Beef carpaccio is raw beef, sliced paper-thin and dressed simply. Hamachi crudo is raw hamachi, also called yellowtail, brightened with citrus and oil. They are two of the most elegant ways to open a meal, and two dishes that live or die on the kitchen behind them.

Fall is when Phoenix comes back to life. The heat breaks, patios reopen, and the hiking trails stop being a survival exercise. If you are planning a weekend in the Valley or you live here and want to use the season properly, here are the best things to do in Phoenix this fall, from desert trails to art walks to a dinner worth booking ahead.

Sustainable dining is easy to claim and hard to verify. Most restaurants will tell you they use fresh local ingredients. Almost nobody tells you from whom, for how long, or what happens to the waste afterward.

There is one meatball on the menu at Tarbell’s, served with pappardelle and organic tomato marinara. It is large, it falls apart under a fork, and it took eighteen months of Sundays to get right.