When people ask me where they ought to go on a first date, I often say Bistro Vendôme. When they ask where they ought to go with a big party, I often say Vendôme — and ask for the private room to the left of the bar, an intimate spot…

I met Matt Franklin through his cuisine — screwjack Californian with a heavy dose of Colorado pride and a squirrelly streak of fusion that should have made me want to throw something at his head but instead kept his style fresh and surprising. Under the neon, tile and blue Miami…

I do not often eat at other people’s houses.Matter of fact, it’s safe to say that I almost never eat at other people’s houses.  It’s a weird thing with me, a long-held habit that started as something like a charming personality quirk (“Oh, Jason?  No, don’t worry.  He never shows…

I met Matt Franklin through his cuisine — screwjack Californian with a heavy dose of Colorado pride and a squirrelly streak of fusion that should’ve made me want to throw something at his head but, instead, kept his style fresh and surprising. Under the neon, tile and blue Miami Vice…

The Master clan was back in town yesterday to do a little family-brand wine pimping at Sketch.  And guess who was there to taste the offerings? That’s right, yours truly.  And while I generally avoid things like opening-night parties, wine tastings, benefit dinners and “celebrity chef” parties like the plagues that…

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I haven’t been on a lot of dates. Thus far, my personal history of socio-sexual relations has been divided into two very distinct categories.  Depending on the year, the place and my condition, I have either gotten by as some kind of…

There was much lamenting last month when owners Tom and Marna Sumners announced that they would be closing Cafe Star, at 3201 East Colfax Avenue, a restaurant I loved back in the days when Rebecca Weitzman was running the kitchen. But that was a long time ago, and Cafe Star…

Cowbobas looks like it could be that rare spiritual successor to the Columbine. It is a reversion to form — like Ford making its new Mustangs along the tried, true and beautiful body lines of its original muscle-car progenitors — but with lots of modern improvements and concessions to the…

See more photos of Columbine Steak House at westword.com/slideshow. It’s 1983, I’m ten years old — and it’s steak night at the Sheehan household. Steak nights didn’t happen very often at my house. But every now and again, Mom would go to the freezer and pull out a frost-rimed, plastic-wrapped…

Chef/owner Andrew Schutt has introduced a “new menu” — actually a reinforcement of the original menu — at his excellent barbecue and donut joint in Evergreen, Tin Star Cafe. When I reviewed Tin Star two years ago, I praised its excellent donuts (the apple fritters in particular) and excellent barbecue…

If I were Proust, the smell of cheap steaks charring on an overworked grill would be my Madeleine — the trigger for a crashing flood of recall, of me in the warm comfort of boyhood. And walking past the back door of the Columbine Steak House, I get a whiff…

Just got word from Brian Heilman, one of the partners at the Denver outpost of Lucile’s, that his spot is going to celebrate the start of Louisiana crawfish season with a good, old-fashioned crawfish boil. “It’s our first attempt at what will hopefully become an annual tradition,” Heilman said. And…

Back when I was a kid, back when I was a teenager, even back when I was only slightly less of a grown-up than I am now, one of the biggest drags about eating on the street was having to carry cash.  Today, you can add parking, the occasional vending…

Last week, I posed this question: Where should Guy Fieri eat when (and if) his show, Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, rolls through Denver? The comments poured in, and the debate was both spirited and (relatively) civil. I’ve culled the best of the bunch and sent them along to the production-company…

These weekly lists are often easy to put together. I review a Mexican restaurant, I can make a list of other Mexican restaurants I love. I write about Chinese food, I can list a half-dozen other places to get good duck. But this week?  Not so much. I’ve been sitting…

It would be impossible to repeat all the nice things that egullet’s Steven Shaw had to say about Ian Kleinman and his molecular gastronomy menu at O’s Steak and Seafood at the Westin Westminster, which Shaw experienced when he was in town for the International Association of Culinary Professionals convention…

When I first heard that Chipotle was changing its menu — running out the first new board the operation has seen since setting down roots in Denver some fifteen years ago — I refused to take it seriously. The second time, I laughed at the person who insisted that Chipotle…

See more photos of Tocabe at westword.com/slideshow. Like whiskey and the music of the Pogues from the Irish, tortillas from the Mexicans, prosciutto from the Italians and mother sauces and threesomes from the French, fry bread is the Native American people’s proud contribution to our mutt and multicultural present, one…