I love Deluxe in spite of myself. Despite reason, despite my better judgment, despite being committed body and soul to the war against California Cuisine — that limping, wrongheaded, disastrous blight on the soul of American cookery — and throwing myself into the breach every time a California-style restaurant pops…
The throwback, time-capsule cooking being done at Deluxe (see review) is just the tip of the retro-nouveau iceberg. Adega is serving jumped-up TV dinners in the bar; Troy Guard plans a retro comfort-food menu of roasted lemongrass chicken and mashed potatoes (plus a raw bar) at his new place, which…
I love a great dive, and at fifty-plus years young, Club 404 is one of the all-time best dives in Denver. Jerry Feld bought the bar on his twentieth birthday and has been there ever since (although his uncle had to run it for the first year, until Jerry was…
Although every person from sun-intensive states like Texas or Florida thinks he not only knows how to drive in the snow, but knows how to ski without putting the rest of the people on the mountain at risk of life and limb, we all can use an occasional winter-survival refresher…
It was the smell of the place that got me. That warm, salty, enveloping, fried-pork-and-soy-sauce smell that spun through the small, squared-off dining room like a fog, like smells do in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons — turning into fingers and tickling the duck or bear or whatever right under…
North comes to Cherry Creek North (190 Clayton Lane, to be precise) this week, brought to us by the folks at Bloom at FlatIron Crossing (already part of a three-restaurant mini-chain out of Tucson), in a space where executive chef Christopher Christiano and the owners can extend their reach beyond…
When I walked up to the bar at El Tejado, I asked the bartender for Patrón on the rocks. “Are you sure?” he asked. “Don Julio is better.” Although I’ve been drinking Patrón for years, I decided to go with Don Julio Anejo ($7.50) and was happy that I did…
As all good Catholics know — as do those who are not good, but are well-versed in church law after spending several years finding loopholes in it — there is still plenty of time to give up something for Lent. For people who are neither good nor bad Catholics, Lent…
Swimclub 32 reminds me of this girl, Meghan, who was everything a (much) younger me could hope for in a girlfriend. She was gorgeous in an uncomplicated way, a bit ethnic, well-traveled, pretty in the face, with that face attached to a killer body and that body held up by…
From the moment it opened last year, Moda Ristorante & Lounge seemed lovely, friendly, oh-so-well situated…and doomed. Although the restaurant was holding up the corner of the chic Beauvallon complex at Tenth Avenue and Lincoln Street, my meals there always landed smack in the middle of Dullsville. I never reviewed…
I rarely look forward to going to the ‘burbs, but this weekend I’m getting the hell out of downtown and Cherry Creek. I know that some people are really excited about the All-Star Game and all the hoopla (read: hype) surrounding it, but I’m not a basketball enthusiast, and to…
Sorry, ladies, but we guys can’t help how we are. We can’t help it that the outfit we wore on that first date doesn’t hold a prominent place in our brains. We have an inexplicable ability to watch four sporting events at one time, yet still cannot remember your birthday…
Life so rarely lives up to your expectations. The Big Three — prom night, losing your virginity and your wedding day (which, in this ever-accelerating culture, can all happen in one 24-hour period if you really try hard) — have become so built up in the modern mind, so fraught…
I feel like I just got rid of the weight I packed on during last year’s Best of Denver exertions, and here we are again. The credit card is warmed up, I have my gastronomic Baker Street Irregulars on speed-dial, and I’m wearing my heavy-duty fat pants. Paramedics are standing…
The Campus Lounge, affectionately referred to by regulars as “The Pus,” oozes character. Years ago, when I lived only a few blocks away, the gaggle of guys who occupied the house next door would yell over the fence almost nightly, “Levine, ya wanna go to the Pus?” On one such…
Do you believe in miracles? The continued marketing of Zima and of Aspen low-carb “beer” certainly qualify. So does having a clear conscience after excusing four nights of drinking on the pretext that “I haven’t seen so-and-so for a long time.” That the suspiciously close relationship of SpongeBob SquarePants and…
I tacked the thayir sadam onto my order at the last second, no doubt hopelessly bungling the pronunciation as I tend to when I’m trying to be cool about something on a menu I’ve never seen before and don’t know whether I’m asking for rice pudding or the cook’s underpants…
There’s been rejoicing in the Westword hood this week over the news that the Minturn Saloon will reopen on February 17 in the storied space at 846 Broadway (just a block from this office) that had previously been home to the original Parlour restaurant, Basil Ristorante and the Parlour, version…
As I walked up to the bar at the Stockyard Inn, I heard a guy ask the bartender, “Do you have anything on special?” She smiled, put her tattooed arms on her hips, pushed out her chest and replied, “You’re lookin’ at it, sugar.” It was a scene straight out…
Patrick Lawler should be awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine. For those of you who live in a cellar or are purists who won’t watch anything on a TV smaller than 42 inches, Mr. Lawler is the gentleman who proved to the world that hangovers are caused by huge nails…
Greg Goldfogel, owner of Ristorante Amore, was on the phone, and we were talking about gnocchi. We were talking a lot about gnocchi, which might surprise someone not steeped to the neck in the lore and weird obsessions of the kitchen. Because, really, how much is there to say about…
I spent quite a bit of time on the blower last week with Greg Goldfogel from Ristorante Amore (see review), and although a good portion of our conversations centered on gnocchi, that wasn’t all we talked about. We discussed Amore’s expansion, which was in progress just on the other side…
