Once he decided he truly wanted to be part of the neighborhood, Grant Gingerich abandoned his addled Swimclub32 concept and instead returned to the area’s roots with a Mexican restaurant — albeit one in a tricked-out, contemporary form. It was a smart move, since this slice of northwest Denver has…
I went to Swimclub32 more times than I liked to admit, since the dark den in the heart of Highland was haunted by a crowd more common to the depths of LoDo. My friends and I were fascinated by the hordes of men bathed in Acqua di Gio, the women…
How is a first date different from a blind date? The blind date is basically an interview, after which you decide whether you’d like to go a second round. First dates imply that some level of familiarity and attraction already exists, and you’re making a calculated step, putting your best…
In Best of Denver 2011, we served up many places to drink, including Best New Bar, Best Dive Bar and Best Tap House. But what if you’re looking for a drink and a smoke? Frank asks: Your last edition featuring “Best of” failed to mention best Cigar Bars. I would…
Here’s something we haven’t seen before:Former employees of restaurateur Antonio Race are opening a wine shop called Vino & Vino — and it’s attached to Pulcinella Pizzeria and Wine Bar (read my recent Pulcinella review here) /a>, by punching through a wall, allowing direct interaction between the shoppers and diners…
If you’re sick of online dating or tired of having your friends hook you up with their single friends, only to eventually question their judgment of your personality, here’s a suggestion: Why not go out and meet people the old-fashioned way? And we’re not talking about putting on the beer…
This city has many eateries where you can get stuffed for the price of a movie ticket, but a few really stand out. In fact, some of our favorite restaurants also happen to be those that serve up the most inexpensive meals in town. The very best of all is…
After all of the drinking we did in order to pick our booze-related awards in the Best of Denver 2011 — like Best Martini, Best House Margarita, Best Dive Bar and Best New Bar — (coupled with, uh, our normal food and booze pairing habits), we began to think of…
Denver is littered with dive bars, all boasting at least a handful of loyal regulars who while away the hours while they nurse a drink….or twelve. In the Best of Denver 2011, our pick for the Best Dive Bar in the city was the Kentucky Inn, a spot we’d never…
“I got my passion from Tony,” Kelly Whitaker of Pizzeria Basta, which I reviewed this week, told me. “I carried that through everything else I did.” He was talking about Antonio Race, the native Italian who founded Pulcinella Ristorante in Fort Collins back in 1991; Whitaker got his kitchen start…
When I first met Kelly Whitaker, chef-owner of Boulder’s Pizzeria Basta, we talked about my possibly helping in the front of the house at the new restaurant he was then planning for Boulder. While I pondered the move, I eventually decided against it: I’d recently started working at Frasca Food…
For this week’s Cafe review, I headed to Boulder and Pizzeria Basta, where chef-owner Kelly Whitaker and his partner, Alan Henkin, have been pushing to make pizza better since Basta opened in early 2010. Basta means enough, but enough will never be enough here. Here’s a serving of food porn…
“Alex Weiser, man. He grows the best potatoes.” Kelly Whitaker was standing in front of his roaring wood-fired oven at Pizzeria Basta, slicing a tiny, misshapen purple tuber with exacting precision, then spreading the disks on a just-stretched circle of dough. “I used to get potatoes from a local farm…
It’s been a banner year for pizza in Boulder: Between January 2010 and January 2011, three ambitious pizzerias opened their doors, all with wood-fired ovens baking renditions of Napolitano or Napolitano-inspired pizzas. Kelly Whitaker, chef and owner of Pizzeria Basta, says the competition has actually helped; his restaurant’s numbers were…
When New York native Dino Espejo picked up a spot in lower Highland at 32nd and Tejon, he projected, optimistically, that he’d open his coffee shop, the Laughing Latte, sometime in December. Four months later, he’s finally hiring his staff, stocking his coffee beans and getting ready to brew…
Denver is a burger-loving town, and you can find excellent versions all over: beefy patties, oozing juice, coated with cheese and served on tasty rolls. The very best? The American Classic Burger at Tarbell’s, which won the award for Best Burger in the Best of Denver 2011. Although Cafe Society…
We’ve been seeing tantalizing Facebook updates and tweets from CAUTION: Brewing Co. for a couple of months now, as Danny Wang and his partner, Betty Fey, revived the Odell Brewing’s old five-barrel system and did some dry runs on the equipment, testing it out. This past Sunday, though, the brewery…
We tasted a lot of house margaritas in preparation for our Best of Denver 2011 issue, and the marg at El Camino was hands down the Best House Margarita, as well as one of the most simple, true to the classic roots of this Mexican cocktail. At most American Mexican…
Until fairly recently, we were big fans of online dating websites, racing off to meet perfect strangers several nights a week, making new friends, making out a little, maybe even finding someone we’d like to date. It didn’t take long for us to become strategic about our rendezvous locations, developing…
When Laura Rice and Top Chef Season 5 winner Hosea Rosenberg started hawking sexed up versions of global street food last year from their tricked-out Airstream trailer in Boulder , they had plans to take their concept national. “Street food is the next fastcasual,” Rice told us at the time…
Last summer, Denver’s Sean Kenyon was named Bartender of the Year by Domaine de Canton after he bested a handful of his peers from across the country in the final competition in St. Maarten — and he took home a $10,000 check for his work, too. This year, Noah Heaney…
We’ve been eying the green-tiled space outfitted with ten or so self-serve yogurt machines that flanks the walking bridge on Platte Street for a while, wondering when the place would start serving frozen treats. Yesterday, we noticed a new development: a sign. And we also got word that Yogurt Time…
