Yes, we know. You picked up tickets to the Great American Beer Festival because you are a beer connoisseur. You plan to get slowly buzzed on really rare pours, and you’ve plotted out a course through esoteric barrel-aged styles from breweries that don’t distribute in Colorado. But here’s the thing:…
In part one of our interview with Jensen Cummings, the chef tells us about his attempt to launch a Colorado movement by combining food and beer in a novel way. When he’s not working on that, though, he also does a fair amount of consulting for local restaurants, including VoiceBox Karaoke,…
The Great American Beer Festival descends upon the Mile High City every October, reaffirming Denver’s place as a beer beacon and craft-brewing industry leader. Our local brewers are among the most creative and respected in the world, and their creations attract beer geeks from all over the globe. So it’s…
No. 54: Orecchiette at Coperta When Paul and Aileen Reilly threw open the doors to Coperta two months ago, they revealed an inviting neighborhood joint with a menu brimming with tempting southern-Italian specialties. Here you can traipse through buffalo mozzarella, Roman-style fried artichokes and a generous platter of salumi, put…
No. 55: Lobster, Egg and Caviar Bruschetta at Bar Fausto There’s not exactly a tricked-out kitchen at RiNo cocktail haunt Bar Fausto (which made our list of the ten best in town) — this venue from neighborhood veterans Jonathan Power and Koan Goedman offers a menu of bites simple enough that…
On paper, Steve Fenberg, Rob DuRay, Casey Berry and Sam Alviani look like an unlikely coalition of bar owners. Fenberg and DuRay are nonprofit and politics guys. Boulderite Fenberg is currently running for state Senate; a decade ago he launched progressive political organization New Era Colorado, where he met DuRay,…
No. 58: Griddle Cooked Bullfrog at Yum Yum Spice Skip the sizable menu of pedestrian Chinese-American offerings at Yum Yum Spice and head straight for what makes this DU strip mall joint special: a collection of dry-pot hot pots, listed as “griddle cooked foods,” which will give you a glimpse…
When Steven Waters started working with Black Eye Coffee, the team was preparing to spin out a second shop, building on its lower-Highland success with a more ambitious space in Capitol Hill. “We love the neighborhood, and wanted to do something different than the LoHi spot,” Waters says. “We wanted…
When fifteen-year-old Rayme Rossello landed her first job — waiting tables in New York City — she just wanted to make a quick buck. “I wanted to be an actress for my whole growing up, so I thought that would be my main focus,” she says. But a few years…
Juan Padro Highland Tap & Burger 2219 West 32nd Avenue highlandtapdenver.com Sloan’s Lake Tap & Burger 1565 Raleigh Street, Unit 100 sloanstapandburger.com Juan Padro, co-owner of Highland Tap & Burger and Bar Dough, swears that his initial foray into the restaurant industry was a mistake. He and his wife, Katie…
I didn’t become a rabid fan of green chile until the last time I moved away from Denver. Don’t get me wrong: I liked the stuff before. I grew up in this city, so I ate my fair share of green chile as a child; I have a particularly distinct…
As I thought a lot about regional cuisine in China — and ate a lot of it, too — I began wondering how the food there would evolve. As in the States, some chefs in China are looking around the globe for influence, while others are attempting to revitalize and…
As I ferreted out Chinese restaurants for this week’s story about authentic Chinese eats in Denver, I was most excited to drop into Hasu Asian Bistro, a restaurant that once served an amalgamation of Asian dishes in a subterranean space in Cherry Creek North. Hasu focused on sushi, but from…
As the sun sets over Beijing’s Gui Jie, crowds throng what’s known as Ghost Street, posting up on short stools, surrounding eatery entrances and clutching numbers doled out by aloof hostesses. The rising chatter is punctuated by blaring microphones as restaurants call in parties and men with megaphones accost passersby,…
Some years back, when the craft-beer renaissance was really picking up steam, there seemed to be an unwritten doctrine that more was more: The bigger the beer, the better. And I was on board. “I want something that punches me in the mouth,” I’d tell bartenders. I wanted a statement…
By weaving together the stories behind New York City cocktail lair Employees Only and Westport, Connecticut, corner bar Dunvilles, director Douglas Tirola takes on the changing world of bartending and the rise of craft mixology in his recently released documentary Hey Bartender. And while the film focuses on a pair…
Jonathan Greschler’s departure from Old Major last week came as a shock to those who’d watched his partnership with chef Justin Brunson survive the shuttering of Wild Catch, and then find a new home over in the Lower Highland neighborhood. But it looks like Old Major owner Juan Padro –…
I was back in Denver for three weeks last month, during which I ate what was basically one continuous meal interspersed with brief lulls that occurred when I had to switch venues or go to sleep (which was sort of often, given the food comas and also the drowsiness that…
We’ve been enamored of African Grill since we first stumbled into this Aurora strip mall spot a couple of years ago. Not only does the restaurant serve up tasty, tomato-tinged jollof rice and pungent goat stew, it’s also operated by some of the most hospitable owners we’ve ever encountered. Osei…
It’s been a year and a half since Colt & Gray owner Nelson Perkins first announced he was expanding his restaurant into the space next door and would also build a brand-new cocktail bar, charcuterie kitchen and private dining room in the basement beneath. Barring complications, he hoped to have…
The week before I arrived in the Mile High City for a spring vacation, Westword named Uncle the area’s Best New Restaurant. That propelled Tommy Le’s restaurant straight to the top of my tome-like list of must-visit spots that had opened since I moved away from this town nine months…
Two years ago, Leonard Cordova — founder of the homegrown Bubba Chinos chain and one of the Cordova family members claiming to hold the original, iconic green chile recipe that his grandmother, Stella Cordova, introduced at Chubby Burger Drive Inn more than four decades ago — had grand plans to…
