What is Din Tai Fung?
Din Tai Fung is the first Arizona restaurant of the Taiwanese chain that made the soup dumpling a global brand, and it sits at 7014 E Camelback Road, Suite 608, on the lower level of Scottsdale Fashion Square, in the south wing that mall owner Macerich rebuilt around Catch and Élephante. It soft-opened by reservation on March 12, 2026, and held its grand opening on Monday, April 20, 2026, when walk-ins, takeout and delivery began.
The company is a family business from Taipei. It started in 1958 as a cooking oil shop, became a restaurant in 1972, and now runs more than 160 locations in 13 countries; its Hong Kong restaurant has earned a Michelin star five times, and the first American store opened in Arcadia, California, in 2000. The signature is the Kurobuta Pork Xiao Long Bao, a steamed dumpling pleated with exactly 18 folds, a “Golden Ratio” that North America co-CEO Aaron Yang says leaves room for the filling and broth to expand. Around it are chicken, crab and vegetable versions, shao mai, wontons, noodles, wok dishes and a chocolate-and-mochi dessert dumpling.
The Scottsdale room is about 10,000 square feet with roughly 340 seats, designed by Rockwell Group, the same firm behind Catch next door. A central tree installation anchors the dining room, there is a full bar pouring a Pear Lychee Martini and a DTF Old Fashioned, and the entrance runs past the Dumpling Expo Kitchen, a glass-walled line where cooks fold dumplings by the hundreds while the walk-in line watches from behind red velvet ropes. General manager Yuriko Mineyoshi gave the first tours.
It is for everyone, which is the point: families from the mall, Old Town visitors who could not get into Catch, and the Valley’s growing Asian community, which Yang cited when the deal was announced. A second Arizona store is planned for Chandler Fashion Center in 2027. Our verdict: the dumplings are exactly what the chain promises, the supporting dishes are better than the hype suggests, and the only real obstacle is the line.
How to eat at Din Tai Fung
Get a table. Reservations are released online daily through the Scottsdale page at dtf.com, and from the day they opened on February 26, 2026, they were, in Phoenix New Times’ phrase, the hottest ticket in town; fans set alarms for each release and some seats were resold on social media. Since April 20 you can also walk in. You check in at the host stand, take a buzzer and wait in a roped line outside the kitchen window. A reviewer who checked in on time in late April waited about ten minutes. Hours are 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and the first hour on a weekday is the easiest seat in the house.
Order the dumplings, then the rest. The paper menu and pen arrive at once. A server mixes the dipping sauce at the table, roughly one part soy to three parts black vinegar over shredded ginger, and explains the method: lift the dumpling onto the spoon, bite a hole, drink the broth, then eat. The Kurobuta Pork Xiao Long Bao comes with a warning about the hot broth; the Shrimp and Kurobuta Pork Shao Mai carries a shrimp on top. The company lists no prices on its Scottsdale page; third-party ordering sites put the pork basket around $17.50 and the chicken around $17.
Do not stop at the dumplings. Both early critics found the supporting cast stronger. Copper Courier’s April 21, 2026 first look thought the xiao long bao arrived cooler than expected with firmer dough, and named the sesame buns the sleeper hit, the chicken fried rice possibly the best the writer had eaten, and the spicy chicken wontons the plate with real heat. Axios, reviewing in June, preferred the spicy wontons to the classic dumplings and called both worth the trip. Add the garlic string beans, the cold cucumber salad and the noodles with sesame sauce, and finish with the Chocolate and Mochi Xiao Long Bao with its side of sea salt cream.
The pace. Dishes arrive in waves and the kitchen controls the clock. It is not rushed, but it is a timed meal, which is how a 340-seat room turns the line.
Getting there. Park in the free Fashion Square garages off Camelback Road or Scottsdale Road and walk to the lower level of the south wing. The bar makes a Pear Lychee Martini, a DTF Old Fashioned and a Yuzu Margarita for the wait. For the rest of the mall’s new row, see the Spanish room across the wing, Telefèric Barcelona.
The dumpling house that took two years to arrive
Din Tai Fung’s arrival in Scottsdale was announced by accident. In August 2024, on a Macerich earnings call, the mall’s owner listed the chain among the new tenants of Fashion Square’s south-wing redevelopment and projected an early-2025 debut. The company had not signed off on that date. In January 2025 a spokesperson told Phoenix New Times that the timeframe “was not confirmed with Din Tai Fung before it was shared,” and that the restaurant would open in 2026. Its website said only that it would be “steaming soon” in Arizona. Co-CEO Aaron Yang called the Arizona restaurant a “significant milestone for our family” and said the brand wanted to share Taiwanese flavors with a Valley whose Asian population was growing fast.
That the mall wanted the announcement out early tells you something about the strategy. Macerich had spent the early 2020s turning the former Crate and Barrel end of Fashion Square into a restaurant row, starting with Élephante in December 2024 and Catch in September 2025, with Din Tai Fung as the third anchor and the one with the broadest draw. The mall’s older restaurant row along Camelback Road, Nobu, Ocean 44 and Toca Madera, had made Fashion Square a dinner destination for the resort crowd; Din Tai Fung brought a lunch crowd of families and office workers who would never book a $195 steak.
The reservation frenzy proved the point. Seats opened on February 26, 2026, the soft open followed on March 12, and for five weeks a table at a mall dumpling restaurant was the most contested booking in Old Town. The chain has seen this in every new market since Arcadia in 2000, and before the Scottsdale store had been open a month the company had confirmed a second one at Chandler Fashion Center for 2027.
The press has been measured rather than rapturous, which is to the chain’s credit. The first-look writers judged the dumplings as dumplings, found them good and not transcendent, and discovered that the fried rice and the wontons were the dishes they wanted again. Nobody has yet written a full review on the scale of New Times’ treatment of Catch, and the record does not say how the Scottsdale kitchen compares with the chain’s older stores. See James Beard and Michelin for what the Hong Kong star does and does not mean here.
Honest assessment: Din Tai Fung is a precise, cheerful, well-run chain restaurant with a kitchen window that doubles as theater, and it is worth the wait once, on a weekday, with a table of four who will share. It is not the best meal at Fashion Square, and the line will tell you otherwise. Order past the dumplings and you will leave happier than the people who came only for the 18 folds.