Ask ten locals for the best Mexican restaurant in Scottsdale and you’ll get ten answers, and they’ll all be right, because they’re answering different questions. The enchilada plate you grew up on and the tasting-menu mole are both Mexican food, and the city does both well. So this list is sorted by what you want out of the night rather than by a single ranking. We’ve eaten at every one of these more times than our doctors would like.
The institutions
Los Olivos. The Corral family’s adobe on 2nd Street has fed Old Town since the late 1940s, and the folk-art facade alone is worth the walk. Order the Sonoran enchiladas and a house margarita, sit under the murals, and understand what the city ate before anyone had heard of a cocina. It’s the plate our what-to-eat guide sends first-timers to, and it hasn’t changed for good reason.
Frank & Lupe’s. The cheerful cantina that fed the gallery district for three decades closed in 2025 and came back in 2026 at Gainey Ranch, same scratch-made New Mexico-style recipes, same green chile. The regulars followed it north. So should you.
Jalapeño Inferno. Pinnacle Peak’s family-run cantina is what a neighborhood Mexican restaurant looks like when the neighborhood is North Scottsdale: Sonoran platters, serious green chile, and a dining room full of people who’ve been coming since the subdivision was built.
The kitchen that changed the Valley
Los Sombreros. In 1994 chef Azucena Tovar turned a 1930s house on south Scottsdale Road into the Valley’s temple of interior Mexican cooking, and it still is. Lamb adobo, real mole, a margarita that respects you, and a twinkle-lit patio that feels like a backyard in Oaxaca. If you eat one meal off this list, eat here, and book it; the house is small and the reputation isn’t.
The chef-driven rooms
The Mission. Matt Carter’s candlelit flagship beside the Old Adobe Mission has defined Scottsdale’s modern-Latin dining since it opened: tableside guacamole, salt-slab searing, wood-grilled pork shoulder, and a room dark enough to make anyone look good. The Kierland Commons outpost is the same menu with easier parking.
La Hacienda. The Fairmont Princess’s Mexican restaurant has run since the resort opened in 1987 and was later reimagined by Richard Sandoval into one of the best upscale Mexican dining rooms in the country. Mariachi nights, a tequila list that reads like a wine cellar, and a courtyard that earns the drive to the Princess.
Toca Madera. The Madera Group’s modern Mexican steakhouse at Fashion Square is Los Angeles nightlife-dining transplanted: tableside-torched tomahawks, theatrical mezcal cocktails, a DJ after nine. It’s the one to pick when dinner is the night out, not the prelude to it.
Cielito. The rooftop atop the AC Hotel in Old Town cooks the seafood-forward food of Mexico’s northwest coast on a skyline patio. Aguachile at sunset with Camelback going orange is the best new argument for Mexican food in the city, and it’s on our rooftop bar list too.
The taco-and-tequila bars
Barrio Queen. The original, by the Old Town canal bridge, pairs regional cooking (cochinita pibil, birria, house-pressed tortillas) with more than 400 tequilas and a riot of Día de los Muertos color. The taco list runs past twenty; order five different ones and argue.
Cien Agaves. An Old Town original since 2007 with a hundred agave spirits and a scratch kitchen, and one of the most reliable happy hours in the district. USA Today readers keep voting it among the country’s best, which is a little much, but it’s very good.
Diego Pops. The pink taco shack that brought Yucatán beach energy to Old Town in 2015, home of the cult Brussels sprout nachos and the most photographed patio on the block. Lighter, brighter, and the best lunch on this list.
El Hefe. Legitimate tacos and margaritas by day, DJs and dancing on the tables by night. It’s the archetype of the taco-to-club formula that defines the entertainment district, and it’s honest about it.
The neighborhood cantinas
Salt & Lime gives the Shea corridor its own scratch-salsa, fresh-squeezed-margarita destination. Sol Mexican Cocina at Scottsdale Quarter is the Baja-coastal patio North Scottsdale relies on. Blanco on Lincoln is Fox Restaurant Concepts’ splashy Sonoran cantina with one of the busiest patios on the Paradise Valley line. Spotted Donkey sets its patio against The Boulders’ twelve-million-year-old rock pile in Carefree. Loco Patron is the unpretentious Old Town sports-cantina where the margaritas are priced for regulars. Carlsbad Tavern isn’t Mexican at all, strictly; it’s bold New Mexican cooking in a cave-themed room of bats and Roswell kitsch, and its late kitchen has fed the industry since 1995.
How to order
- Sonoran means beef, flour tortillas, and green chile. Read the what-to-eat guide for the difference between what the institutions cook and what the chef rooms cook. Both are the real thing.
- Chimichangas are an Arizona invention, and the institutions make the case for them. Order one once, at Los Olivos, and decide for yourself.
- The margarita tells you everything. Fresh lime and a real tequila at the good places; a mix and a salt rim at the rest. Ask what’s in it before you order the pitcher.
- Tequila lists are a sport here. Barrio Queen, Cien Agaves and La Hacienda will pour a flight if you ask; the bartenders know the difference between highland and lowland and enjoy explaining it.
- Book the chef rooms, walk into the cantinas. The Mission, Los Sombreros and La Hacienda fill on winter weekends two weeks out. The taco bars take walk-ins and a short wait.
The one-day version
Lunch at Diego Pops, a late-afternoon margarita at Cien Agaves during happy hour, dinner at Los Sombreros. That’s three neighborhoods, three eras of Scottsdale Mexican cooking, and one very good day. Do it during spring training and you’ll have company.