Restaurant consultants make a lot of money telling eateries to change the color of their curtains and to put tiramisu on their dessert menus if they want to attract more customers. But the truth is, featuring all the recommended fads du jour doesn’t guarantee prosperity in the food business–just ask…
Things to do in Denver when you’re fed: The executive editor of Food & Wine magazine, Denise Martin, ate her way through Denver this past weekend. Here to check out some of our finest chefs for possible inclusion in the publication’s annual “Ten Best New Chefs” awards, Martin relied on…
With new Italian restaurants sprouting around town like mold on a piece of old focaccia, it’s easy to forget that several trattorias have been plying the pappardelle for some time–and doing a good job of it. One of those standbys, Al Fresco, has been undergoing a few growing pains of…
Most restaurant owners fall into one of two categories: chef or businessman. The chef usually winds up with his own place after suffering for years as a misunderstood artiste forced to conform to the mad wishes of the money people, only to discover that you need dough to make a…
Bird’s the word: It’s the other red meat. We’re talking about emu, the non-flying fowl from Australia that occasionally lands on the menu at Cliff Young’s (when they can get it) and recently paid a visit to Denver’s School of Culinary Arts. Students there stir-fried the bird, made medallions of…
Spread the word: Sundays are open again. The holidays are over. The Super Bowl is over. The nice weather is over, and I don’t care what that goofy groundhog says–it’s going to stay cold for a while. Is there a better way to fill these now-free, if still frigid, Sundays…
Brunch banking: Brunch buffets are high-maintenance and, as a result, often low-flavor–quality ingredients such as real egg yolks and delicate cheeses don’t take kindly to the heat of Sterno cans and hours in chafing pans. (For a buffet that works, see the previous page for a review of Ellyngton’s at…
Some people don’t have the luxury of their own neighborhood joint–a warm, welcoming place that locals call home, with a bartender who knows everybody’s usual and all the good O.J. jokes. Then again, some people don’t want to encounter their neighbor in a social setting, especially if he’s the schmuck…
There goes the neighborhood: Even when the restaurant is as good as the Washington Park Grille or Mead St. Station (see review, previous page), some neighbors don’t care to send out the Welcome Wagon when a moving van pulls up and starts unloading an eatery in their vicinity. Two issues…
What’s the difference between an eleven-ounce, dry-aged, corn-fed, USDA Prime piece of beef at a big-name, nationally known restaurant and the same hunk of meat at a small, local steakhouse? Oh, about fifteen bucks. That, and such subtle nuances as these: At the homegrown joint, a spokesman doesn’t come out…
Meating the demand: A fixture in the Denver area for 38 years now, Emil-Lene’s Sirloin House, at 16000 Smith Road in Aurora, still steaks a claim on its USDA Prime sirloins (for more on steakhouses, see Cafe, previous page). Original owner Frank Emerling died in 1990, but long before that,…
Twenty-two inches of fresh powder and the sun shining like the caps of a ski instructor’s smile. After eight hours of carving turns and cruising for serious speed, the last thing I want to do is shell out $200 for a meal in a stuffy place where I might spot…
Losses, gains: The football season may be almost over, but in the restaurant business, nothing’s ever final. Add to the disabled list the original Ranelle’s, at 1313 East Sixth Avenue (the second location at 2390 South Downing closed several months ago). Owner Ranelle Gregory says she’s “bittersweet” about selling her…
Ever since Yankee Doodle stuck that feather somewhere and called it macaroni, this country has been in love with the noodle. What’s not to love? It goes with everything–dripping with butter, buried in cheese, smothered in any kind of sauce–and it’s cheap, filling and fast-cooking. Still, it wasn’t until last…
Scaled back: Soon after it opened last year, Cafe Iguana, at 300 Fillmore, shed much of its authentic Yucatan and Oaxacan fare in order to offer the sort of familiar Mexican food that Denverites could appreciate. But even that sacrifice of his original concept wasn’t enough to make Kevin Taylor’s…
People who have nothing better to do than track trends already have proclaimed fusion the fashionable food of ’96. Asian-influenced anything was the rage last year; fusion adds any and all types of cuisine to the melting pot. Not that fusion is really anything new–melding of, say, French and Asian…
A fish story: I never trusted supermarket seafood departments because too many questions went unanswered–like when the fish came in, how long it would stay at peak, or whether the snapper was from the Gulf or the Atlantic. But all of that changed when I met Carolyn Mason, seafood-department manager…
It may have been the Year of the Pig on the Chinese calendar, but in Denver, 1995 will go down as the Year of the Restaurant. Through official announcements, phone calls, word-of-mouth tips and simply stumbling into places, I counted no fewer than 67 new restaurants in the city alone…
We screeched to a halt in front of the Brown Palace Hotel in our luxury Toyota, two minutes late because the first movie we’d seen in a theater in sixteen months–yes, that’s how old our kid is; how’d you guess?–had 27 previews, 5 more than we’d counted on when we…
Attention, shoppers: It’s the eleventh hour, people. If you haven’t yet found that perfect gift for your foodie friends, you haven’t been looking. This year the sale of cookbooks and kitchen doodads has already passed all previous records (at least, that’s according to one Nebraska marketing company). If my credit-card…
Try to remember the last time the tuxedo-clad manager of a restaurant ran, actually ran, outside into the parking lot so that he could breathlessly call “Thanks again for coming, and drive safely” because he’d missed saying goodbye to you at the door. Can you recall arriving for dinner at…
Going to the dogs: Four out of five mutts surveyed in my neighborhood agree–the biscuits from Cosmo’s Dog Biscuit Bakery, at 1224 East Sixth Avenue, are better than your average puppy chow. The slightly insane-yet-ingenious business (named after a cat, by the way) is the brainchild of Laurin Wiltgen, who…
