A couple dozen Denver chefs, total, have been asked to visit since the James Beard House began hosting dinners by the nation’s culinary elite back in 1987. Only eleven local boys have made good since 1997, arguably the beginning of modern American gastronomy: the chef as celebrity and cooking as…
I have a confession: I hate tequila. Ever since a spring-break trip to Cancun went bad during my freshman year of college, I can barely stand the smell of the wretched stuff. But I love all other things south of the border, so I couldn’t resist the lure of Lola,…
When I moved to Denver almost a year ago, I knew next to nothing about the local restaurant scene. There were a few places along the Front Range with which I had a passing acquaintance. I knew Johnson’s Corner outside of Loveland, because it’s the second-best diner in the United…
Before I moved to Denver a year ago, I’d taken a few turns through Colorado while satisfying my interstate lust. Many of my travels took me through Boulder, and every time I hit that city, Juanita’s (see review) was the first place I stopped. But until December 31, 1997, I…
This is the July Fourth weekend — time to bust out that crazy star-spangled bow-tie, light the sparklers and wish our country a happy 227th birthday. And what better way to show your patriotism this year than by drinking at one of the fine establishments owned by Denver’s mayor-elect? I…
I ran out of books on Father’s Day. I read fast, so this happens a lot, but like a drunk who always keeps a fresh bottle on hand for when his current one runs low, I like to have another book in the pipeline before I hit the last chapter…
I’ve put some strange things in my mouth — rats and worms and hooves and eyeballs — but there’s other stuff, purely pedestrian by comparison, that I won’t touch. Not even for money. Brussels sprouts, for example. Blech. Brussels sprouts are nothing but foul little cabbages with none of a…
On a recent girls’ night out, we snagged a table on Tommy Tsunami’s street-side patio, the perfect spot for an evening of sushi, people-watching and gossiping up a storm. Tsunamis — those giant Japanese tidal waves — have long been feared by seaside villagers and fantasized about by extreme surfers,…
There are two items on the menu at Zaidy’s Deli: potatoes and everything else. Zaidy’s does great things with potatoes — truly phenomenal things for which it deserves a medal. Now if only those bastards at the American Farm Council’s tuber division would get off their asses and start planning…
We’re coming down to the wire. Before old-guard members of the Denver City Council surrender those big, comfy chairs to ten incoming freshmen, they’ll almost certainly vote on a proposed smoking ban for this city. Mayor Wellington Webb has made such a ban his top priority before he leaves office…
A camping trip without fire is as pointless as non-alcohol beer and Boca burgers. Howard Oliver learned that hard lesson back in 1996, when a fire ban at a Colorado campground extinguished his family’s plans for campfire cooking. To ensure that no one else finds such a damper put on…
My idea of a night out at a baseball game is arriving at the bottom of the third inning and leaving at the top of the seventh. During those three-plus innings, chances are extremely good that I won’t ever know who’s at bat or what the score is; I’ll probably…
It had been two years and three days since I last put on my whites and checks, and the ex-chef was convinced I was getting soft. I used to love my chef’s clothes: the clean white jacket — heavy cotton, starched stiff as a board — and loose-fitting check pants…
Yup, it’s that time again: The mailbags here at Bite Me HQ runneth over with letters, faxes, e-mails and the assorted detritus of this strange biz, so before they begin runneth-ing over into the next cubicle, I figured I’d deal with a few of them. First up, I’ve been getting…
I’ve always been curious about the Chinook Tavern, which is named for the gentle westerly winds that warm the Front Range each winter. So after an early evening of shopping in Cherry Creek, we popped in for a much-needed cocktail. Although Chinook is known for its German food — as…
The dining room at Cafe Berlin was empty when Laura and I walked past. Next door, Dario’s had a few tables, and the smell of roasting meat, garlic and red sauce licking out onto the street would ensure that it soon had a few more. A couple of early drinkers…
You know things are getting ugly when Charo, of all people, is threatening to drag your ass into court. The cuchi-cuchi girl is shaking all kinds of things at Bart DeLorenzo and his Spanish-themed nightclub/steakhouse empire, Sevilla Entertainment, which had booked her show into Sevilla Las Vegas, the second in…
Sure, Canada has at least one “mad” cow. But what American beef eaters don’t know is that the United States has millions of cows that, if not yet mad, are certainly uncomfortable. “They appear to be happy walking up to a full bunk of grain every morning,” Dale Lasater says,…
People have searched for centuries for the fountain of youth — but now all you need to keep that forehead as smooth as a baby’s behind is a shot of botulinum toxin, better known as Botox. And if you’re looking to hang with the hippest of the high-end, wrinkle-free hip,…
I tried to stay out of this fight. Really, I did. Way back in January, I made a promise to keep my nose out of politics and stick to food. I managed to give the whole Freedom fries/Freedom toast controversy a pass, because, frankly, it seemed too insipid to even…
Tom Collins High Street Speakeasy 3862 High Street 303-298-9333 I’ve always wished I could have partied through the Roaring ’20s — with their bathtubs full of gin, fabulous fashions and gangster-owned, back-alley bars. But now, at the High Street Speakeasy, it’s easy to go back in time and drink to…
It was the end of my third meal at Indigo. The dinner plates had been cleared, the white tablecloth combed down. While Julie — my cover for this night’s clandestine activities — and I were picking at the rag ends of the dessert we’d shared, I waited for the hammer…
