Dress up for dinner at these Scottsdale restaurants

Looking good at the Mission. (Credit: Emily Piraino/Special for Metromix)

Photos:

For a while in Scottsdale, getting dressed for a night out seemed like a dying art.

Men and women got gussied in rhinestone-embellished jeans, T-shirts emblazoned with shimmering skulls, sneakers bedecked with glinting studs.

The look was all about luxury casual and it's possible that these slacker styles were a sign of the coming financial and sartorial apocalypse the nation is recovering from. Which is to say, any time a woman wears a $400 cashmere hoodie with $300 jeans and $200 booties to cocktails, surely something is amiss.

But in the last year, a number of restaurants and bars have given Old Town's men and women a reason to, as mothers across the country once said, smarten up.

From the recently opened design palace that is Scottsdale Fashion Square's Modern Steak to the understated, retro elegance of the super-new Mabel's on Main, it seems diners and drinkers are being invited to look as chic as their surroundings.

The dark romance of the chandelier-heavy Mission started dress-for-dinner trend in late 2008, along with the simple elegance of the Camelback Corridor's upscale Noca, and the urban opulence of J&G Steakhouse at the Phoenician. And just before that, the W Scottsdale Hotel and Residences gave clubbers an excuse to shine their shoes as it opened with a bouncer-enforced “understood” dress code as sharp as its poolside bars' design.

This is happening just as traditional fashion houses are turning out more tailored collections filled with classic pieces appropriate for adults going out rather than for teens hanging out. In rough economic times, timeless styles sell better than trendy ones, just as comfort food is more appealing than haute cuisine.

But in any economy, rooms designed to encourage guests to dress up are good for business, according to restaurateur Terry Ellisor, of Zinc Bistro and the Mission.

Recently, he commented that a successful restaurant is one in which women feel more beautiful inside than outside.

He went on to say that women make most of the decisions about where couples eat, and, somewhat obviously, he pointed out that women want to feel pretty. This is why his restaurants glitter, and why they've developed reputations as destinations for engagement proposals.

No doubt, this is the same logic he'll use to design the seafood restaurant he's trying to open in Robert McGrath's almost-finished, never-opened REM space on Lincoln Drive and Scottsdale Road.

But now Scottsdale is filled with rooms where couture mixes with cocktails and where denim is no longer de rigueur for dinner. Consider making dressing for dinner one of this year's do's at the following spots:

• AZ 88
• Roka Akor
• Modern Steak at Scottsdale Fashion Square
• The Mission
• Mabel's On Main
• Zinc Bistro at Kierland Commons
• J&G Steakhouse at the Phoenician