At Barolo Grill, the Italian restaurant that Blair Taylor opened two decades ago at 3030 East Sixth Avenue, there’s only one thing on the menu from twenty years ago: the duck. “I’m not allowed to change it,” Taylor says. But he can, and does, think about changing everything else. “You…
This week Gretchen Kurtz reviews Bistro Barbès, a tiny spot in Park Hill that cooks up some big flavors. That’s just one of the diminutive dining establishments she’s visited recently, which inspired our list of the Ten Best Tiny Restaurants in Denver — all places that seat forty or fewer…
As chef at the now-defunct Row 14, Jensen Cummings was used to being asked to participate in charity events; out of 150 requests, he did 31 events in 2013. And even as he made plans to open his own spot, the Slotted Spoon Meatball Eatery, at 2730 South Colorado Boulevard,…
Sean Azzariti spent six years in the Marines and was deployed to Iraq twice. Today he’s fighting for the right to use medical marijuana. “When I first got out of the military, in October 2006, I was diagnosed with severe PTSD,” he recalls. The doctors prescribed heavy prescription drugs, but…
“We set out to do a small, simple restaurant, not to blaze any trails,” Alex Seidel, chef-owner of Fruition, told Westword two years after he opened that award-winning restaurant.”The positive reaction has been fantastic, but we never expected this kind of attention. I’m just a simple chef who cooks food.”…
After cooking around town, including at the late, lamented Encore, Paul Reilly and his sister, Aileen, finally got to open a place of their own last year. And what a place it is! Beast + Bottle, at 719 East 17th Avenue, is the restaurant “we conjured in our heads since…
Has Denver become a city of bagel snobs? That’s what one reader suggests, as the debate over Denver bagels versus New York bagels — as exemplified by Rosenberg’s Bagels & Delicatessen — continues. But according to that same reader, there’s another danger lurking on the horizon: designer toast. See also:…
It’s been a big summer for Rosenberg’s Bagels & Delicatessen, which opened in July in a Welton Street storefront and has been packing in the customers ever since. But owner Joshua Pollack’s claims that he makes an authentic “New York-style” New York native Eden Myles has spent years in the…
There are all kinds of happy hours in Denver, from the glitzy to the grim, the highbrow to the ‘hood. This week, Chris Utterback visited what could be the ultimate neighborhood bar, the Rosa Mia Inn, which is under new ownership but has the same old friendly vibe that dates…
Long before there was a renovated Union Station with its fancy Terminal Bar, even long before Lower Downtown was nicknamed LoDo, the area had a Terminal Bar. It was a down-and-dirty workingman’s joint, named for both the nearby Union Station and the long-gone Terminal Annex Post Office; three happy hours…
The art at Union Station has been one of the surprise hits of the $54 million renovation project. The building holds more than 600 pieces of art, a collection so extensive that the Crawford Hotel, which fills the upper three floors, has both an electronic and a published guide to…
You could once find red-sauce joints all over Highland, which decades ago was this town’s biggest Italian neighborhood. But over the years, those spots have been closing….and now Lechuga’s , which got its start as Carbone’s and continued to serve some of its classic dishes over the next two-plus decades,…
To close out a month of eating barbecue for Ethniche, Mark Antonation visited a new spot, 3 Sons BBQ, that occupies an address with a long barbecue history, since it was once home to M&D’s Cafe. Although 3 Sons might not live up to that legendary spot, he still found…
The Golden Triangle is full of cultural amenities, large and small, from the Denver Art Museum to Walker Fine Art to the Clyfford Still Museum. But while you can find fine art in the area, maybe not it’s not the right spot for fine dining. That’s the theory of one…
UPDATE: The steep price of putting in new airport train messages hasn’t stopped Denver from recording two new greetings to kick off 2015. The latest voices of the DIA people mover are new Denver Bronco DeMarcus Ware and pro skier Lindsay Vonn. For more than a decade, the trains ran…
In Ethniche, Mark Antonation has been exploring barbecue all month; his final installment on ‘cue runs tomorrow. And even as he’s explored options around town, like Brooks Smokehouse, new places keep opening up, including Burt’s Smokehouse BBQ, now smokin’ in Centennial. But still, readers are hungry for more — and…
Denver is about to get another burger joint: Hopdoddy Burger Bar will open its sixth location next to Union Station this fall. The chain got its start in Austin, Texas, which inspired the usual Colorado-centric comments — as well as requests fro a different Texas product… See also: Texas Burger…
Rick and Noy Farrell opened Taste of Thailand twenty years ago this month. The restaurant has remained true to its goals — authentic dishes made with fresh ingredients — for the past two decades. But over that same period, dining habits have changed a lot (few people linger over lunch,…
Last Friday, the morning after communities across the country held rallies to protest police violence against African-Americans — and, specifically, the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri — National Public Radio’s StoryCorps ran a particularly appropriate piece. It focuses on Alex Landau, an African-American who was adopted by a…
The Ballpark neighborhood is changing fast, and so is the dining scene there. Three years after it opened as Ignite!, the restaurant at 2124 Larimer Street has renovated both its interior and its menu. It’s also given its name an update, to Ignite Burgers & Lounge — but one reader…
First Helen Thorpe’s new book, Soldier Girls, got close to fifteen minutes of fame from Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. Then the “compelling” Soldier Girls rated an excellent review from the New York Times. And to make for a very unusual trifecta, Soldier Girls just made Book of the…
New York Times columnist Frank Bruni was back in Colorado last week, eating (and tweeting) at Acorn, attending a book signing for Helen Thorpe’s Soldier Girls (which not only earned a good review in the Times, but a rave in People, of all places) and, it turns out, researching this…
