My first visit to WaterCourse Foods was on a bet. It was a bet with myself — a wager between my better and worse natures that revolved around my good self’s belief that every restaurant, no matter its kink, offers something tasty to those willing to really look, and my…
If restaurateur, chef and culinary man-about-town Dave Query has a signature spot that captures the evolution of his empire, that would be the Jax in LoDo. Here, in a retooling of the Boulder original, Query’s vision and his attempts to meld the upscale with the downhome come together most smoothly…
Creating a financially successful tavern isn’t tough. Aside from a ham-and-cheese-sandwich joint that gives away free booze and hand jobs, no restaurant venture offers a better rate of return than your average tavern, and unless you’re a congenitally bad businessman, you should have some cash in the register at the…
Sitting on the patio on top of the West End Tavern, gazing at the great view (and I’m not just talking about the unparalleled sight of the Flatirons), I sipped whiskey and smoked a cigarette in one of the few places where you still can in Boulder, and thanked God…
New and improved. I can’t imagine those two words ever being more appropriate — in a restaurant context, certainly — than when applied to Cafe Berlin in its new home downtown. Cafe Berlin’s original location on 17th Avenue, although quaintly charming and homey in a care-worn way, was definitely showing…
If seeing the special Spargelfeier menu got me excited about grabbing a table at Chinook Tavern (see review), then hearing Clemens Georg talk about it made me realize I had to grab that table now. “Do you know about white asparagus?” he asked. Yes, I know plenty about white asparagus…
Every spring, Chinook Tavern celebrates white-asparagus season as long as the season lasts, getting only the best product overnighted from producers in Holland, Germany and France, using it in only the best ways. For ten years Chinook has been doing this, and just a whiff of the house’s special white-asparagus…
Just staying open for over thirty years is an achievement for any restaurant. But staying open and staying relevant? That’s really noteworthy. And it’s a trick that Tante Louise has pulled off through decades of ups and downs, of flashy culinary fads and trend-sucking foodies willing to fall for any…
I don’t know what it is. Maybe the warm weather. Maybe the economy. Maybe the fact that it’s pretty easy to impersonate a guy who works anonymously. But in the past few weeks, there’s been yet another rash of Jason Sheehan imposters acting naughty in my name. First came reports…
The first time I tried Star of India — two years ago, during one of my warm-weather Indian binges — I immediately put the meal out of my mind. The food wasn’t just spicy, it was punishing. Brutal. The heat was so overwhelming that it fried the synapses in my…
For more than twenty years, Rosa Linda Aguirre and her family have been dishing up some of Denver’s best Mexican food in the town’s most family-friendly eatery. The kids pictured on the original menu are all grown — although most continue to work in the restaurant — and grandchildren now…
If I’m looking for noodles, I head to Chef’s Noodle House (see review). But when I’ve got a yen for sizzling rice — that most theatrical of Chinese dishes, and one badly mangled these days by kitchens that don’t appreciate the inherent drama that once attended every Americanized Chinese dinner…
Chef Billy Lam has his head down, and he’s thinking. “Hmmmm,” he says, drawing it out as his finger touches the menu here and there and there. “Udon?” he asks. “Definitely,” I tell him. “Definitely udon.” “Good.” Hunched over the counter, our heads almost touching, Lam and I study the…
Adega is many things: a hip, fine-dining mecca; a LoDo anchor that helps keep the neighborhood from degenerating into nothing but club nights and drunken Let-Out brawls; a showcase for some of the best, smartest New American cuisine on offer in the Mile High City (or anywhere else); and a…
Okay, so the James Beard House has had its share of troubles recently. But all scandals and criticism aside, it is a big name — maybe the big name — in the industry, and when you say “James Beard,” people sit up and listen. Why is it that I found…
On our first visit to The Oven, the server working the short bar near the front door leaned across the counter and casually asked Laura and me where we lived. It seemed a little creepy, and definitely forward. I mean, sure, we’re an attractive couple (Laura’s good-looking, anyway, and I…
Hanson’s has always been one of the easy ones — a restaurant I can’t help but like. It’s the sort of place you find one night when every other table in the neighborhood is booked, then return to whenever you have an open Friday night and no reservations. For families,…
I sometimes regret that I was born a Yankee. Truly, I think a part of me (some piece of my insides mysteriously wedged between gut and gullet) was misplaced at conception — put into a Rust Belt boy, but meant for a creature acclimated to gentler Southern latitudes. It’s like…
For the past month or so, National Public Radio has been featuring a project called “This I Believe,” airing essays from listeners — famous people, regular joes, politicians, pipe-fitters and everyone in between — willing to rise to the challenge of condensing and codifying their personal beliefs. The final product…
I’ve never quite known what it is about Mel’s that makes me feel so at home. More than any other spot in the city, Mel’s just feels like a restaurant — the kind of place where you know you’re going to be well cared for and well fed, then leave…
Let me tell you something about chefs that doesn’t get a lot of play on the Food Network: They’re survivors. In their climb up the ladder from wherever they began to wherever they top out, they’ve probably stepped on a lot of necks, taken on a certain mercenary mindset and,…
I’d finished my last meal at Rioja — my last official meal, that is — and I couldn’t leave. My party and I were done, had been done for maybe twenty minutes already. We had to-go boxes sitting on our table, our jackets in our laps, credit cards and fistfuls…
