Service has been a big topic on Cafe Society this week, what with Jonathan Greschler getting the boot from Old Major for his apparent inability to connect with his former staff, despite the fact that guests adore him. “Jonathan is amazing with customers, but I just don’t think he applied…
I interview numerous chefs who lament the lack of good Mexican food in a city that’s steeped in green chile and home to some marvelous taquerias. But when I go to a place like this, where my relleno has clearly been microwaved and the guacamole is absent of any seasoning,…
Late last year, Odell Brewing named a beer, Lugene Chocolate Milk Stout, after a truck belonging to the organic farmer who hauls away the brewery’s spent grain to feed to his dairy cows. This time around, the Fort Collins company will focus on the life cycle of hops — and…
There is a thin line between self-indulgence and being a dickhead, a line that any bartender could draw for you. On especially busy nights at any watering hole, there is always at least one person who decides to order some outdated or ridiculous beverage that takes up valuable bartender time,…
Happy Friday! Don’t drink too much at First Friday, because Cinco de Mayo is this Sunday. Here are five of the top food and drink celebrations going down around town — and if you know of any other good Drinco de Mayo party/deals, post them in the comments section below…
Have El Diablo and Sketch reached the end of the line? According to El Diablo’s Facebook page, the restaurants will be closing at the end of business tonight: “Please come by and send us off in style!!!” This is the culmination — maybe — of a ten-month-long fight with the…
The fact that Pho Lee, subject of this week’s review, serves up such terrific pho (not to mention Vietnamese egg rolls, grilled meats and boba smoothies) isn’t such a surprise, given that the owner, Dung Anh Le, worked at Pho 95, his brother’s pho shop, for years. What might catch…
I love tasting menus, much the same way that I’m a proponent of communal tables and hanging my butt at the bar, which is where I prefer to eat. And if I can get a tasting menu at the bar, with wine pairings, even better. Yes, I like extended, evening-long…
I was back in Denver for three weeks last month, during which I ate what was basically one continuous meal interspersed with brief lulls that occurred when I had to switch venues or go to sleep (which was sort of often, given the food comas and also the drowsiness that…
I’m not at all sorry I missed being an adult in the 1970s. There were terrible fashion trends with bell bottom pants and clogs with heels, and worse hairstyles with that feathered look; the porn was all sweaty and hairy, and the food trends were…well, Irma Rombauer’s Joy of Cooking…
The owners of the Cheeky Monk Belgian Beer Café are still planning to open their own brewery in August or September, but in the meantime, James and Tina Pachorek and their staff teamed up with Wynkoop Brewing last week to make a Belgian-inspired saison. “I have been friends with Marty…
Announcement: We have a winner of our Victor Hugo wine dinner contest. Congrats to Sallymander1029, who guessed seventeen – the exact number of times that Aileen saw Les Misérables on Broadway. Sally, we’ll send you can e-mail about how you can claim your prize. On Thursday night, at 7 p.m.,…
My own lunch was disappointing, but my date’s lunch — tomato soup and Bolognese with penne — was anything but, especially that tomato soup, which should really be sold by the gallon. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to a Guess…
This is part two of my interview with Michael Pollan, author of Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation; Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual; The Omnivore’s Dilemma; In Defense of Food; Second Nature; The Botany of Desire and A Place of My Own. Part one of Pollan’s musings ran yesterday. Pollan…
Three hours south of Denver, a husband-and-wife team of ranchers are working hard to help reintroduce Colorado lamb to the meat-devouring public. As detailed in this week’s cover story, “Counting Sheep,” the Triple M Bar Ranch in Manzanola ships lamb to over a dozen restaurants and caterers, who use it…
After Opus left Littleton last summer, it moved up to Cherry Creek, where it merged with Aria. Last week chef Sean McGaughey unveiled the new look and menu of Opus Restaurant & Aria Wine Bar at 250 Josephine, a location that has swallowed up many previous occupants. Can the Opus/Aria…
Game six of the NBA playoff series between the Nuggets and the Golden State Warriors goes down tonight and, based on the team’s performance on Tuesday, Denver has a chance to take the series to game seven. Tuesday’s victory came under some scrutiny, however, mainly from Warriors head coach Mark…
Avocados used to be in the same class as pomegranates, hard to find in small grocery stores and displayed with growers’ signs for how to slice and use them. These days, though, avocados are everywhere: forming beds for scrambled eggs, lining bruschetta, mashed with garlic, lime and cilantro in the…
The bleating of sheep in the barn — cries of every timbre, pitch and volume — sounds like a clamorous outdoor market in the thick of the afternoon. Ewes and lambs alike call incessantly, straining to be heard. One young lamb, not even an hour old, mews softly in the…
Although cattle have overtaken sheep as America’s favorite ruminants, local chefs are hard at work pushing Colorado lamb. Lamb doesn’t carry the same expectations at beef, nor is it saddled with the same baggage. Lamb can be handled with feather-light minimalism, or used as a canvas for outré experimentation, while…
Curt Sims and his wife, Pam, opened Cantina last Friday at 1109 Lincoln Street, which most recently was home to the Hive. Curt Sims owns the building, which long ago was the Denver Buffalo Company; the last time the couple ran a restaurant there, it was Cielo. But that’s not…
The current happy-hour menu at the McCormick’s Fish House & Bar in the corner of the Oxford Hotel may not seem as much of a bargain as the legendary “cheap time” that denizens of LoDo remember so fondly, when every item — including a big fat cheeseburger and fries –…
