COURSE Restaurant Featured by The Best of the Southwest for 12 Days of Christmas Tasting Menu

We’re grateful to be featured by The Best of the Southwest in its roundup of standout holiday dining experiences across Arizona.

Published by Erin Thorburn, the feature highlights 12 festive dining experiences from around the state, including COURSE Restaurant’s 12 Days of Christmas Tasting Menu, created by Executive Chef Cory Oppold.

For the 2025 holiday season, Chef Cory brought back the beloved 12 Days of Christmas experience with a menu inspired by the holiday classicA Christmas Story. The feature celebrates the way the menu transforms familiar moments from the film into an imaginative fine dining experience rooted in storytelling, nostalgia, and technical execution.

The article highlights several courses from the menu, includingYou’ll Shoot Your Eye Out, featuring bigeye tuna with winter melon, yuzu, and masaga arare, as well asSecret Decoder, an interactive course that invited guests to use a decoder key to uncover a dish of lamb, buttery beans, leek, rosemary, and jus.

Other featured dishes includedTurkey Junkie, with confit turkey thigh, stuffing, Brussels sprouts, and gravy, andI Hate Meatloaf, Chef Cory’s elevated take on the familiar comfort-food classic using Wagyu, pommes mousseline, red cabbage, and sauce. The experience concluded withOh, Fudge!, a chocolate-focused dessert accented with coconut, toasted almond, lime leaf, and curd.

The 12 Days of Christmas Menu has become an opportunity for the COURSE team to approach the holiday season through the same lens that shapes every tasting menu: creativity, storytelling, technique, and a sense of play.

We’re honored to have COURSE included alongside some of Arizona’s standout seasonal dining destinations and grateful to Erin Thorburn and The Best of the Southwest for sharing the experience with their readers.