There are pioneers in Arizona food and wine, and then there is Charleen Badman. In 2024, the award-winning chef and slow food advocate celebrated the 15th anniversary of FnB, an independently owned eatery that has helped transform the state’s culinary landscape. “For anyone who has ever worked in our industry, they know 15 years in the restaurant business is more like dog years, so it feels like we just celebrated our centennial,” laughs Badman.
The Tucson native first got into cooking through a vocational elective in high school, a class that would earn her a position at Café Terra Cotta in southern Arizona. “When we expanded the restaurant to the Valley in the early 1990s, I met Chef Chrysa Robertson as she was opening the iconic Rancho Pinot,” said Badman. “I would come and stage at Rancho Pinot’s first location in Town and Country, where I met Chris Bianco when the two worked together, and then took a full-time position working for Chrysa when she moved to her long-term address.”
While working with Robertson, she also met the restaurant’s front-of-the-house leader, Pavle Milic. “That friendship changed the course of both of our lives,” said Badman. She would move to New York in 1996 and see her star rise so high that she opened her own restaurant in the Big Apple for a spell before coming home to the Valley and Rancho Pinot in 2006. Milic was still part of the leadership team of the venue, and the two picked up where they left off. So much so that in 2009, with Robertson’s blessing and support, Badman and Milic opened FnB.
“Back then, we were at a much smaller location with a tiny kitchen, but from the onset, we knew we wanted to showcase Arizona ingredients in new and different ways, a core value of our business that has never wavered. In fact, it has only grown,” said Badman, who—with Milic—became one of the first eateries to make locally sourced vegetables as well as Arizona wines a centerpiece of the menu.
Badman, an avid gardener, and member of the Phoenix chapter of an herb-enthusiast group called The Herbies, made it her mission to make veggies sexy, from their preparation to their presentation. Badman used her talents to transform her produce, often infusing them with global flavors—especially bold Indian and Asian recipes—that encouraged exploration by guests. By 2012, Badman was clearly helping veggies get their sexy back, so much so that FnB expanded to a larger location in South Scottsdale, where it still operates today. In the 10-plus years since the big move, Badman earned a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest, and FnB’s wine program, led by Milic, has been honored several times over by the James Beard Foundation as well.
The eatery proudly sources from local and regional purveyors, notably McClendon’s Select Organic in Peoria, Steadfast Farm in Mesa, Blue Sky Organic Farms in Litchfield Park, and Whipstone Farm in Paulden. FnB also sources from Badman’s own backyard garden, which has grown to a series of 18-foot and 4-foot beds enclosed by plantings of pomegranate, fig, apple, peach, and mulberry trees that will one day provide natural shade for her crops.
“One bed is set aside for the Blue Watermelon Project,” said Badman. Initially founded by Badman in 2016 under the umbrella of Slow Food Phoenix, Blue Watermelon Project became its own 501c3 nonprofit in 2022. The organization increases access to fresh foods to students in partner schools through hands-on education as well as outreach and partnerships with parents and the community. “In my home bed I cultivate what we are growing with the students in their gardens so I can anticipate any questions that might come up,” said Badman, noting they are currently working with more than 30 schools across Phoenix and Tucson with plans to expand in the coming years.
FnB | 7125 E. 5th Ave. Suite 31, Scottsdale, AZ 85251
written by: christina barrueta | photographed by: luke irvin
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