicious.”
Yellowbell, a restaurant in Phoenix led by executive chef Alfredo Alvarez, has become known for celebrating the Southwestern experience, using locally sourced ingredients to showcase and modernize authentic flavors of the region. “Every dish is crafted to showcase the taste of the desert,” Alvarez shares, noting the name of the eatery, Yellowbell, is taken from a native Arizona flower. The eatery’s signature dish, Green Chile Cornbread, elevates its old flavor with Chimayo butter and tomatillo jam, which is made in-house. Another signature item, the Tomahawk Pork Chop, reflects the many colors of the desert, Alvarez adds. “We make our own green chile sauce, which sits beneath the tomahawk pork chop and tomatillo salsa, and we do a roasted sweet potato with spinach to bring a nice bright color. The flavors combined are essentially the flavors of the Southwest.”
While many of his dishes honor time-tested ingredients of the Southwest, chef Alvarez also modernizes them by bringing unexpected ingredients together, like bison and grilled cactus—which will soon be a new burger on the menu, he says—or by combining them with different cuisines, such as the street corn, which is topped with cactus kimchee. “It is a fusion of Asian and Southwest cuisines, and truly a great combo,” he adds.
Sowing tradition
Locally sourced produce and ingredients are integral to bringing dishes to life throughout the Southwest, especially in New Mexico, shares Nate Larsen, executive chef of Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa. “As New Mexico is known for its unique culinary culture scene, we integrate the popular flavors of the state into our dining options, with everything from charcoal-roasted green chile and prickly pear-infused sauces to Pueblo bread made in a Huruna oven,” he says.
For a farm-to-table experience, the property, which sits on the Santa Ana Pueblo, built an onsite garden to grow several of the restaurant’s foundational ingredients and to provide a uniquely localized and sustainably driven dining experience, Larsen says. “Currently, each of the dishes at our signature Corn Maiden restaurant includes at least one ingredient grown at our resort,” he says. “For example, we have a grilled pork chop dish served with an apple chutney made from apples grown at our orchard, as well as an herb-crusted New Mexico beef tenderloin using herbs from the garden. We also grow seasonal produce used in our menus, including onions, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, cactus fruit, beets, rosemary, and more.”
Sipping the Southwest
Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa’s cocktail menu also has benefitted from the restaurant’s garden-grown ingredients. “Our cocktail program features a variety of shrubs made with vinegars created from garden-grown produce,” Laren says. “We have noticed groups are looking for new and inventive cocktail and mocktail programs, and the shrubs go a long way in creating fun and localized beverage options the attendees love.”
Faber’s Valentine restaurant also features a bar, aptly named 1912—a nod to the statehood year of Arizona—which focuses heavily on bringing the land of Arizona to its patrons. Faber has created six cocktails paying homage to the six ecosystems in the state. As he explains, each cocktail showcases ingredients from those ecosystems or what Faber imagines the ecosystem would taste like. “For example, the Woodland mimics a middle-elevation forest with black walnuts, pine trees, and other indigenous plants,” Faber says. “We use those ingredients to make what is essentially an Old-Fashioned, but put a spin on the classic by using those ingredients from this ecosystem in the state.”
Bar 1912 also puts Southwestern twists on other modern classics, such as the Jungle Bird, its twist on a modern teaky classic. The cocktail is a blend of Mexican rums, which gives it a grassy and earthy backbone; instead of adding the classic pineapple juice, Faber adds prickly pear and escabeche (pickled vegetables). “The escabeche gives it a brine-like background, while the prickly pear rounds it out with an earthy sweet flavor.”
