“So, to what do I owe the privilege?” That’s what rolled off my tongue earlier today when I picked up the phone and heard the booming voice of star chef and restaurateur Charlie Palmer on the other end, calling from New York with an update on what’s transpiring at District…

You’d think a chef with the pedigree of Matt Collier would balk at the thought of slinging tacos, but Collier, who was a sous chef at The Kitchen in Boulder for nearly four years, and whose culinary lineage also includes stints at Blackbird, the Drawing Room, Boka (a Michelin-starred restaurant),…

This is where the cool kids from the food-writing class at Johnson & Wales hang out after their last day of the trimester. Can you guess where we’re eating? Special bonus: Anyone who gives the first correct answer to the week’s Guess Where posts is entered into a pool –…

A Philly cheesesteak sandwich and tater tots: This just might be the all-American meal. 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, we select one lucky winner who’ll…

There’s still no name, but the owners of Mountain Sun Pub & Brewery, Southern Sun Pub & Brewery and Vine Street Pub & Brewery, are brewing up a new tap house in Boulder that will open in August directly beneath Southern Sun at 627 South Broadway…

Cafe Society served up four Guess Where? contests last week, ranging from a terrific paella at Solera, which erupted into a discussion of what, exactly, constitutes a “real” paella, to a still-unidentified Caesar salad to a respectable plate of al pastor tacos from the Pioneer. Last but not least, we…

“He looks like Clark Kent, only cuter,” whispered a diner at last night’s pop-up dinner at Studio F, which paraded the culinary chutzpah of Jenna Johansen, along with her 27-year-old protegee, Iain Chisholm. A Johnson & Wales graduate who’s worked in the same kitchens as Johansen for more than a…

It’s been a whirlwind week for Jenna Johansen. The former executive chef of Dish, in Edwards, which she still co-owns, made her smashing debut on Around the World in 80 Plates, a new chef-driven reality show on Bravo that premiered on Wednesday night (Johansen, by the way, made it through…

For those of you who have been begging for an update on the re-sprouting of the Squeaky Bean — and there are a lot of you — we’ve got that and more, thanks, in part, to quirky king bean Johnny Ballen, who, we now know, may have been a used…

A glitch with the size of the front door may have created frustrating zoning issues for owner Cindy Wang, and brothers (and sushi chefs) Mike Nakanishi and Ken Zheng, but on Monday, Aoba, a new Japanese and sushi restaurant, finally opened in the former Organixx space at 1520 Blake Street…

On the days that I’m hankering for al pastor tacos, I’m always on the spy for the spit, but while this bar doesn’t have a spit anywhere in sight, it nonetheless manages to turn out respectable al pastor tacos — and it doesn’t forget the grilled pineapple, either. Can you…

Dirk Holmberg Café 180 3315 South Broadway, Englewood 303-761-4510 www.cafe-180.org/home/ Read part one of my interview with Dirk Holmberg, exec chef of Cafe 180. What you’d like to see more of in Denver/Boulder from a culinary standpoint: More Mexican seafood dishes — that would be a good start. But I’d…

There’s only one way to eat whole romaine leaves in a Caesar salad: with your hands…just like you would the pizza. 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…

Two years ago — long before all that crazy drama at Wild Catch — Justin Brunson, the owner and chef of Masterpiece Deli, was all set to open Lechon at 17th and Central streets with Ben Parsons, who owns the Infinite Monkey Theorem. The deal eventually fell apart, but Brunson,…

Dirk Holmberg Café 180 3315 South Broadway, Englewood 303-761-4510 www.appetitesunite.org This is part one of my interview with Dirk Holmberg, exec chef of Cafe 180. Part two of our interview will run in this space tomorrow. Dirk Holmberg squirms if you call him a chef. “I had always wanted to…

The premiere of Around the World in 80 Plates, a fast-paced reality show hosted by Cat Cora and Chris Stone that debuts tonight on Bravo at 8 p.m., pits two teams of six chefs against one another in a highly competitive sprint across continents that will end with one chef…

Ian Kleinman lives in a Willy Wonka world. He’s the mad scientist, the crazy culinary genius who long ago ditched traditional cooking methods to concentrate on molecular gastronomy, for which he’s now known nationwide. And starting this Friday, you can win a golden ticket to a pop-up dinner that will…

Denver’s top female chefs cooked up a storm last night at Temple Emanuel, the stamping grounds for WomenCook, an annual benefit for Work Options for Women, a local non-profit that provides hands-on cooking instruction to disadvantaged women who have hopes of working in the food industry. Hundreds of foodniks turned…

No filet (thank God), no New York strip, no porterhouse — just a damn good hanger steak, which I’d love to see on more menus. 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…

In last week’s Chef and Tell interview with Joe Freemond, the executive chef of Cellar Wine Bar, he admits that as a kid, he wasn’t remotely interested in wieners or burgers. In fact, his favorite restaurant was Sushi Den, the logical choice of a five-year-old. He also grew up on…

The former Pearl Street Grill may still be dark, while Yasu and Toshi Kizaki, the brothers who own Sushi Den and Izakaya Den, retool that space to make way for the relocation of Izakaya Den, but down the block, at 1859 South Pearl Street, Karen Wee Lin Beckman is gutting…