Restaurants

While my mom raised me not to judge a book by its cover, I still fight the urge to judge a restaurant’s food by the presence of a drive-through — especially when it’s an all-night, 24-hour drive through like the one at Taco Star at 1760 South Havana Street in…

Author and food historian Adrian Miller has been gobbling up national recognition for his recent books about soul food and the African American chefs who have served American presidents. His most recent accolade was an NAACP Image Awards nomination for Outstanding Literary Work, Non-Fiction for his 2017 book, The President’s Kitchen Cabinet:…

More than 250 restaurants and bars opened in metro Denver last year, some of them taking over vacancies caused by the closures of other establishments. But empty dining rooms and dark kitchens with stoves gone cold still dot the culinary landscape of the city, serving as a reminder that the…

Ordinarily there would be no reason on earth to take a perfectly good steak and fiddle with it. But there’s one happy exception: the Philly cheesesteak. Said to have been created around 1916, this sandwich is an East Coast hit that has slowly spread from its urban Philadelphia origins. The popularity…

Misaki’s menu offers a full selection of nigiri, sushi rolls, and chef specialties, with most standard sushi rolls coming in under eight dollars—the typical happy hour pricing at many Denver sushi restaurants….

Centro Mexican Kitchen has been through several incarnations and chefs over its sixteen years on the west end of Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall. Now it’s going hyper-regional.

Sage Restaurant Group has been a driving force in the Denver restaurant scene for years; in the past year or so alone the group has opened Departure with celebrity chef Gregory Gourdet in the Halcyon Hotel in Cherry Creek, Kachina Southwestern Grill and Poka Lola Social Club at the Maven downtown,…

Quick: Name a food that rhymes with “poodle.” If you came up with “noodle,” you’re on the right track to hunting down one of the most intriguing menu items at the Brutal Poodle, a new bar and grill with a decidedly goofy name at 1967 South Broadway. (And if you…

Denver is losing some of its most iconic restaurants, including a trio that have been open for more than forty years.

While there are plenty of restaurants that plan to debut in the next two months, this was a slow week for openings (by the standards of last year, at least). Menya Ramen & Poke continues its expansion after opening noodle shops on the 16th Street Mall and at 1590 Little Raven…

Chef Efren Velasquez is coming full circle in his return to Jefferson Park. After sixteen years as a server, manager and chef at La Loma, where he helmed the kitchen at the Denver favorite, Velasquez helped move La Loma from West 26th Avenue to its current downtown location in 2016…

When you offer a traditional sandwich like bánh mì and give it a modern twist, is it still considered bánh mì? In Denver you can find family-run shops that bake their own bread and create sandwiches much like you would find in Vietnam. But a number of chefs are also…

The Danish call it smørrebrød; the French call it tartine. Here in the Wild West, we just prefer “open-faced sandwich.”  Whatever you call a mound of complementary ingredients on a thick slab of bread, we call it delicious at Call, the right-hand side of Beckon|Call (2845 Larimer Street). The new fast-casual…

Denver has not always been considered a particularly diverse dining city, but there have been notable exceptions. Vietnamese and Ethiopian restaurants gained popularity in the 1980s and ’90s, long before the specialties of those countries became trendy nationwide. And at 4609 East Colfax Avenue, Mataam Fez introduced Denver to Moroccan…

Concourse Restaurant Moderne, an ambitious project from ChoLon Concepts, is one of the most exciting restaurants to open in metro Denver in 2017. Here’s why.

You can’t possibly be bored with all the breakfast, lunch and dinner options in Denver. But variety is the spice of life, so here’s a hint of spice to beguile you with upcoming cuisine ranging from Southern fare to ice cream to Chinese hot pot. These thirteen restaurants are expected…

Even though the Aurora branch of Dae Gee Korean BBQ opened just five months ago, the restaurant fits right in to its new home at 1910 South Havana Street, where the Korean food scene is exploding. The difference between Dae Gee and other Korean barbecue restaurants lining Havana street, however,…

Denver restaurants are facing a major talent crunch in the kitchen, and a disparity in front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house wages in one reason why. Readers think they have some solutions.

The week following the winter holidays can seem as slow as molasses, but behind the scenes restaurateurs are busy polishing the glassware and chefs are putting final touches on dishes at eateries that will open in the days ahead.

Gypsy House Cafe occupied the southwest corner of East 13th Avenue and Marion Street for more than a decade before closing two years ago. The building sat vacant for a time before signs of construction began and the vibrant mural on the east side of the building was stuccoed over…

Chowder Room, one of our favorite Denver seafood spots, will be cooking up its last batches of chowder this month. Owners Matt and Carrie Stein are moving out of state for a new opportunity, so they’ll close their restaurant at 560 South Broadway on January 20.