Lung cancer has never been sexier. I’m sitting on the patio at Sketch Food and Wine — lounging on the patio, actually, which is surprising, because I’m just not built for lounging. Fellas tuned high like me don’t lounge well. Twitchy men, men always on the make for something, men…

I’m all for consistency in restaurants, and grouse loudly (and too long, some might say) about restaurants where the organic squab in styrofoam demi is delightful one night and too dry the next. The Kitchen does not have a problem with consistency. Last week, it was almost exactly the same…

Halfway through my lunch at Islamorada Fish Company, it occurs to me that this is the worst meal I’ve had in five years. I’ve eaten a lot of breakfasts and lunches and dinners out in that time. And I’ve had a lot of bad ones. I’ve been disappointed, nauseated, poisoned,…

What kills me about Opal is that it’s not necessarily a bad restaurant; it’s just so much less of a great restaurant than it once was. When I started this job four years ago — when chef Duy Pham was making his first passing glances at genius in its kitchen…

I can still miss it something awful, but there are now times when I’m glad I’m no longer a chef. When it’s 103 degrees on a Friday afternoon and I remember deep in my blood and bones the crushing, slaughtering heat of summers spent working the line, I don’t miss…

Toby, my waiter at Restaurant Kevin Taylor, is very excited. When he hands me the menu, the look on his face is one of barely contained joy. He waits while I look over the first page — beaming, fairly spilling over with enthusiasm. I’ve already told him I haven’t been…

We’d already ordered drinks, Laura and I, and were just settling into the purple banquette behind a scratched black cafe table at Prima, Kevin Taylor’s most recent revision at Hotel Teatro. This isn’t the first restaurant Taylor has had in this space. Until last year it was jou jou, a…

Two-Fisted Mario’s must drive John Pool nuts. Here he’s doing his international thing, throwing down the masala pizzas and the lobster pizzas and the freaky rattlesnake pizzas — but at 9 p.m. on a Friday night, there’s no one at Pizzeria Mundo (see review). Meanwhile, just around the corner, Two-Fisted…

Not every country under the sun deserves its own pizza, but don’t tell that to John Pool. In his mind, there’s no land too far-flung, no cuisine too unusual, no food tradition that can’t be boiled down to three or four or five key ingredients, blanketed with melted cheese and…

There was a time when this barbecue joint was one of the best in the city, back when it was known as Chapter One BBQ and Grill (“Two for the Road,” October 6, 2005). But sometime earlier this year, original owners Bonnie and Jerome Sims moved on, a big “Two”…

For barbecue fanatics, summer is like one lengthy treasure hunt, a months-long stretch when, every weekend, the faithful can pile into their cars and strike out for the mountains or the plains in search of the next find. As with all great adventures, most of us have no idea where…

Pasquini’s is the place you went with your band just before you made it big, where you and your girlfriend ate every Friday night when you were still poor and in love. It’s the place you remember from college — the one where everyone went to celebrate the end of…

I’ve said a lot of nasty things about chain restaurants. I’ve advocated a boycott of Applebee’s (because of my horror of Riblets), asked both God and Santa Claus to rain fire down on Olive Garden franchises, given away KFC fried chicken to homeless people, savaged McDonald’s on any number of…

Before they got smart and brought Zaidy’s back downtown — the original deli had opened on 14th Street almost two decades ago before hightailing it to Cherry Creek in 1992 — the owners filled this space in Writer Square with Max Burgerworks, an upscale, overpriced burger joint that was out…