Tom Kaufman, whose well-regarded Scottsdale restaurants include the fine-dining Rancho Pinot Grill and the casual pizzeria Humble Pie, is opening a wine bar in Chandler.

The combination of gourmet pizza and fine wine in a casual setting seems to be more popular than ever. In January, Tom Kaufman (Rancho Pinot Grill) and partners opened Humble Pie (read my review) in Scottsdale.

MacMurray Ranch released its first vintages earlier this year. There’s a pinot gris and two styles of pinot noir, and all are quite tasty.

Between downtown Scottsdale’s Old Adobe Mission and Cavalliere’s Blacksmith Shop sits a little-known piece of city history hidden behind a deteriorating brick wall. For years, the 1943 white stucco building was vacant, but after undergoing $750,000 in renovations, it will reopen in March as the Union Bar and Grill.

Congratulations are in order, even if no one’s officially been nominated yet. The James Beard Awards, which gives top honors to those in the food and beverage industry nationwide, issued a list of first-ballot candidates in January that included several locals.

Two of the Valley's hottest restaurateurs are joining forces to create two new dining concepts — one popping $10,000 bottles of champagne and the other bottles of Queen Creek-made olive oil — in north Scottsdale.

A person can eat only so many salads and cold cuts. When you’ve exhausted your no-heat recipes and are fed up with sweating over the grill for the sake of keeping the kitchen cool, summer — in the culinary sense, anyway — starts to seem very long indeed.

As the Valley’s population has boomed for the past two decades, it’s become a more sophisticated food and wine market.

Union Wine Bar & Grill, the much-anticipated tapas restaurant that opened this summer in Old Town Scottsdale, is changing its menu — scaling back on its “small plates” offerings and adding full-size entrees — and closing on Sundays and Mondays.

Nearly 30 chefs will offer foods from roast duck with cherry and fig chutney to panna cotta and cake pops at an event celebrating Arizona women in the culinary arts.

After performing about 80 three-and-a-half-hour shows, including a three-month European leg on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s Wrecking Ball Tour during the past year, Nils Lofgren is getting ready to crash at home and have a break from what he describes as the “greatest musical job in the world.”

I recently met a woman who wanted me to recommend a bottle for a special occasion coming up, because she doesn’t know much about wine.

NORTH SCOTTSDALE

We're drowning in dining options — some are nasty, some are average, but many are outstanding. I spend 40 hours a week hunting for those perfect places and plates, tastes and experiences that I can't wait to tell someone about.

Restaurant picks on the East side of town.

Tribune’s dining critic reviews restaurant picks on our side of town.

A Get Out food critic has dined at each of the places listed in our Top 100. It's a continually updated list of our favorite places to dine in the East Valley.

A Get Out food critic has dined at each of the places listed in our Top 100. It's a continually updated list of our favorite places to dine in the East Valley.