The tenth season of Bravo’s Top Chef starts tonight, with three Colorado chefs among the competitors: Eliza Gavin of Telluride’s 221 South Oak; Jorel Pierce, the executive chef of Euclid Hall; and Tyler Wiard, exec chef at Elway’s Cherry Creek and culinary director of the Elway’s group (which currently includes…
Unit E was named the Best New DIY Gallery in the Best of Denver 2012 — but two liquor-law enforcement agents thought that the Unit E crew had gone a little far in doing it themselves. And so they busted the place on Friday night, just hours after Mayor Michael…
There were sighs of relief across the country when the polls closed yesterday (followed, in some quarters, by cries of anguish). But nowhere were the sighs more heartfelt than at Rosa Linda’s Mexican Cafe, which had landed in the center of the storm after word went out that the family-run…
Governor John Hickenlooper gave this election a real sound bite when he warned that the passage of Amendment 64 doesn’t change the fact that “federal law still says marijuana is an illegal drug, so don’t break out the Cheetos or [Goldfish] too quickly.”…
Just shy of its fourth birthday, Venue has closed its doors. Owner Holly Hartnett had opened her restaurant in the former Highland home of 8 Rivers on November 12, 2008, and although the place met with early acclaim — especially for chef James Rugile, now working with Frank Bonanno –…
The very public paint job on the outside of the new Pasquini’s Pizzeria at 777 East 17th Avenue has prompted more discussion of art than anchovies. Cap_Hill_Cowboy calls it “a blight upon the city,” and adds “I’ve stopped taking Clarkson to 18th just to avoid the eyesore.” But this critic…
At 7:35 a.m., a Colorado Republican Committee radio ad urging people to vote early by mail was airing on KHOW. Too late. I’d just returned from the polling place in my neighborhood — a neighborhood that has changed drastically in the twenty years I’ve been voting here…
Pasquini’s is back on East 17th Avenue, a mile further west than where it had had opened up shop on this strip years ago, then closed that franchise earlier this year. The original 17th Avenue restaurant was in a little Victorian house, but the new location is a massive space,…
Does Colorado have an official car? If so, it’s definitely the Suburu. Bree Davies owns one, a 1996 model that she named Wooderson after the character she most resembles in Dazed and Confused, and which she honored with an ode last spring. But now, with bad weather hitting the mountains,…
Paul Ryan is a marathon man. The Republican vice-presidential candidate runs them (although his time is in dispute) and he’s been on a marathon campaign trip through all the swing states, including Colorado. Where today Ryan and the Romney campaign will visit Johnson’s Corner in Johnstown, just south of the…
The national newscasts this morning are full of speculation about which way Colorado will swing tomorrow. But whether the color wheel lands on red or blue, Colorado won’t look as black as it did the morning after the 1992 election, when this state was labeled “The Hate State.”…
Il Mondo Vecchio, a Denver salumeria and production plant, opened in 2009 in a bare-bones industrial building on South Cherokee Street. Mark DeNittis and his partner, Gennaro DeSantis, quickly earned acclaim for their fresh sausages and dry-cured artisan salumi products, many of which are sold at local markets and used…
Bree Davies had been excited to see Katt Williams, a comedian who’s taught her much about life. But on November 1, during a Denver show that was a three-hour reign of error, she got a very unexpected lesson as the audience first endured a half dozen unorganized, lackluster comic performances…
The country is swamped by devastation from Hurricane Sandy and the storm of the 2012 election, but it’s still beginning to look a lot like Christmas. And who’s the Santa hauling the 2012 U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree — — “America’s gift to the nation” — to Washington, D.C.? Former Senator…
Do people care about schnitzel? You’re darn Teuton! As a side to her review of Cafe Berlin, Gretchen Kurtz served up the five best restaurants for a schnitzel fix — and her list has taken a pounding. Where is Cafe Prague? Sobo 151? And where’s that umlaut? See also: -…
The October 31 deadline that the Denver Department of Community Planning and Development had given the First Avenue Hotel came and went — without any new notices to vacate slapped on the building. On July 10 those notices, headlined with the word “Danger,” as well as five different letters signed…
This is the first National Bison Day, a project pushed by groups that would like to make bison the national mammal. For the past century, every day has been a bison day in Denver, since the city has had its own herd since 1914 — but if other bison boosters…
Mitch Mayers always knew he wanted to be a chef, even when his parents insisted he go to Cornell. So he paired that with classes at culinary school, and after a stint with Hillstone — which sent him to Denver to run the kitchen at the Cherry Creek Grill –…
Just in time for Denver Arts Week, which kicks off on November 2, the Colorado Business Committee for the Arts is unveiling the results of its most recent study, which shows that metro Denver arts and culture generated $1.76 billion in total economic activity in 2011 — a year that…
Yesterday Lori Midson reported that Frank and Jacqueline Bonanno, who already run Mizuna, Bones and Luca D’Italia at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Grant Street, will be taking over the space previously occupied by the Lancer Lounge, and turning it into Vesper Lounge, a bar that “won’t break the…
Boo who? Anna Jonas saw her first apparition during a fifth-grade basement seance, and she was immediately hooked on the paranormal. Today she has her own all-female ghost-hunting team, the Spirit Realm Investigative Project, which will be on an upcoming episode of the Bio Channel’s My Ghost Story. She also…
Last night Belola, the lower lounge space at Lola with the bar and big TV, became an impromptu haven for displaced travelers, stuck in Denver and hungry for news of home — and maybe some food and drink, too. The camaraderie proved so comforting that Lola is now officially offering…
