The Squeaky Bean’s Johnny Ballen wasn’t at the Bean on Saturday night. Instead, he was bartending a party for the class of 1972 at Regis University — the same college that actor and comedian Bill Murray attended years ago. And Ballen, who wore one of his Squeaky Bean tuxes to…

There are as nearly as many variations on curries as there are countries, and while I’m a sucker for an incendiary vindaloo, and I can’t get enough of a piquant panang, the lamb curry in the above snap is not from an Indian restaurant; nor is it from a Thai…

Cafe Society served up five Guess Where? contests last week, ranging from a rather anemic roast beef sandwich from Pajama Baking Company to green chile-smothered carnitas from Citygrille to a heap of deep-fried Mexican onions specked with red chile flakes…

If you spilled tears at the news that Gaetano’s, one of Denver’s only remaining red sauce joints, was temporarily shuttered for an extensive facelift (and a new menu to boot that’s definitely not old-school Italian), grab a bucket and a box of Kleenex, because after 66 years of serving spaghetti…

After several days of eying everything on my plate with suspicion (food poisoning has a way of making you cynical), I finally got my appetite back, celebrating the return of a hungry belly with a roast beef sandwich…followed by a scoop of ice cream, both of which you can find…

I’m not sure which is more blistering: the pavement or this panang curry, which packs more heat than a desert sky in July. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Guess Where posts is entered into a pool –…

Beau Simmons Jonesy’s EatBar 400 East 20th Avenue 303-863-7473 www.jeatbar.com Part one of my interview with Beau Simmons, exec chef of Jonesy’s EatBar, ran yesterday; below is part two of our chat. Favorite restaurant in America: Longman & Eagle in Chicago, whose motto is “Eat, Sleep, Whiskey.” They use local…

Ah, summer…and watermelon…and arugula…and goat cheese. Four of my favorite things, and this salad? It’s my new go-to for roughage. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Guess Where posts is entered into a pool — and every Monday,…

Opinionated. Tenacious. Temperamental. And, at times, a “dick,” especially when he’s in a courtroom arguing his case on front of a judge, who’s presiding over the latest infraction levied against him by the Denver Department of Environmental Health, with whom Frank Bonanno, who owns Luca d’Italia, Mizuna, Bones, Lou’s Food…

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. According to Barb,…

Beau Simmons Jonesy’s EatBar 400 East 20th Avenue 303-863-7473 www.jeatbar.com This is part one of my interview with Beau Simmons, exec chef of Jonesy’s EatBar. You can read part two of our chat tomorrow. Beau Simmons stretches out in his garden, his face tickled by the leaves of his heirloom-tomato…

I’ll never forget the first time I came face-to-face with Pete Ryan. We were meeting at Cook Street School of Culinary Arts, where he had just become the school’s executive chef/instructor, and, as usual, my watch was stuck on slow. “You’re fucking late,” he reprimanded me. And then, for the…

Brown Dog Pizza lost the fight of its lives last year when the Telluride-based pizzeria got its chain yanked by a throng of vocal neighborhood pit bulls who raised holy hell when the pizza joint attempted to secure a liquor license for the space at 1001 South Gaylord Street. And…

Trust me: The green chile, jolted with heat, is far better than the burgers, which this joint has been ballyhooing for years. Or, as some would say, resting on its laurels. Can you guess where I’m eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Guess…

“I’ve been involved with food since I was six, and I’ve always dreamed of having a restaurant in an old building with a wooden roof and exposed brick — a space to create whatever I want,” says Pepe Aparicio, who, along with his brother, Gianfranco, will open Taita, a Peruvian…

Molecular doughnuts: It’s what’s for breakfast — and the Inventing Room’s Ian Kleinman doled out 150 of them this morning, some specked with bacon-Nutella powder, others jumping with pop rocks, at Table 6, which is a pop-up shrine to Kleinman’s long Johns (and java from Two Rivers Coffee, in Arvada)…

I ingested some horrible food this weekend, including a breakfast burrito that’s responsible for the fact that I didn’t sleep — at all — last night, but before that malicious attack, I feasted at another restaurant that turns out deep-fried Mexican onions marinated in fresh lime juice and specked with…

Cafe Society served up four Guess Where? contests last week, ranging from a still-unidentified breakfast burrito stuffed with smoked elk sausage to a heap of Cajun spice-slicked shrimp from the Crawling Crab to a duo of ballpark pretzels…

Adam Watts, the chef de cuisine at Jax Fish House Boulder and the subject of this week’s Chef and Tell interview, admits that his biggest menu bomb was a crudo of spearfish with smoked soba noodles, huckleberry broth and pickled ramps, a dish, he says, that “sold for shit.” Luckily,…

From the outside, this joint looks sketch — way sketch — but appearances, as we all know, can be deceiving, and the inside, which I approached with caution, is actually kinda cute (and clean). Appearances aside, the breakfast burritos, of which there are endless possibilities, are worth a repeat visit,…