Historic El Rancho Restaurant, the 63-year-old mountain dining mecca with its own exit sign off I-70, has gone through several incarnations since the family that ran the place for 25 years sold it in 1988. And after more than a year on the block, El Rancho got new owners at…
Visit Denver gathered dozens of restaurateurs at a meeting last week to discuss the format of the 2012 Denver Restaurant Week — which long ago grew past a week at the end of February. Should it remain two weeks? Shrink to ten days? Or change to two one-week events, one…
Noel and Tammy Cunningham are good sports, frequently opening up their restaurant, Strings, for charity events. And at 6 p.m. tonight, Strings will host a Toast & Roast of Noel and Tammy Cunningham, celebrating 25 years of Strings with a four-course prix fixe menu served family-style. Bring your favorite Cunningham…
Gary Lee Bomar’s dream of opening Gary Lee’s Motor Club and Grub hit a snag last month, when the West Wash Park Neighborhood Association took issue with his plans to offer live music and off-street motorcycle parking at the Broadway spot — and started campaigning against his application for a…
This week I review Bittersweet, Olav and Melissa Peterson’s six-month-old restaurant that features a menu of artisanal, old-world cuisine with a modern twist. I spent a particularly pleasant evening on the eatery’s patio recently, surrounded by a kitchen garden and meandering through Olav’s new summer menu. Here’s a serving of…
So many delicious rosés, so few languid, warm-weather days to enjoy them. This is simultaneously our favorite and most dreaded part of the summer; the temps are sizzling (which we love), but the days are getting shorter (which we hate). The sad fact of the matter is that there are…
Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall is always busy, and this past Sunday afternoon, it was humming with activity — families strolling down the sidewalk with toddlers in tow, couples gazing into each others’ eyes and groups of friends gathered on patios to upend a pitcher in preparation for Monday morning. The…
Denver’s Del Norte Brewing, which specializes in summer-friendly Mexican-style lagers, is looking for help coming up with a Spanish-language name for its latest beer (its sixth), a Bohemian Pilsner. “We have a few in mind, but are always up for some suggestions,” the company says on its Facebook page –…
Companies will do anything these days to get you to become their fan on Facebook. Free concert tickets? Check. Free donuts? Check. Deep discounts on sneakers? Check. Naturally, fast-food chains were way out in front of the trend, offering discounts to Facebook fans in exchange for them beaming marketing updates…
I had an extraordinarily good dinner the other night at a restaurant that rarely, if ever, fails to inspire me, and with a new (but not new to Denver) executive chef at the helm, the kitchen is better than ever. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who…
Pete Marczyk and Barbara Macfarlane do not leave their work behind when they leave Marczyk Fine Foods and head for their great old Denver house with the big, new kitchen. They often bring some of their market’s choicest ingredients home with them and cook up a feast. It’s been a…
Mike Sullivan Devil’s Food Bakery and Cookery 1020 South Gaylord Street 303-733-7448 www.devilsfoodbakery.com This is part one of my interview with Mike Sullivan, executive chef of Devil’s Food Bakery & Cookery. Part two of my chat with Sullivan will run in this space tomorrow. While hanging out on the back…
The first thing you need to know about Denver Restaurant Week is that it’s the largest event of its type in the country, with the most restaurants participating and the most meals served. The second thing you need to know is that it’s not an actual week. When the economy…
The news that Brown Dog Pizza has lost its bid for a liquor license and won’t be opening a joint at 1001 South Gaylord Street has people talking — not just about the Washington Park neighborhood, but what NIMBYism has done to other parts of town. First, a view from…
Olive Garden just announced that it would be kicking fries and milkshakes off of the children’s menu at all its restaurants, replacing them with smoothies and grapes. This move is designed to please parents who drag their squirming spawn into the post-popular Italian chain, but it’s tough breaks for servers,…
Beautiful Crested Butte is hosting its annual Crested Butte Land Trust Wine & Food Festival, showcasing amazing cuisine with wines from around the country, the Celebrity Chef Tour and more; events run through Sunday, July 24. For more information, go to www.crestedbuttewine.com. For information on dozens of culinary events around…
After I finished my last meal at Bittersweet, I didn’t want to leave. A friend and I had been eating on one of the restaurant’s narrow patios, meandering through course after course with the help of the friendly, attentive staff. And long after we’d scraped the last dish clean, we…
Another Denver monsoon was soaking the streets outside, and inside Bistro One, the dining room was almost empty. A few patrons were nursing drinks at the long bar that runs along one side of the room, basking in the blue glow of the lights, but most of the other diners…
I started to review Bittersweet three months ago. After dinner at the then-three-month-old restaurant, I learned from chef-owner Olav Peterson, who’s hyper-focused on seasonality and fresh local ingredients, that he was about to change the menu. And not just make a few tweaks — Peterson was getting ready to scrap…
Wooden Spoon Cafe & Bakery, which I reviewed last week, is now my weekend haunt, and I regularly hang out at one of the tables in this small spot, digging into pastries baked in the open kitchen just behind the counter. I also love the breakfast and lunch sandwiches here,…
“Get ready for the fight of your lives.” That was the advice barked at Jeff Smokevitch and Giles Flanigan, the owners of Brown Dog Pizza, a Telluride-based pizzeria that had inked a lease on a vacant, build-out space on South Gaylord Street where they wanted to open a second Brown…
I’m the first one to bitch and moan about how all the great dives in Denver are disappearing — but then when someone like Frank Bonanno (Mizuna, Luca D’Italia, Osteria Marco, Bones and Green Russell) comes in and gentrifies the hell out of one of those dives, I can’t wait…
