Sean Kelly and his chef, Seth Black, have been doing the Tapas Thing (see Bite Me/a>) for quite some time. They may have been the first in town — this time around, at least — to take the trend seriously, and they built the entire Somethin’ Else menu around the…
This is your father’s bad toupee. It’s a leisure suit, lovingly tended and preserved and worn regularly by a guy who still thinks he looks good. It’s an old Volvo kept running by unconditional love and duct tape, the ABBA record you listen to when no one else is home,…
Just because you’re not part of the problem doesn’t mean you’re part of the solution. I’ve become increasingly tired of Chinese restaurants claiming some sort of special capacity for greatness simply because they aren’t part of a chain. Most independent Chinese joints offer food that’s no more authentically Chinese than…
My first visit to WaterCourse Foods was on a bet. It was a bet with myself — a wager between my better and worse natures that revolved around my good self’s belief that every restaurant, no matter its kink, offers something tasty to those willing to really look, and my…
Bad business, like bad karma, generates its own sort of poison. The taint of failed enterprise can linger for years in the floorboards and hood vents of a space, sickening and killing new businesses indiscriminately. Realtors, consultants, accountants and other numbers types will point to things like parking, visibility, foot…
Sitting on the patio on top of the West End Tavern, gazing at the great view (and I’m not just talking about the unparalleled sight of the Flatirons), I sipped whiskey and smoked a cigarette in one of the few places where you still can in Boulder, and thanked God…
If restaurateur, chef and culinary man-about-town Dave Query has a signature spot that captures the evolution of his empire, that would be the Jax in LoDo. Here, in a retooling of the Boulder original, Query’s vision and his attempts to meld the upscale with the downhome come together most smoothly…
Every spring, Chinook Tavern celebrates white-asparagus season as long as the season lasts, getting only the best product overnighted from producers in Holland, Germany and France, using it in only the best ways. For ten years Chinook has been doing this, and just a whiff of the house’s special white-asparagus…
New and improved. I can’t imagine those two words ever being more appropriate — in a restaurant context, certainly — than when applied to Cafe Berlin in its new home downtown. Cafe Berlin’s original location on 17th Avenue, although quaintly charming and homey in a care-worn way, was definitely showing…
The first time I tried Star of India — two years ago, during one of my warm-weather Indian binges — I immediately put the meal out of my mind. The food wasn’t just spicy, it was punishing. Brutal. The heat was so overwhelming that it fried the synapses in my…
Just staying open for over thirty years is an achievement for any restaurant. But staying open and staying relevant? That’s really noteworthy. And it’s a trick that Tante Louise has pulled off through decades of ups and downs, of flashy culinary fads and trend-sucking foodies willing to fall for any…
Chef Billy Lam has his head down, and he’s thinking. “Hmmmm,” he says, drawing it out as his finger touches the menu here and there and there. “Udon?” he asks. “Definitely,” I tell him. “Definitely udon.” “Good.” Hunched over the counter, our heads almost touching, Lam and I study the…
For more than twenty years, Rosa Linda Aguirre and her family have been dishing up some of Denver’s best Mexican food in the town’s most family-friendly eatery. The kids pictured on the original menu are all grown — although most continue to work in the restaurant — and grandchildren now…
On our first visit to The Oven, the server working the short bar near the front door leaned across the counter and casually asked Laura and me where we lived. It seemed a little creepy, and definitely forward. I mean, sure, we’re an attractive couple (Laura’s good-looking, anyway, and I…
Adega is many things: a hip, fine-dining mecca; a LoDo anchor that helps keep the neighborhood from degenerating into nothing but club nights and drunken Let-Out brawls; a showcase for some of the best, smartest New American cuisine on offer in the Mile High City (or anywhere else); and a…
For the past month or so, National Public Radio has been featuring a project called “This I Believe,” airing essays from listeners — famous people, regular joes, politicians, pipe-fitters and everyone in between — willing to rise to the challenge of condensing and codifying their personal beliefs. The final product…
Hanson’s has always been one of the easy ones — a restaurant I can’t help but like. It’s the sort of place you find one night when every other table in the neighborhood is booked, then return to whenever you have an open Friday night and no reservations. For families,…
I’d finished my last meal at Rioja — my last official meal, that is — and I couldn’t leave. My party and I were done, had been done for maybe twenty minutes already. We had to-go boxes sitting on our table, our jackets in our laps, credit cards and fistfuls…
I’ve never quite known what it is about Mel’s that makes me feel so at home. More than any other spot in the city, Mel’s just feels like a restaurant — the kind of place where you know you’re going to be well cared for and well fed, then leave…
Indo-Hawaiian fusion. A French restaurant-slash-sushi bar that opens at nine o’clock at night and cooks through to the morning. I’ve heard a lot of bad ideas in my time, have seen a lot of suicidal business plans and even been involved in a couple (an Irish farmhouse restaurant in central…
For two decades, Racines was the meeting spot of first and last resort in Denver. Neighbors and power brokers, college kids and yuppies — it didn’t matter who you were or where you were coming from (or even what time you wanted to meet), there was always room for you…
When Jeremiah Tower (Mr. California Cuisine, chef at Stars and Chez Panisse, and author of the foodie confessional California Dish) was a young man, he ate everywhere. He traveled around the world — usually in style — and consumed. James Villas, food editor at Town and Country for something like…
