It was a weeknight in Cherry Creek North, and two Italian restaurants were open for business a few blocks away from each other. One was so crowded that at the check-in desk, the matre d’ looked like a tourist surrounded by street urchins waiting to pick his pocket outside of…
From the day Teri Rippeto opened Potager in May 1997, her restaurant has been ripe for the picking. So why don’t more diners stop in and smell the roses? “We’ve been a tough restaurant to understand and adjust to, I think,” says Rippeto. “Our menu is different every month, we’re…
It’s a beautiful day in the Denver Tech Center neighborhood when an eatery as good as El Azteca moves in. This local favorite recently opened a fourth location, at 12201 East Arapahoe Road. Like the original El Azteca, at 3960 South Federal Boulevard in Sheridan, as well as the downtown…
It takes about ten minutes to get to the table, walking slowly and deliberately, with two or three items dropped along the way, which means other diners are bumping their heads trying to help. Once we reach the table, there’s much deliberation over whether this time we need booster seats…
Q: I have lived in Colorado since 1983 and Denver since 1988, but my wife and I will be leaving the sprawl in about six weeks for Bend, Oregon. I was wondering if you could give me a list of your top ten favorite restaurants in the city — not…
In the December 30 Mouthing Off, I invited readers to guess when the very lame Dante Bichette’s Sports Bar and Grill, at 700 East 17th Avenue, would finally strike out. As it turns out, even the most pessimistic prediction was much rosier than reality, since the restaurant shut its doors…
Some professional chefs never intended to cook professionally. Exhibit A: Marvin Bronstein, who won Denverites’ hearts as well as their stomachs with his brief stint at the coincidentally named Marvin Gardens in the mid-’90s. Fifteen years before, he’d been a nurse practitioner working in the pediatrics department at the University…
In the early to mid-’90s, Carmine’s on Penn was the first restaurant to bring an updated take on family-style dining to Denver (“Love, Italian Style,” August 17, 1994). The concept was all about big flavors and big portions and, in Carmine’s case, some big egos. But now, six years later,…
Some restaurants that serve family-style, like Buca di Beppo (see full review), actually welcome families. One of the best — although the fare is American rather than Italian — is Uncle Sam’s (5946 South Holly Street in Greenwood Village), which does a remarkable job of making even the toddler set…
We’re just two steps inside the front door, and immediately the host and a couple of employees lounging around the foyer start working it hard, trying to turn “Hi, there. How many this evening? Smoking or non?” into an Abbott and Costello routine. Then our seater takes over, and he’s…
A recent, and harried, visit to the newly renovated King Soopers at 13th Avenue and Speer Boulevard quickly turned into a time-warped version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Because all of the Whos in Whoville could not have found the canning supplies needed to make a last-minute gift of…
As anyone who’s seen Demolition Man knows, the only eatery with the ability to survive the Apocalypse — a kind of culinary cockroach, you might say — is Taco Bell. And the way things are headed right now, it’s quite possible that, even though we’ve survived Y2K (so far), at…
Before the year ended, it was name change number three for what was initially Zuma, then Z-Teca, and now…Qdoba. The locally grown big-burrito chain, which today comprises 49 corporate-owned and franchised sites across the country (remember when it was just three locations in Denver a few years back?), decided to…
The Denver dining scene in 1999 continued to be as confused as a salmon filet swimming in blueberry sauce. Exactly what are we going for here — and where do we think we’re going? Ingredients from around the world are arriving faster than chefs can look them up in a…
Those sushi guys sure know how to make waves. My November 18 Mouthing Off included some comments from Chris Selby, chef/manager of Restaurant Japon (1028 South Gaylord Street), whose eatery I had critiqued in my October 21 Second Helping. But a remark Selby made about Sushi Den (1487 South Pearl…
It’s been a long year for Kevin Taylor — and he has only himself to blame. The chef who earned his national reputation with just one Denver restaurant is now juggling five establishments in the metro area. And while Dandelion in Boulder and Palettes at the Denver Art Museum are…
Although you won’t find a Sambuca Jazz Café — yet — there are plenty of other chain options after you work up an appetite while Christmas shopping at Park Meadows. And some of those chains are even homegrown, which makes them real gifts to the Denver dining scene. For example,…
Romantic lighting, live jazz, cozy seats, adult food: This is my kind of club Med, an eatertainment concept I can live with…maybe even grow to love. The four-month-old Sambuca Jazz Café features Mediterranean-themed fare and jazz, jazz, jazz. This is the fifth such supper club, all named for the Italian…
On Thanksgiving Day, I was in the middle of moving and couldn’t find the refrigerator, let alone a roasting pan and baster. But I did manage to locate a decent breakfast — at Chef Zorba, 2630 East 12th Avenue. Other than a sign announcing that the Greek eatery would be…
Business was going swimmingly at Starfish in the months after busy restaurateurs Mel and Jane Master opened their second Cherry Creek place (Mel’s was the first) back in 1996 (“Fishing for Compliments,” May 30, 1996). But in the wake of Starfish’s sale to John Richard two years ago, rumors kept…
For good Indian food, the nose knows. The right spices are critical to Indian cuisine; in fact, the meats, vegetables and breads coming out of the kitchen primarily serve as delivery vehicles for all those heady flavors and aromas. So if you don’t get a whiff of something wonderful the…
I’m not ashamed to admit it. During a particularly cash-poor period in college, I squeezed a packet of ketchup into a bowl of instant ramen and pretended it was minestrone. Tell me you didn’t do the same thing. Ask most Americans what commercially available soup they’ve consumed the most of,…
