Food & Drink

In A Federal Case, I’ll be eating my way up Federal Boulevard — south to north — within Denver city limits. I’ll skip the national chains and per-scoop Chinese joints, but otherwise I’ll report from every vinyl booth, walk-up window and bar stool where food is served. Here’s my second…

Cafe Society served up four Guess Where? posts last week, from a pint of rare stout at Providence Tavern, to a still-unidentified gingerbread house to a heart-shaped side of fried rice at Benihana…

What will be the big culinary trends in 2013? As we prepare for a new year in gastronomy, we posed that question to dozens of people in the local food business, everyone from chefs and pastry magicians to restaurant brokers and PR consultants, from brewers and grape gurus to realtors…

On March 9, 2011, Steve Redzikowski, co-owner and chef of Oak at Fourteenth, stood on the street in disbelief. The restaurant that he and his partner, Bryan Dayton, had opened four months prior in Boulder, was smoldering, the thick surges of smoke emblazoning the downtown Boulder skyline. It would take…

Broadway continues to be one of the town’s fastest-evolving areas, with the three blocks south of First Avenue seeing incredible changes in 2012. After numerous delays, Gary Lee’s Motor Club & Grub finally opened this spring; after even more months in the planning, Punch Bowl – Social Food & Drink…

This week’s Westword has no fresh restaurant review, since the issue is devoted to a look back at 2012 — the big stories, the small triumphs — as well as predictions of culinary trends to watch for in the new year. I’ve reviewed sixteen spots since I joined the Cafe…

The website for Fat Sully’s asks you to “stay tuned” for a “sexy new website coming soon.” But that’s not all that’s coming soon. Fat Sully’s, which started as an offshoot of Atomic Cowboy, working out of the same space at 3237 East Colfax Avenue, is about to bring its…

The soon-to-be-over year of 2012 has given us savory soups, awesome appetizers, munchable main dishes and even a few scintillating smoothies. But these taste-tempting morsels and sips were sadly sullied by the emergence of some unimaginably horrific eats that Satan himself would not take a poke at with his big,…

Mark Antonation has an ambitious resolution for 2013: He’s eating his way through Denver city limits along Federal Boulevard, from the southern border to the northern, and blogging about it for Cafe Society in “A Federal Case.” But he got off to a rough start, when he found that the…

Westword ho, ho, ho. Cafe Society will be busy in the kitchen through December 25, but we’ll be cooking up plenty of tasty stories for when we return early on December 26. And in the meantime, we’re leaving you some holiday food for thought in this post by Jenn Wohletz,…

After nearly four years on Seventeenth Avenue’s Restaurant Row, Olivea, the intimate Mediterranean restaurant owned by husband-and-wife duo Stephanie Bonin and Keith Arnold, who also oversee Duo in Highland, will close in mid-January. The couple, who opened Olivea in May 2009, are moving to the East Coast in June. See…

Some of the best holiday memories are made in the kitchen. The wafting aroma of ham and reheated Hawaiian rolls, the rush to make sure the cream of mushroom soup moistens that green bean casserole, the agonized sighs after reading the calorie count on the Sara Lee pie box. And,…

Gatsby’s has opened in the former home of the Wine Loft at 1527 Wazee Street. The speakeasy-style lounge is now offering a preliminary menu of “gourmet bites” and crafted cocktails — and that lineup will expand once the restaurant puts the finishing touches on its concept. See also: -Gatsby’s will…

Metro Denver lost some longtime institutions this year. Pagliacci’s.The Burnsley. Gabor’s. And now El Rancho, once a dining destination for tourists and Denver residents alike, a place so popular it had its own exit off I-70, is gone, too. See also: – Historic El Rancho Restaurant has new owners and…

Federal Boulevard is one of the most interesting stretches of pavement in the entire United States. The cultural and economic diversity represented in a few densely populated miles means that you can drive past looming Victorian mansions, the playground of the Denver Broncos, llanteros selling retread tires, Vietnamese seafood markets,…

Everyone and their brethren seemed to be celebrating the holidays at this culinary house of comedy, where the theatrics outshine the food. That said, there’s absolutely nothing with what these dynamic jokesters serve, although I’m especially sweet on the addictive fried rice, shaped in the form of heart. Can you…

In early February, Spuntino, the Highland restaurant and dessert palace overseen by betrothed couple John Broening (he’s the chef) and Yasmin Lozada-Hissom (she’s the pastry chef) will close for a week — maybe two — to undergo a major makeover, and when it reopens, guests will not only be treated…

This last year has brought us some terrible chain restaurant trends, including serving up sodium-soaked “healthy” meals; shrinking dessert sizes and charging the same prices; peddling fancy cocktails with more ingredients than a hair-relaxing solution; and restaurants labeling everything “natural.” But despite the obvious failures, 2012 also produced five trends…