For our Year in Review issue, we rounded up all the answers that Chef and Tell subjects had given when asked what they’d like to see less of in Denver/Boulder from a culinary standpoint:? The recap inspired this from Dave: I wish for less chefs to come off as total…
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. Not that any…
I love fresh peas immensely, but I’m definitely not a fan of frozen peas in a Panang curry. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Where am I drinking/eating posts is entered into a pool — and every Monday,…
When Trillium, Ryan Leinonen’s highly anticipated Scandinavian restaurant, opened a few weeks ago in the Ballpark neighborhood, the accolades began almost immediately, which was good news for Leinonen. “I want to have one of the top five restaurants in Denver,” he told me during a pre-opening interview. We recently spotted…
As we’ve discovered in our weekly Chef and Tell interviews, Denver’s kitchen commanders are, if nothing else, unapologetically opinionated. We pepper them with dozens of questions, and sometimes their answers are salty — especially their responses to what they’d like to see less of in Denver from a culinary perspective…
A river of alcohol was running through Cafe Society yesterday, with Laura Shunk offering her list of neighborhood liquor stores, Swirl Girl suggesting five bottles of bubbly for New Year’s Eve, and Colorado Beer Man Jonathan Shikes serving up his “ten best Colorado beers of 2011.”…
St. Kilian’s Cheese Shop is a boutique-style gem within walking distance of Mondo Vino and The Denver Bread Company — making Highland Square a convenient stop for gathering party supplies — and it specializes in French, Spanish and Italian cheeses, with a few select Swiss and Dutch wheels, and cheddars…
When Frank and Dina Berta opened Frank’s Kitchen earlier this year, it quickly became part of the neighborhood, integrating into the community and picking up a crowd of regulars that use it as a go-to spot. Frank’s won’t be joining the festivities with its neighbors on New Year’s Eve –…
As we’ve discovered in our weekly Chef and Tell interviews, Denver’s kitchen commanders are, if nothing else, unapologetically opinionated. We pepper them with dozens of questions, and sometimes their answers are salty — especially their responses to what they’d like to see less of in Denver from a culinary perspective…
On the Thursday before Christmas, Laura Shunk highlighted five festive cocktails that don’t include hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps, including the Figgy’s Manhattan at Steuben’s, which is made by combining Wild Turkey 81, Carpano Antica vermouth and Navan vanilla liqueur and infusing the whole thing with figs for five days…
I couldn’t wait to get to the mountains to try out this new, big-name restaurant. While I enjoyed my cocktail at the bar, I’m looking forward to some apres ski action next to the fire outside. Can you guess where I’m drinking? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct…
Jim Abajian and his wife, Patsorn, made their first connection over Thai food: they met at the Thai restaurant she ran in Washington, D.C. where Jim was a frequent customer. So when they moved to Golden, it didn’t take long for them to spot a gap in the market. “We…
The year started off lovingly for this Veggie Girl, and throughout weeks and weeks of eating somewhere different, there were lots of great dishes that stood out. Here, in chronological order, are the ten best meals I ate this year…
Truth be told, I haven’t celebrated Christmas with my family in years, much to their chagrin. I do take time to visit them on my own accord, though, which is why I’ll be happily soaking in the sun down south and supping upon unpretentiously badass food with family and friends…
Out in the northwest suburbs for family events this holiday season, I was looking for a low-key place to unwind with some out-of-town relatives after all the feasting and present-wrapping concluded. Unwilling to settle for one of the strip-mall chain restaurants that are so prevalent on that side of town,…
I asked the bartender to make her favorite specialty cocktail — and I got a very, very sweet, lemony vodka martini that I’m sure most women would love, but I did not. My fault, not the bartender’s. For our next course we switched to wine, and it turned into a…
Cafe Society dished up five Guess Where? contests last week, ranging from a still unidentified Christmas sweater-clad bottle of Maker’s Mark to a plate of Rocky Mountain oysters from the Fort Restaurant to a bourbon, basil and balsamic cocktail. For identifying that drink as coming from Cafe|Bar, Dave wins an…
For the last Chef and Tell interview of 2011, Lori Midson talked with Dana Rodriguez, the executive chef of Bistro Vendome, about everything from a Mexican girl making French food to her inspirational life story. The result left readers hungry to know more…and eat more…
It was the year of the entrepreneur and the restaurateur,” says Jim Pittenger, owner of Biker Jim’s Gourmet Dogs. After six years of slinging sausages from street carts, he opened his own brick-and-mortar outpost at 2148 Larimer Street this past spring. And Pittenger has a point. By our count, close…
Cafe Society is ho-ho-home for the holidays. The Westword office is closed until 8 a.m. Tuesday, December 27, and Cafe Society scribes will be off-duty — but still eating and drinking — until then. There’s plenty to savor in the posts below, though, and if you have a pressing concern,…
Christmas is a holiday for everyone — drunks, gamblers, cheats, kids, construction workers and, especially, foodies — because it’s a whole season devoted to edible hedonism. People are tacitly allowed — if not outright encouraged — to glut themselves on whatever takes their fancy at any time, everything from candy…
I was just sent this special, special gift by the fine folks at Maker’s Mark, and asked one of my favorite bartenders if he would mind modeling it. So far, it’s my favorite gift this season. Can you guess where I’m drinking? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct…
