It takes balls! There’s a new testicle-related world record, and it was set right here in Colorado. This weekend, the Lady Luck Casino in Black Hawk hosted a Major League Eating-sanctioned competitive eating contest, charging competitors with the task of downing as many Rocky Mountain Oysters as they could in…

By partnering with established Denver chefs and restaurateurs, Larimer Associates, which owns Larimer Square, has been pushing new joints not just in the Square, but in neighborhoods around the city. Each of those restaurants is strategically designed to integrate seamlessly into its surroundings, drawing on the history of the building…

When Penzeys Spices, a Wisconsin-based gourmet spice company with shops in cities around the country, announced it would open on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, it caused a flurry of controversy. That was because the new location is just around the corner from an outpost of Savory Spice Shop,…

A monthly family pizza night has long been a tradition for brothers Eric, Joel and Reid Bakken. In fact, Eric even took it upon himself to build a pizza oven in his backyard a couple of years ago. But when Eric saw a mobile pizza oven atop a trailer in…

A couple of months back, we saw a tweet from Frank Bonanno asking his Twitter followers whether Denver would rather see doughnuts or pie. Denver must have said pie. The chef, whose expanding restaurant group includes Mizuna, Bones, Osteria Marco and Luca d’Italia, acquired a lease on a 5,000-square-foot subterranean…

When head pastry chef Nathan Miller’s last day at The Kitchen, 1039 Pearl Street, rolls around, it will mark, almost to the day, his sixth anniversary working at the restaurant — six years of decadent sticky toffee pudding; six years of rich soufflé-like pot au chocolate; and six years of…

Kim and Jake Rosenbarger bake a lot of cakes for special occasions, but they’re just as likely to give customers a reason to come into their Boulder confectionery to enjoy dessert for no occasion at all. At Kim and Jake’s Cakes, 641 South Broadway, the couple has offered treats since…

There are plenty of distractions at El Paraiso. The ostentatious color scheme is dizzying from the second you spot the facade of the massive restaurant, stained mustard yellow, through the surrounding trees. Inside, every inch of wall space not covered with Mexican pastoral murals is adorned with streamers and dollar-store…

After opening El Paraiso, the restaurant at 4690 Harlan Street that’s the subject of my review this week, Luis Ochoa discovered how hard it was to find certain Mexican items in Colorado. So he took matters into his own hands and opened El Mercadito at 3125 Federal Boulevard, lining the…

I was sucked into the hellish pandemonium of El Paraiso the very second I spotted the restaurant at 4690 Harlan Street, rising up beside the road in its mustard-yellow glory. Waiting for me inside was a flurry of commotion, a circus of stimulation for every sense…

We stopped by Brava! Pizzeria, 16th and Arapahoe streets, for lunch and made an exciting discovery: Peroni, the light Italian beer that happens to pair quite excellently with Neapolitan pizzas…

Just two weeks ago, several of the city’s food trucks added a new weekly stop to their rosters: Wednesday appearances at 15th and California, the site of the Tiri’s Garden farmers’ market. That crowd was led by the Steamin’ Demon and the Paris on the Platte truck, and they also…

The explosion of cocktail culture in Colorado was ignited by a legion of talented bartenders working to prove that their craft is more than mixing rum and Cokes; it’s creating drinks that reflect their deep understanding of spirits. And few bartenders have done more to influence that culture than James…

Before the era of mobile trucks descended on the Mile High City, Drew and Ashleigh Shader were busy running the Atomic Cowboy and Fat Sully’s, housed in the same space at 3237 East Colfax. But after trips to Portland and New York City, the couple decided they’d like to own…

A few weeks back, Boulder’s Pizzeria Basta, 3601 Arapahoe Avenue, upped the ante on its menu, offering sous vide and wood-fire oven entrees in addition to its list of thin-crust pies. The pizza-maker also added new desserts this summer, including a line of house-made ice creams, which are rich, airy…

Construction is rolling on the new eateries slated to open next to the Frasca Food & Wine flagship at 1738 Pearl Street in Boulder, and as the expansion of the empire progresses, a few more details have been divulged. Like the names of the places…

Restaurant Kevin Taylor, 1106 14th Street in the Hotel Teatro, closed on August 8 for a complete overhaul of its interior, promising to reopen on August 18 with a new face. The restaurant finished its changes on schedule, and last night got the doors open so that diners could enjoy…

This isn’t scientific, but we’re willing to bet that the most watched sporting event in Boulder isn’t the Super Bowl or the World Series. Rather, we’d put a sizeable sum on it being the Tour de France. When it’s time for the Tour, it’s impossible to escape–coffee shops set up…

When Mark Tarbell envisioned The Oven Pizza e Vino, his first Colorado restaurant, he wanted it to serve the kind of food he’d cook at home for friends and neighbors: nothing particularly fancy, but everything satisfying. When the Oven made its debut at Belmar in November 2005, turning out a…