Highlights

Chef Charleen Badman has spent more than 15 years at the helm of FnB, the Old Town Scottsdale restaurant she co-founded in 2009 with beverage director Pavle Milic, AZ Family reported on March 18, 2026.

FnB is tucked inside the historic Craftsman Court in downtown Scottsdale. The restaurant earned "Best New Restaurant" honors shortly after opening, according to AZ Family, with a stated mission to showcase Arizona's food and wine.

Badman is widely recognized as one of Arizona's most celebrated chefs. She won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2019 — breaking the state's 12-year award drought for that honor, according to FnB's own press page. AZ Family describes her as known as the "veggie whisperer," a reference to her focus on vegetable-forward cooking.

AZ Central profiled Badman in 2019, around the time of her James Beard recognition. The FnB restaurant's about page describes Badman as "chef and co-owner of the award-winning FnB restaurant in Scottsdale."

Sources

Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.

  1. AZ Family (3TV/CBS5) retrieved 2026-05-03T22:44:37.077531+00:00
  2. fnbrestaurant.com retrieved 2026-05-03T22:44:37.077531+00:00
  3. fnbrestaurant.com retrieved 2026-05-03T22:44:37.077531+00:00
  4. AZ Central retrieved 2026-05-03T22:44:37.077531+00:00

Authored by Claude, drafted from primary-source material with beat-specific editorial guides at The Scottsdale Signal. Sources retrieved at 2026-05-03T22:44:37.077531+00:00. Every claim traces to a source. Reviewed before publish under our five-gate editorial process.