There aren’t very many chefs who can take the night off and leave their restaurant in the hands of their employees — at least, not without worrying that the next morning, the kitchen will look like a food warehouse exploded and the answering machine will be filled with forty messages…
Like father, like sons. Although the Armatas boys tried career paths other than the one pursued by their dad and his dad, they knew it was futile. “We figured that sooner or later, we’d be in the restaurant business,” says Alex Armatas, the middle brother. “We all tried to do…
Turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks. But first you need to tame the beast with a new chef, a new location and even a new, improved name, like that of Basil Ristorante, now occupying the former home of the Parlour, at 846 Broadway. I first visited…
If I’d had a video camera, I could have filmed The Kitchen Bitch Project, and believe me, it would have been much scarier than that other movie. But there’s no footage to document the horror of my three meals at Lamonica’s Steak and Chop House. No, just several friends who…
The mystery of Asian food is that it looks so easy to make. What’s so tough about throwing cut-up vegetables, bits of meat and a few spices into a big, overheated vessel and cooking everything until it’s edible? But appearances can be deceiving, as recent meals at two newer Asian…
It was broke, so they fixed it. If more restaurants were willing to change what doesn’t work, fewer would find themselves throwing in the kitchen towel. Case in point: Busara, the upscale Thai eatery at 1435 Market Street, has gone from barely making it to standing room only in the…
It was like an episode of This Old House: The Restaurant Version. When brothers Bill and Steve Rohs decided to open an eatery in a building across from Benedict Fountain Park on 20th Avenue, they first had to undo the damage done by the space’s previous restaurant tenant. “We knew…
Bad guys can be rehabilitated. When I first visited Alcatraz Brewing Co. in what was then known as the Park Meadows “retail resort” (“Behind Bars,” September 9, 1997), the food and service screwups were almost criminal. The prison-themed eatery, which is owned by the same company as the California Cafe…
The waiter stood there expectantly, his pen hovering over the order pad as he waited for the woman to tell him what she wanted for dinner. All of a sudden, a noise that sounded like victory music from a kids’ video game rang through the dining room, and the woman…
Wine and dine: If an event like the International Pinot Noir Conference makes it sound as though these things are getting a little too specialized, well, it could be worse. At least I didn’t have to go to the International Pickle Fest in Atkins, Arkansas, last month. Instead, I found…
The smiling man in the photograph on the wall at the Brewery Bar II is one George Goldberg, and the reason he’s smiling is that on January 7, 1994, he ate thirteen bowls of the local green chile for lunch. That amounts to five quarts of this time-honored saloon’s fiery,…
When Pete Petrides Jr. was growing up, Denver’s dining scene was better than television. “I would go over to my dad’s restaurant and just sit and watch people, listen to their stories,” Petrides says. “This was back in the Sixties, and Colfax Avenue was a different sort of entertaining.” At…
Goin’ to the Roadhouse: There’s no drink at Spanky’s Roadhouse (1800 East Evans Avenue) called the “Spanky Swank Me,” but the fifteen-year-old perennial DU hangout still serves one of the best milkshakes ($3.25) in town–Oreo fans will appreciate the cookie version–along with a great burger and the excellent bonus of…
NoNo’s Cafe just celebrated its third birthday, and although the restaurant is growing up, it hasn’t grown away from its family-friendly roots. From the start, despite its location in a strip mall, owners Brian and Sonda Brewster wanted to make their cute little eatery feel like a home, complete with…
Restaurants have always been entertaining, even without the “concepts.” Nowhere else, for example, could you enjoy the delicious irony of a wave of water crashing down from a leaky awning over the group of people who founded Colorado’s Ocean Journey–as they sat in a seafood joint picking at crab carcasses…
The inn crowd: The Schmoozers sign that had hung over the space at 4400 East Eighth Avenue has disappeared, replaced by one proclaiming that the place is once again The College Inn, the name it had gone by since the Fifties. But while that identity crisis has apparently been straightened…
Is Cafe Cero a bar, or is it a restaurant? After more than a year in business, Lynne Ida still can’t answer that question. “Okay, this definitely is not the place to come for a full-blown menu and sit-down experience,” she ventures. “Between 4 and 9 p.m., we’re dead for…
Ali Awada left his native Lebanon and came to Colorado eleven years ago, when his brother married a woman from Denver. “My family has restaurants in Lebanon, but when I moved here I went to work as a financier for American Express,” Awada explains. “But I love cooking so much,…
A bite of the big Apple: Chef Matt Selby of Vesta Dipping Grill, at 1822 Blake Street, is just back from a stint at New York’s Gramercy Tavern. Sent there by Vesta owner Josh Wolkon to work with Gramercy owner Danny Meyer and chef Tom Colicchio in order to come…
Since The Hornet opened in 1996, the restaurant has been busier than the proverbial bee–but the food hasn’t always gotten good buzz (“The Green Hornet,” June 6, 1996). Initially, the most appealing thing about the place was the cavernous space, which had been cleaned of decades of clutter left by…
Mouth of the border: For years, Cafe Brazil (see review above) was one of just a handful of South American spots in town, but now we’re about to get more cuisine from countries far south of the border. This fall, the old home of Chives, at 1120 East Sixth Avenue,…
When Tony Zarlenga first spotted Marla Maria Diaz, they were both on vacation in Greece. “I was by myself, and I noticed this girl on the other side of the boat who was laughing and having a good time,” he remembers. “She had a wonderful smile, and I kept thinking…
