In this new bi-monthly installment, Lauren Monitz is sharing awesome local gems to binge on a budget and helping you determine if your favorite Denver restaurants are truly the Real Deal. I’ve often walked by Odyssey Italian Restaurant on East Sixth Avenue, but I don’t know anyone who’s been there. It has…
Denver has a chill new dessert bar in the Ballpark Neighborhood: the Inventing Room opened on Saturday with a range of liquid-nitrogen ice cream flavors and other unique treats from chef Ian Kleinman, the city’s answer to Willy Wonka. The shop is closed Mondays, but you can indulge your inner…
After restaurateurs Hugo Matheson and Kimbal Musk opened their third Kitchen Next Door in Glendale last year, our restaurant critic, Gretchen Kurtz, compared the mini-chain to TGI Fridays in its early days — and she meant that as a compliment. In much the same way that the red-and-white, feel-good eatery…
The 16th Street Mall doesn’t hide many culinary secrets; just about anything that’s edible is visible on a quick shuttle trip or a tourist-clogged stroll. But that doesn’t mean there are no surprises. A Mediterranean falafel-and-pita rig like WikiPita feels natural, but a classic Italian red-sauce joint in the form…
A few years ago, poutine was everywhere. It was the junk food du jour on menus everywhere from burger joints to white-tablecloth dining rooms. Before Denverites even had a chance to figure out exactly what poutine was supposed to be, there were more variations and deconstructions than we knew what…
On Friday we published our Restaurant Roll Call for October, a compendium of all the restaurant openings and losings around town over the past month. Win some, lose some: On the last day of October, Ian Kleinman finally got his Inventing Room open at 2200 Lawrence Street — but the…
The dim and dingy space that was the Rustic Tavern for decades is suddenly bright and airy — a great place to rise and shine with breakfast and coffee in the morning. That’s thanks to Seth Rubin, who purchased the building last spring and turned it into Rise & Shine…
Fall is here and the smell of wood smoke is in the air — but much of it is coming from a handful of new barbecue joints testing out their smokers in preparation for opening in the next week. One has already started wafting the aroma of slow-cooked brisket over…
Rosa Linda’s Mexican Restaurant won its first Best of Denver award in 1985, only a few months after the family-owned eatery had opened at 2005 West 33rd Avenue. It was just the second year of our Best of Denver edition, but we knew a winner when we saw (or tasted…
It’s nearly taco time for the Denver Tech Center: Troy Guard is expanding his restaurant empire with a new outpost of Los Chingones at the Belleview Station development on Denver’s southern border. The first Los Chingones opened two years ago at 2461 Larimer Street, helping to revive an area that’s…
Degree Metropolitan Food + Drink recently opened in the SpringHill Suites hotel on the Auraria campus downtown, offering a globally inspired menu, a full bar with a deep wine cellar — and an educational experience for students in Metro State University Denver’s hospitality, tourism and events program. The restaurant is managed…
The new Westin at Denver International Airport will open next month, and while there won’t be a craft brewery on-site when the hotel makes its debut, a half dozen proposals were submitted to DIA to put not just a brewpub, but an actual brewery in the place. (The deal will…
One of Denver’s most desirable restaurant properties is about to go on the auction block. A sign is up at 101 Broadway — the old First Avenue Hotel that was the former home of El Diablo — stating that a bankruptcy auction will be held in December to sell the…
If you were planning on heading to the Source for lunch, dinner or shopping today, you might want to make other plans. The entire building is closed until further notice after a crane working on the site of the Source Hotel next door (at 3300 Brighton Boulevard) hit the roof…
If you’re a football fan, you know what’s riding on this weekend’s game between the Broncos and the Green Bay Packers: bragging rights. By Sunday night, only one team will have that prized zero in the loss column. But regardless of who wins, you can have bragging rights in the…
A sushi roll met a burrito and felt a little intimidated, so it bulked up to a hefty new weight. The result is Komotodo, a new sushi burrito fast-casual eatery that opens this Saturday, October 31, on Writer Square. The idea springs from the mind of owner Alonzo Martinez, who…
Readers say the biggest obstacle to dining downtown is not finding a good restaurant (unless you’re on the restaurant-starved 16th Street Mall, some suggest), but deading with the problem of two-hour parking meters. Says John: Fortunately we live near an RTD station and so we can take the train. Much cheaper way…
Chef Elise Wiggins received a small but pricey delivery at Panzano yesterday: one pound of white Alba truffles from the Piedmont region of Italy — shipped here at a cost of $3,163. This particular species — tuber magnatum — is the rarest and most expensive of all truffle varieties, but…
The Downtown Denver Partnership held a meeting on the 16th Street Mall last week where much of the discussion focused on safety — with panhandling on the side. But some residents are less concerned with safety than the fact that once you get to the mall, there’s not much there…
I’ve heard of many secrets to long life, from not smoking to eating a bowl of ice cream every day. But the one on the menu at Uncle Joe’s, a Hong Kong bistro that opened early this year across the street from the Colorado Convention Center and the Denver Performing…
No. 9: The Pregnant Burrito at Cafe Chihuahua Cafe Chihuahua doesn’t have a place in the pantheon of old-school green chile joints around town, nor is it new enough to attract the attention of trendy taco seekers. The family-run, rambling hacienda with the arched entryway and neon sign instead caters…
“The first statement I get from anyone is, ‘Oh, the mac and cheese!’” That’s what Brandon Muncy says he hears when he tells people that he’s the new executive chef at the Rackhouse Pub, which will reopen later this year on Blake Street. That macaroni and cheese had a well-deserved…
