Paradise Valley's New Restaurant Wave Is Actually Two Waves, and They Opened Months Apart

Ask three neighbors where the new restaurants in Paradise Valley are and you will get three different answers, and none of them will be wrong. One will point you toward a resort tucked between Camelback and Mummy Mountains. Another will send you to a former mall at Cactus and Tatum. A third might mention both in the same breath, as if they are the same story unfolding in two locations. They are not. They are two separate restaurant booms that happen to share a name, and knowing which one you are actually talking about will save you a wasted trip.

Two Very Different Grand Openings, Same Name on the Sign

The first boom lives inside Kimpton Miralina Resort & Villas, the reimagined version of the old Scottsdale Plaza Resort, sitting in the saddle between Camelback and Mummy Mountains just off Scottsdale Road. The second lives inside PV, the sprawling redevelopment of the former Paradise Valley Mall at Cactus Road and Tatum Boulevard, which carries a Phoenix, Arizona 85032 address despite the name on the sign.

Both projects lean on the same two words for very different reasons. Miralina uses "Paradise Valley" to signal a specific kind of desert quiet, the version of the area known for privacy and mountain views. PV uses it because that is simply what the old mall was called, and the developer kept the name after spending roughly two billion dollars tearing it down and rebuilding it as a mixed-use district of shops, apartments, and restaurants. If you have been telling friends about "the new spot in Paradise Valley" without specifying which one, you have probably been describing two entirely different nights out.

What Is Actually Open as of September 2026

Announcements for both properties have been rolling out for more than a year, which means the gap between "coming soon" and "open for dinner" has grown wide enough to matter. Here is where things actually stand this month, not where a press release from last spring said they would be.

The Harry & Izzy's opening is the freshest piece of this puzzle. The Indianapolis steakhouse, a sister concept to the century-old St. Elmo Steak House, opened its first location outside the Midwest on a Wednesday in late August, in an 8,300-square-foot building with a 2,400-square-foot patio and seating for 340 people. The detail that makes it worth remembering is the ownership group behind it: Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning joined as a partner in the Paradise Valley restaurant, a fact that got more attention in local coverage than the shrimp cocktail did.

Cala and Too Sweet Cakes tell the opposite story. Both were announced in the same wave of tenant news that introduced Harry & Izzy's, and both are still listed as targeting 2026 without a firm date attached. If you have been checking a calendar for either one, there simply isn't one to check yet.

The Resort Side Arrived With a Finished Reputation

Miralina did not build its dining program from scratch and hope it found an audience. The resort emerged from a $42 million renovation led by Trinity Investments and Partners Group, spread across 40 acres with six pools and more than 50,000 square feet of event space. Its signature restaurant, Hecho Libre, is run by chef Wes Avila, a two-time James Beard Award finalist known in Los Angeles for Guerrilla Tacos and Ka'teen. Day-to-day kitchen operations fall to executive chef Stephen Jones, himself a James Beard semifinalist, who reportedly guided Avila through the region's ingredients and purveyors before the menu was finalized.

The result is a restaurant that opened already carrying two established culinary reputations rather than building one from a soft opening forward. Cima, the poolside bar, extends that same team's cocktail and coffee program out to the three-tier Canyon Oasis Pool. This is destination dining in the most literal sense: a resort restaurant designed as much for out-of-town guests booking a stay as for a local making a reservation.

The Mall Side Is Still Being Built One Lease at a Time

PV is a different kind of project entirely. RED Development is rebuilding the old mall site in phases, and the restaurant lineup has filled in unevenly over roughly two years. Velvet Taco, a fast-casual concept with more than twenty scratch-made taco varieties, opened in March after first testing the Phoenix market in Old Town Scottsdale. The Vig, an Arcadia-born tavern now expanding to its eighth Valley location under Genuine Concepts, was described in a June update as nearing completion with an opening expected this fall, though no exact date has landed yet.

Cala is the name most likely to generate confusion, since it is expanding from an already well-known Scottsdale location run by Clive Collective and chef Beau MacMillan. The PV version is planned as a larger, 6,500-square-foot build with a wood-fired kitchen, positioned as a slightly more grown-up take on the original. It has been "coming in 2026" since the announcement first went out, and as of this writing it still is.

Which One Actually Changes Your Week

The honest answer depends on what you are actually planning. Miralina's dining program is built for an occasion: a milestone dinner, a poolside afternoon, a night when you want a chef's reputation attached to the meal. It is not the kind of place that absorbs a Tuesday.

PV is the one built to absorb a Tuesday. A taco run, a steakhouse night out that does not require a resort reservation, a bakery stop for coffee once Too Sweet Cakes actually opens its doors. That is the restaurant boom that will eventually reshape an ordinary week in this part of the Valley, and it is also the one still missing two of its most anticipated tenants. The resort dining scene arrived fully formed in January. The mall dining scene is still arriving, one lease and one grand opening at a time, which means the version of PV you visit in December will look different from the one you would find today.

If you have been waiting for one of these two Paradise Valleys to feel finished before making it part of your routine, the resort side already crossed that line months ago. The mall side is close, but not there yet.

Knowing the difference between a neighborhood's finished chapters and its unfinished ones is the same instinct that matters when you are reading a market instead of a menu. If you are curious what else is shifting in this part of the Valley, or you are ready to talk about buying, selling, or simply understanding what your home is worth in today's market, Camille Kennard is a resource worth having in your corner.