Sel

The Restaurant

Sel occupies an intimate Old Town storefront at 7044 East Main Street in Scottsdale - the working Old Town Scottsdale commercial-spine, two blocks from the working Scottsdale Civic Center, three blocks from the working Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art and four blocks from the working Scottsdale Arts District - and has held the seat as the city's reference Old Town French-inspired bistro destination since chef Branden Stride opened the kitchen. The dining room runs about forty covers across a deliberate intimate fine-dining parlor with working soft low light through dinner service, careful hardwood floors, working antique French-inspired furnishings, deliberate quiet acoustic discipline and a deliberate modern-French-bistro palette that reads as a working chef-driven destination rather than a touristic Old Town tourist operation. The forty-cover seat count keeps the room at the deliberate working fine-dining intimacy level.

The kitchen runs the modern American with French influence format the way the format ought to be run with deliberate chef-driven discipline. The dining card runs through a working tasting-and-prix-fixe progression - careful working chef-driven seasonal openers, working pan-seared and braised second-course preparations with deliberate French technique, careful working seafood-forward plates pulled from working pantry-supplier programmes, working chef-driven seasonal vegetable plates, working pasta and grain plates carrying deliberate French direction and a dessert programme that pulls from the working French-pastry calendar. The format reads as a careful working chef-driven French-influenced interpretation that respects the working French technique canon while pulling deliberately from the working Sonoran-pantry seasonal direction.

Service is the older school of Old Town Scottsdale fine-dining hospitality - career servers, a working sommelier programme that runs deep on French Burgundy and Bordeaux with deliberate Italian-regional and California depth, a careful working bar programme that runs the classic-cocktail card with deliberate working seasonal-ingredient discipline, and a pace that treats a two-and-a-half-hour dinner as the format rather than the exception. The forty-cover room with the deliberate quiet acoustic discipline means a working table conversation never competes with the next table's volume - a working fine-dining room that respects the deliberate working private conversation. The 7044 East Main Street Old Town Scottsdale address - the working Old Town commercial-spine landmark with the working Scottsdale Civic Center and Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art two blocks away - means a guest can walk in from any Old Town accommodation, and the working pre-or-post-dinner Old Town walk through the Scottsdale Arts District is a real working second act. For a Scottsdale evening that needs to register as the city's standing Old Town French-inspired fine-dining reference, Sel is the answer.