When I reviewed Royal Hilltop in April 2003, it was barely six months old — a non-smoking, British-themed pub crammed in among the multiplexes and taquerías of southeast Aurora, a joint that catered to the neighbors of a neighborhood sorely lacking in neighborhood bars. I complimented owners James and Tina…
The most shocking news last week was not that Sean Kelly (of Aubergine, the Biscuit, Clair de Lune and Somethin’ Else) had taken a job dunking jalapeño poppers for Mark Berzins and his Little Pub/Little Cantina Company (which owns Senor Rita’s, Salty Rita, two Spot Bar & Grill locations, the…
Isaac James, owner of the British Bulldog, has a big mouth. How do I know? He told me. “I’ve got a big mouth,” he said when I got him on the phone after eating at his joint. “I’ve been complaining about the Indian and the Pakistani food in Denver for…
Before it opened, Snooze seemed like one of the greatest ideas in the world — a hip, eclectic downtown breakfast bar with fancy pancakes, a jumped-up menu of comfort classics and incredible late-night hours on the weekends. A place where we could get bacon and eggs at 3 a.m. and…
Even by the admittedly lax rulebook I use in this job, Toast (see review, page 41) was not in line for a review. It’s been open all of six weeks, and standard operating procedure for most critics calls for a restaurant to be open at least two months, usually three,…
There’s almost nothing in the world I love as much as a plate of pancakes. My wife, a good book, that first cigarette in the morning, and driving fast on desert highways with no cops in sight — they all edge out pancakes, but not by much. Pancakes are definitely…
Sitting in a strip mall in southeast Denver, Palace is surrounded by RV dealerships, bars that start serving at 7 a.m., used-car lots and dry cleaners. In this neighborhood, a good diner would not be shocking, nor would a couple of burrito places, maybe a decent joint for barbecue or…
When I parked outside John Holly’s Asian Bistro (see review), I counted thirteen restaurants within my line of sight on Park Meadows Drive. Remarkably, most of these were local, not national chains: Brewery Bar III, Anthony’s Pizza, a sushi bar, a Japanese restaurant. Even more remarkable, a P.F. Chang’s China…
I’d been to John Holly’s Asian Bistro before. Several times. Since it opened three years ago, I’ve eaten in the slick, smooth dining room, waited in the entry for takeout orders of Yushan pork, steamed vegetables and sushi. But I never thought about reviewing the place until I spoke with…
I love some restaurants (like Pho Saigon, reviewed on page 39) because of the way time stops just inside the front door. I love other restaurants for the way they predict the future. And then there are places like Pho 79, which are all about the moment, this meal. Pho…
Okay, so the big man may not have granted all the Christmas wishes I outlined in this space two weeks ago (although I’ve heard there’s some interest in the pros’ market idea), but I don’t mind — because someone gave me the massive, two-volume set of cookbooks from El Bulli…
There are some restaurants where the world does not intrude — rooms where time does not pass, weather does not change, current events go unnoted. Often inadvertently, these restaurants have successfully stopped time — a trick that mad scientists and evil super-geniuses have been attempting since forever with dark matter…
This has been a helluva year for restaurants, full of adventures and tragedies, good times and bad. Although the rest of the economy continued to bump along, the restaurant economy picked up in a big way — and for reasons that no one has yet been able to adequately explain…
If you want a taste of the luxe life and can’t afford a meal at the Palace Arms, what do you do? You go to the Brown Palace’s Churchill Bar, where you can experience many of the amenities available next door, at a slightly more reasonable price. The menu offers…
Hey, big guy, I wanted to drop you a line and see how things are going up at the North Pole. How’s the wife? Reindeers healthy, I hope? Everything good with the elves? Okay. Enough about you. Let’s talk about me. I don’t mean to be a dick or anything,…
At the Palace Arms, I could easily spend two, maybe three thousand dollars on dinner without feeling cheated. A thousand dollars on the appetizer course alone. Another twelve hundred on a bottle of vintage bubbly wine. A couple hundred on soup, an entree and dessert. If I really wanted to…
Under the command of chef Eric Roeder, Bistro Vendome did some French dishes better than any other place in town: steak frites, sauces of all description. But brunch was always the best reason for visiting Vendome, and even though Roeder is gone and the restaurant is now firmly in the…
I’ve often been accused of having a bias toward certain foods. Barbecue, American diner classics, specific types of very cheap Mexican grub. I’ve been told that I have a weakness for any restaurant that attempts Irish cuisine or the native specialties of upstate New York. Even my own darling wife…
Like any American chef (current or former), I’ve had a love/hate relationship with France for a long time. Before I knew enough to know better, I hated the country for producing some of the white-toqued, chain-smoking, red-faced bastards who trained me — guys who bigfooted their way through the kitchen,…
Different kind of neighborhood, different kind of neighborhood restaurant. While Cowbobas (see review, page 55) is all about feeding the locals what they want, so is Elway’s. And chef Tyler Wiard and his crew have put together a new menu that speaks right to the primal needs of Cherry Creekers:…
Denver is full of seriously screw-loose culinary mash-ups. For a time, fusion cuisine was the only thing this area produced more than microbrews and ski injuries. Remember Vega? French/Latino fusion in the jewel-box style, fish napoleons, albondigas in swooping white china bowls, oxtail tamales: It was doomed from the start,…
Only in Denver. Certain things — Crocs, Mayor John Hickenlooper, Elway’s steakhouse — could only come out of Colorado. Others, like 99-cent strip-mall sushi and Western states hockey, seem anachronistic, yet flourish here regardless. But I’ve been a lot of places and seen a lot of things. And while I’m…
